Hi,

Just wondering does anyone put their music on youtube and have gained a few hits there?

I would imagine that it can be difficult to get hits as there is so many videos there, and most only get no more than a handful.

Any tips appreciated.

Martin57

if your songs are topical in the sense that a niche audience might be more interested than the general public, you might try joining forums that cater to that niche audience and posting a link.

For example, if the song is humorous and pertains to the medical profession, you could post the link on humor sites as well as sites that draw medical professionals.

One advantage of appealing to niche groups is that the common interest can help it to spread by word of mouth within that community, because everyone in that group knows somebody else who might find it interesting.

Also, put as many keywords in your description as possible, because that's part of what makes your video show up in random searches.

Put a funny cat in the video.

Post something political. You may alienate half the population, but the other half will spread your message far and wide... especially if it is humorous.

Be awesome. viewers love to forward amazing videos. But, the bar for "amazing" is quite high these days...

Great points Pat Marr.

I will certainly bear them in mind when I do get around to putting something up there.

But at the same time not expecting many hits, as you say a pet in the equation can make a bit of a difference.

Thanks
Martin57

there was quite a bit of "tongue in cheek" regarding the suggestion to put a funny cat in the video....

...But an awful lot of viral videos do seem to contain funny animals. How that might translate to the world of music videos is open to interpretation and exploration.

Pat is dead on with the keywords.

Also in the titles, not too much but includes genre-instruments-etc.
Also in your "public" email's include your channel link in the signature.
Also in pertinent forum signature.

I do not place the link in the Yamaha keyboard site belong too, not pertinent.

Not like the big guys, but very happy with the views on my channel.
Also if you watch the channel analytics, you can pick up on where the views
are originating.

About 75 % are YT internal for me.

Again as Pat mentioned Keywords, instruments, genre, any words that may pertain
to or someone can think of. Optimization is an artform.
Also if your playing a Gibson Guitar, big keyword, or whatever brand.

Give credits to PG Music, Sonar folks, or any key software titles you may be using.
These are "hit" search works.
I use XLN Addictive keys, not biggie, but just for "halibut" I did YT search for
"Addictive keys blues". 2 of my creations using Jon Jarvis 12-8 super midi are listed in this link. Surprised me... Our Babe Blues....Lazy River Blues.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=addictive+keys+blues&page=4
FWIW, we cannot use the PG Realtrack, or super miditrack performer names, and I don't.
Also some number of YT folks do add a paragraph of keywords or near subject keywords
in the Description area.
Also after bit of time goes by you do find out what folks are looking for.

After the fact thoughts. QR codes are extremely common. iphones and many other smart
phones have abilities to read these codes. Take note of most magazines.
Some number of free sites where you can print up you own QR code and download as a
.jpg Creating one with your YT channel link would open up whole new area for you.
Put in business cards, email, flyers, whatever.

By far the best way is to leave good comments on similar clips to yours. If you don't like one, then NEVER leave a bad comment, it'll have all their friends & relatives giving you a hard time. Before too long you'll fing they subscribe to you if you have a good channel. I've been with you tube since 1997 and have had over 3,000,000 hits. Start your own fb page and have similar minded folk as members.
If you can get any plays on local radio that would also be an enormous advantage.
It will take time and only a small % on yt go viral. Just work on ways to try & entice folk to watch clips.

Martin, what do you mean by a few?

The reason I ask is I've uploaded 4 or 5 videos to YouTube. The one that has the most hits (189 views) came to be that many views because I had done the video for the coursera/Berklee online Music Production course. It's a video on comb filtering and I provide an example of comb filtering using a microphone and a whiteboard as I bring the whiteboard in and out of where it provides a reflecting surface in proximity of the monitor speaker and microphone (microphone representing listening position at a mixing desk). Several students thought it was a useful demonstration and said so on the class forum - which is what got it about 4x the views that my other class demonstration videos achieved.

Lesson? Post the link where others will see it that will have interest. Invite them to share the link with other folks that think it's of interest. If you take a page out of Tyler Ward's book (I knew him way before he became a YouTube sensation), he puts the invitation to share the link right inside the YouTube video - always. He just straight up asked people to share the links to the videos and to subscribe and made it easy for them to do it. Now, some 4 years after he started, he has millions of SUBSCRIBERS, and gazillions of YouTube views.

Here's the comb filtering video if you want to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IV7YAoIGAg

At least one or two of you will probably click the link, and I'll get 'a few more views'. So, post your YouTube and then share the link here, you'll get more than a few views.

Sidebar:

This was one of the first videos that I ever made - using Windows Movie Maker and a screen capture tool that reversed the left/right orientation of the video.

The point of doing this was to convince myself that the recommendations that I've seen to keep monitors off of the meter bridge of mixing desk/consoles was actually something to pay heed to or ignore altogether. I'm not sure that it fully demonstrates why it might be a bad idea, but it was enough to make me continue to avoid this practice. You very often see Yamaha NS-10 monitors; laying on their sides, on the meter bridge of some fancy studio's big format console. Two bad things going on:
1. Laying the speaker on it's side without proper toe-in, almost assures a slight time delay of the further outboard elements, compared to the inboard element output.
2. The potential comb filtering off the surface of the mixing desk.

-Scott