The size of the global music industry is expected to be a whopping 65 billion US dollars in 2023, up from 55 billion in 2018. However, the music industry overall has been undergoing a paradigm shift in terms of its dynamics. We moved from music being a luxury item for audiophiles to its mass accessibility with cassettes and CDs.
The 90s were unique for the music industry as we saw the first embers of music as a service through the advent of software such as Limewire. The music industry fought vigorously against such music-sharing software and even won a legal reprieve for a short while. However, the inexorable march of innovation in the music industry continued.
The 2000s gave birth to iTunes, YouTube, etc. and the transformation of music from a product to a digital service was well on its way. The decade from 2010 to the present has led to the empowerment of music creators. Music creation was no longer the realm of a select few.
The penetration of streaming into the industry has democratized the industry. In 2019, paid streaming had 32.9% growth, while almost 60% of the revenues globally were generated from digital channels. The irrepressible combination of the ubiquity of social media and the gargantuan importance of YouTube for the music industry means that you do not necessarily need to be a huge music star to start generating traction for your music.
In 2020, if you are planning to launch a music band, then being able to reach target audiences is possible by following a few digital and social media marketing-related best practices. You may also try YouTube automation services to reach out to the maximum audience. In this short article, we give a few simple tips which can help introduce your new music band on YouTube.
1. Setup Your Channel With Specific Messaging
The starting point is very elementary – you need to set up a channel with your band’s name. This seems like a simple enough process, but you need to pay a high amount of attention to detail about the channel banner art that you are going to use, the channel icon, the trailer video for your channel, featured channels, and channel sections.
The channel icon and banner art should symbolize what your music band is all about. For the trailer video, you can initially put the intro video (which will be discussed later in this article), and later as the portfolio of videos grows, you can replace it with the most impactful or popular video on your channel. Finally, featured channels and channel sections are a way of showing what kind of music is important to you and arranging the videos on your channel, respectively.
2. Create An Attractive Intro Video Of Your Band
If you are launching your music band on YouTube, then the introductory video is probably one of the most important pieces of content that you will produce. Your expertise is being able to produce good music, so it may seem difficult to understand how to make an intro on YouTube and build content to serve the purpose with the minimum of effort. The good news is that the video marketing industry has evolved to such as extent that you will even be able to get customized tools such as a free intro maker with no watermark.
Video editing tools such as InVideo will significantly reduce the quantum of effort required to execute a good introductory video. However, a good amount of effort will need to be put into precisely crafting the narrative of your video. The intro video of a music band should clearly explain who you are, the kind of music that you will create, and why people should subscribe to your channel.
3. Optimize Use Of YouTube Analytics
YouTube analytics is a useful tool that allows you to evaluate and monitor the performance of your videos through regular reports and metrics generated by YouTube. Using the analytics to generate actionable insights for your music videos is vital. You can even try to understand how your subscribers are engaging with your work, at what points of time is your engagement optimum, come up with strategies to improve engagement, and learn which videos are clicking with your audience and which ones are not.
Specifically, the ‘audience’ tab of YouTube analytics can be integral for the early success of a new YouTube channel. It allows the channel creator to see reports on your audience demographics, including countries to which they belong and demographics such as gender, age ranges, and language of subtitles utilized. Overall, such data can be used to understand the customer segments which are enjoying your music and target new customers accordingly.
4. Produce Covers Of Popular Music
Producing covers of popular musical numbers is a very popular strategy followed by music bands that want to establish a steep growth curve of subscribers. While the desire to do original content can be very strong, doing a few covers on YouTube can help you reach fans who like music similar to yours. Covers can also be a great way to give yourself a chance of viral marketing if an amazing cover you create goes viral.
However, caution needs to be exercised while executing this strategy. Firstly, it is important to do your research on copyright infringement while doing a cover and ensure that you do not end up violating any rights that lead to the video being taken down. Secondly, a balance needs to be exercised on the quantity and the genre of covers that you release, unless you are a cover band.
5. Build A Music Vlog For Engagement
Music Vlogs can be a great way of producing compelling content to engage with your target audience. With the advent of social media, fans are used to being digitally welcomed into the lives of influencers, music artists, sportspeople, etc. However, the Vlog strategy can be useful if two important points are ensured – the vlog has to have authentic content about your lives, and it needs to have links to your other videos and calls to action for the audience to go and watch them.
Launching and growing your music band on YouTube can be challenging and satisfying at the same time. Hopefully, the aforementioned tips can help you establish bonds with your target audience, generate appreciation for your music, and, at the same time, monetize your talent.