YouTube can be a powerful tool for promotion. But how do you move from gradually increasing the number of your subscribers and views to attracting a wider audience? That’s what we’ll talk about today.
Promote the channel to get new subscribers with the help of influencers
This is one of those strategies that will provide you with thousands of views, even if you have only one subscriber. How is this possible, you may ask? Instead of adding new videos or songs to your channel, add them to someone else’s! It is desirable that they have at least a thousand real subscribers and fit your musical direction (if you have an indie rock band, the channel of your partner should be focused on indie rock, too).
Now, many will ask: why would anyone be interested in such a proposal to post my video? There is a simple reason for this – most often, the channel owners are not musicians themselves and don’t have a band of their own. They may be looking for new music to share with their audience if they’re interested in being seen as a key social influencer. Identify these people before they get too big and make connections now.
As a rule, they can be divided into two categories:
- Fans and music lovers
- Content creators/journalists and video bloggers
Posting your video on an emerging influencer’s channel will get you in front of an already established (or quickly establishing) audience, and the owner will get fresh content to curate.
Again, pay attention to the number of subscribers. Of course, you would like to place a clip on a channel with several thousand subscribers, but if the video is not ready yet, and there is only a lyric video or song with static artwork, a more modest option will do. In the end, any channel with a greater number of subscribers than yours is better than nothing. And by identifying future influencers, you can get in good on the ground floor.
Make covers and get new fans
The cover is another great way to build a large subscriber base quickly.
When a superstar releases another track, a certain advertising budget is allocated for it, and a marketing plan is drawn up. So, having heard a new hit on the radio or TV, some of the fans will start searching for it on YouTube.
Capitalize on this and create your own version for YouTube as quickly as possible after the original single drops; there is a very real chance that your video will appear in the search results. And, as soon as the fans watch the official video, some of them will go on and look for other options, or even better, your video maybe start to appear as a recommendation if it gains traction. If they like your version and they subscribe to the channel – you have reached the goal.
YouTube promotion with the help of tags
The strategies outlined above are focused on getting new subscribers, and this advice aims at ensuring that those who already remember your name can find you, view your videos and make sure that there are other videos from your channels in the block on the right (“related videos”).
One way to increase the chances of this happening is to use multiple tags. For example, suppose your stage name is Doreen Greeney. All that’s left for you is to add this name to the tags and use several other spellings. It will look like this:
- Doreen greeney
- DoreenGreeney
- DoreenGreeney.com
This will help make your videos more relevant to each other, and increase the chances that they will be displayed in a block of similar videos instead of someone else’s recordings (which, in essence, distracts the user from what you are offering).
You should not expect that these random tags will help others to find you in the search, but this will significantly increase the chance that the right block will be filled with the necessary material.
Remember – YouTube is not the only option. The quick tips above are just some of the ways you can easily leverage the YouTube juggernaut.