The world has changed for independent artist and YouTube has now become a necessity and not an option. Not only is YouTube the most popular online tool for music discovery, but among the younger demographic (18-) it’s also become the preferred platform for listening to music. Now that the latest YouTube changes are in effect and every artist can have a channel that resembles those of the hallowed ‘Partner Channels’, it is time for every musician to create a channel and to post all their music to it. YouTube is also the largest Streaming Music Site. Huge numbers of people now turn to YouTube as the ‘de facto’ place to listen to a track or an artist that they’ve heard about. Forget that it’s a video sharing site; for your purposes, it’s actually just a music sharing site, your personal radio station with no battle to get playlisted or even to get a solitary play. It’s all about Subscribers.
We’re learning all the time too and the one key factor is that YouTube is just like Instagram and Twitter in many ways – yes it’s a music streaming and video sharing site, but it’s also a social network. And that is a crucial thing to keep in mind. You can follow (in this case ‘subscribe’) to channels and you can like and comment and so on. Building your subscriber numbers is, in fact, the holy grail.
When you have a significant number of subscribers, they see all your activity in their feed when they login to their YouTube account. And that means that when you upload a new song, they will most likely go and check it out instantly which in turn bumps up your view count. That then makes you appear in more searches and perhaps on various YouTube section front pages or perhaps even as a recommended channel. And the social aspects of YouTube’s functionality (easy sharing and embedding, views counter, comments section, etc.) means that music fans can now play a more active and immediate role in recommending music to other listeners. So YouTube is even taking on some of the responsibilities that traditional print media once played. That’s why having great content on YouTube is a necessity today. Amazing music, with superb imaging from music videos, vlogs, and interesting topics people want to hear about can instantly boost your channels marketability; which in turn will create a large fan base who will want to support your music. The added benefit is that the more subscribers one has, the more income you can generate from your YouTube Channel as a bonus outside of song sales.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the 6 top reasons artists should create content for YouTube:
1. YouTube is the #1 search engine for music fans
2. YouTube has become the #1 listening platform for younger music fans
3. Many artists have built their careers strictly through YouTube
4. There’s no easier way to beam your music/brand/personality into someone’s ears/eyes/home/imagination than through engaging music videos
5. Big ad-revenue is being generated by YouTube and you can earn your share by monetizing your music on YouTube.
6. Once you reach a certain number of subscribers, you can earn money from your channel. The songs and content become the way to bring more subscribers to your channel thus increasing your earning potential