OK! I have put up several videos on YouTube and am getting some hit success. Not as much as I would like but some. Most of the hits are generated by paid advertising that I had to pay for by Ad words for YouTube, or something like that. I have been watching this girl that is now a YouTube star that has over 11 million hits on her videos and is just starting to create original music, right? Well, do you all think that she is paying for the advertising or what? Here is a link to her channel. She is 12 years old and already 11-million hits. What am I doing wrong? Here is the link Jasmine Thompson From England . No! I am not trying to get her more hits, but is there a better way for me to go about getting traffic on my YouTube page? If there is I would be interested in hearing about how to do that. Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

Her YouTube presence screams "Pro!" from layout, to video production to musical production.

She has been on YouTube for at least two years as far as I can tell. She has a great accent, sings well and is cute. I am sure her parents are doing a lot of prep work for her -- she has a team. Do you have a team?

Mainly, she comes across as having a lot of talent, a lot of drive. She has promoted herself somehow -- you need to find what kind of promoting she has done. Google her name -- lots of things going on. Not just posting youtube videos and hoping for the best.

Good luck -- it is uber crowded out there!

To check out parts of the promotions...

put jasmine thompson singer into google

She is at least the first 11 pages.....
There is first class team behind this as Kevin mentioned above.

It ain't the venue.

Adult performers have known about what happens when yer up against cute kids and animal acts for centuries.

Or as WC Fields used to put it, "Go away, kid, ya bother me..."


--Mac

That clip screams "pro". Very well thought out by an experienced graphics arts person.

There are companies out there who will provide your You Tube video with thousands and thousands of hits for a price of course. I'm sure you can google them. Ray

google "pay for views on you tube"

trapper,

I tried your profile YT link and it did not work.

Am a still much of a noobie to YT, but have done some amount
of website work these last 5+ years.

about 60% of not quite 4000 hits on 75 videos were INTERNAL within
YouTube hierarchy. The other 40% were outside source links.

Search words, subjects title's, product used in your music creation.
Don't know your guitar, if its a Fender use that in the "Tags" section.
Song type, instruments used, recording devices used. Your bands name.
Always use short names I.E. Fender, Sonar, Reaper, PG Music

Also in the title, expand the descriptor a little. I.e. Waltz, Soft rock, Heavy metal, etc.

In the descriptor section name couple of the primary music products
you are using...With links to their site.

Another item is to subscribe to other artists sites that play
music similar to yours. Every comment someone makes on your
channel, is also displayed on their channel, giving you nother
link source.
Try to respond to comments nicely to encourage more.

Also your comments on other channels place your channel name there,
so again another free link.

These are but a few of the gimmicks that will help you! Free...

I know. about 3 or 4 years ago I performed in a talent competition in Denver and was beat out by a puppet show. I came in second place. But, later that year I performed in front of 10,000 or more people in "Los Angelis California"

You tube can generate huge traffic for you. I've had about 4m hits myself.
One of the ways you can go about this is to watch clips of various singers / musicians. ( Not Major stars as they tend not to answer ) Post a positive comment, ( never leave any negative ones even though they might be pathetic ) subscribe if you like them. Certain way to increase your traffic !!

Graham, I understand a million hits earns about £20,000, so have you made £80,000? Just curious!

John
My latest video!

Never follow animal acts or kids.

As far as youtube.... I'd never pay for hits.... that's not a good investment.

Face it, most you tube videos and song will get a few hundred views if you are lucky. To get anything more than that, something in that video has to be unique enough to cause people to WANT to see it, word of mouth and in a few weeks it goes "viral" and gets over that 1 million mark. It's very hard for adult performers to hit that level these days. You are simply not "eye candy" or cool enough for that level of success based on the wants of this current generation.

A buddy of mine recorded this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgwJfoZ-12c while setting in a parking lot in town as a tornado was headed right toward him. It went viral because the local CBS channel picked it up, then the national CBS new showed a clip..... one heck of a way to go viral.

Me, on the other hand, the talented and handsome songwriter I am..... I'm lucky to get 300 views on a song..... pfffft.. what do they know anyway?

I've wondered in the past how many of those large number hits might be due to the use of 'bots...

On the Internet, not very much is what it appears to be.


--Mac

Bob,

Besides the observations on the 'team' and the efforts necessary to seed social media in the right way, I have some comments.

You say that you aren't trying to get more hits on YouTube, but that is exactly what you are asking about in this thread.

Success on YouTube seems to me to stem from one of several sources besides a team pushing from behind (though this is probably necessary anyways):

1. There is truly something visually that has not been seen before by the first viewer, who tells his/her friends to watch the video because the novelty of the video simply asks to be shared. The process follows the exponential growth algorithm: 1 shares with 5, 5 share with 5 each, repeat ad nauseum.

I have watched your YouTube videos and I think you would agree that the video content offers nothing that would fit the 'novelty' aspect of this particular reason for going viral.

For an example of musical novelty; one of the most popular music videos of the past couple years was Walk Off The Earth's cover of Gotye's song where they made it look/sound like they performed the whole song live playing on one acoustic guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NF2edxy-M over 154 million views. I don't know how many times someone forwarded me a link to this particular YouTube video back when it had well under 1 million views. It 'blew up' over a very short time and for very good reason.

2. Physical attractiveness of youth/animals, whether this falls into the 'cute' category or romantic interest category, this is something that always has and will always drive attention. For most of us over 40 years old, unless we are a visual double for Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston, we can kind of cross this off as a potential driver of YouTube views. No harm or shame in admitting this.

3. Challenges to our psycho-social response, where the opposite of #2, is coupled with musical talent so raw and rich that our misconceived notions that only 'beautiful' people can make beautiful sounds - this causes us to question our natural preconceived notions and we share the video with friends as a sort of novelty, but this time it is adjoined to talent.

Examples: Paul Potts, Susan Boyle, this boy named Jonathan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7knUFWY2P44

I share it again, because I admit that if I passed Jonathan on the street, I wouldn't expect that his voice could give me goosebumps like it does. Add one more view to the 22 million plus views this video has in this one copy.

I bought Paul Potts' "One Chance" CD, and I have to say, it does not have the same impact to me as watching him sing any of the renditions of Nessun Dorma that are on YouTube from the Britain's Got Talent show - because that part of my brain that is challenged by the mis-match of sound with my judgmental nature of his appearance with his bad teeth and all, does not happen by just listening.

4. Songs that lyrically or musically connect on such a deep level that it stirs the emotions to cause others to claim "that song was written for me - I must share". This is where you could yield some fruit from your efforts. Keep trying.

Maybe sign up for the Pat Pattison songwriting course from Berklee/Coursera - it might still be open to new students. It's free. His tips can help you fine tune your lyrics for getting success in category 4. Note that I can't speak from personal success here - few of us on this forum can speak from that perspective, so maybe we are not even the right people to ask.

-Scott

I am not eye candy? Well there goes my day!

Thanks a lot!

Mine to ha, ha, ha, ha. I admit it not anymore, but in my 20's I was something to behold. "Just kidding" I am now 47 and I think I may have got into YouTube a little late. Booo Hooo my ship has passed. Well, I guess the only way that I will get hits a lot of them is just to pay for them. I have not lost hope yet! But as you said there went my day I'm not eye candy either. "Laughing"

trapper456,

I think you have to ask yourself a few questions:

1.) who is my target audience
2.) how do I reach my target audience.
3.) how does my "product" match up against my "competition"
4.) If you don't know the answers to those questions, then the next question is "why in the world am I paying for hits?

I didn't even know you paid for hits or ad links -- that's crazy, it definitely isn't benefiting you in any way that I can see.

You can build a career based on youtube..... but like any business it will take time to build your audience and fan base and it still needs to have some uniqueness to it.

This band>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enq5Xt_yTFE well, 2 people and some software and a camera...plus some talent, have done exactly that. Check out some of their other stuff.... they make a living from income derived from the youtube tunes and their website.

Heck... they even landed a national TV commercial a few years back....

If you are paying for adverts to get people to your site, unless you have something really top notch that will have them telling friends and coming back for more AND buying things.... you are simply wasting money that would be better spent on vacations, more guitars, and beer.

Bob,

In listening to your voice, if I remember correctly I hear Neil Sedaka (sp?) or Christopher Cross to some extent.

How about - to drive traffic to your original videos - you make a montage of Neil Sedaka hits?

With judicious use of BIAB, I bet you could make a seamless tribute to Neil Sedaka and posting that, you might actually drive traffic to your other videos.

I tried to find your videos just now to check if my recollection of your voice is somewhat accurate, and your channel that you list in your profile says that it doesn't exist on YouTube.

What's your latest YouTube channel info?

-Scott

Right on Queue, my favorite Sedaka tune of all time Should Have Never Let you go

Later,

Yes! I took down the other channel due to my mother being sick. I had to take care of her for a long time. I did not have time to manage my channel anymore. I had around 9,000 hits on that channel. I did put up a new one and am slowly uploading videos fro the past. My previous YouTube channel used to be musicmantrapper. I have since re-created another channel called musicmanbuttemt so just go onto YouTube and search for my username or click here this will take you directly to my channel.

Musicmanbuttemt Videos

Earned zilch John

Graham, I don't know anything about YouTube specifically, but perhaps you need to be registered with Sound Exchange. At least in the USA, this is the organization that pays composers for Internet streaming audio, just like ASCAP or BMI pays composers for radio and concert performances (supposedly) . You can check on their website if they have money for you that is uncollected.