A few weeks ago, YouTube released a creators guide for musicians who use YouTube—detailing best practices and techniques for musicians using the service. The 40 page guide holds much common knowledge, but a few gems of wisdom stuck out. Below are a few key points they made, that you shouldn’t miss.

1. Put Popular Searched Items In Your Title - If you have famous guests or keywords users will search, be sure to find a way to add them to your title.
   
   
2. Tag As Much As Possible - Tag as many terms that relevant to your video as possible. If you can find real relevance in these tags to the content in your video, there is no penalty for using as many as possible.
   
   
3. Thumbnails Should Invite Curiosity - While you think it’s a good idea to post the picture where your singer looks cute, it’s a better idea to use a thumbnail of a picture where the viewer wants to know what is going on in your video. Seeing a 100 people throwing pies at once is much more compelling than just another pretty face.
   
   
4. Capitalize On Timeliness - Viewers often search for time-relevant items. Making a playlist of all the bands on an upcoming show or festival and adding your music near the top of some bigger acts can really help get you some exposure and concertgoers.
   
   
5. Add Annotations That Direct Fans To Watch Another Video From You - Whenever you put up a new video add an annotation to your old ones directing fans to your latest masterpiece. As well you should guide viewers to another video of yours when you put up a new one, allowing them to get to know you better.
   
   
6. Dedicate One Day A Week Or Month To Interacting With Fans On YouTube - Whether you host a hangout or take questions in your video comments, you can allow fans to interact with you and gain YouTube views all at once.
   
   
7. Crowdsource - Ask fans what your song you should use as your next single  and what type of videos they want next from you.
   
   
8. You Should Have A Lyric AND Music Video For Every Song - A lyric video is a great way to build some hype for your song while you finish a music video for it. Having both so fans can get to know lyrics and have a visual aid allows fans to get deeper with your music and keep it in the news cycle for longer.
   
   
9. Encourage - Ask fans to remix, cover and create videos with your song involved that will help it to spread. While this tip is often utilized, the difference it can make is often underestimated.

Source: Music Think Tank (by Jesse Cannon)

For independent artists, YouTube can be one of the most powerful platforms available for promotion and exposure. Of course, it is also one of the most difficult platforms to garner any significant growth and attention. 

This challenge was no different for 23 year old hip-hip artist, and Brooklyn native Rob Scott. 

As his manager, it was my job to figure out how to bring his dream to fruition. Without any assistance from record labels, we began to effectively use YouTube as a platform to get Rob Scott noticed. 

Within the first couple of months, it was painful to notice that his long nights in the studio would only result in his songs receiving 11 views. To make matters worst, the 11 views I am speaking about came from the friends and family that was in the studio with him. 

Initially, we would post his YouTube link all over people’s Facebook pages until we realized that spamming individuals was probably not the best way to gain true fans. We then decided that garnering views organically is the best possible solution. Today, he has accumulated over 235,000 channel views and has acquired more than 1, 400 YouTube subscribers. 

Some may wonder how so? 

Below are 6 strategies that we used to organically build Rob Scott’s Youtube channel from desolate to highly-trafficked:

Frequency

At one point, Scott would upload a video at least once a week. During one week we would upload a song with a cover art and a couple weeks later we would upload a music video for that same song. 

It is important to break down your material to get the most out of it. What I mean by that is, if you have a music video that you are planning to release, put out behind the scenes footage for that video, put out the song before you put out the video, or put out a snippet before you even release the song. 

Now you have three pieces of content all based around that one record. 

The more things you have to release, the easier it is to follow the rule of frequency. Evidently, it is almost impossible to acquire a great amount of views if you post a video once a year. 

There have been several rare cases such as the Harlem Shake video going viral without the use of “frequency”, but I would not recommend depending on pure luck. 

With Rob Scott, we created a schedule and began creating on a regular basis.

Covers & Alternative Versions of Popular Songs

Another step that Rob Scott implemented to reach his amount of views was re-doing songs that were already popular. 

Trey Songs released a song entitled “Can’t Be Friends” three years ago that gained a lot of commercial attention. While the song was still at its peak, Scott decided to re-do the song over with his own words and then shoot a music video for it. 



Because viewers would search for the original Trey Songs version and see Scott’s rendition, it gave him a better chance of being viewed by some of the fans of that particular record. To date, Rob Scott’s rendition has over 90,000 views on YouTube and is still growing daily.

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How much does Spotify pay artists? It’s the biggest mystery in music. One independent artist claims to have received a measly $0.004 per stream. There was a rumor that Lady Gaga only earned $162 from a million streams. Even indie band Grizzly Bear chimed in to express their displeasure with the alleged slave wages of Spotify declaring that they only received $0.001 per stream. Some have even taken to restricting their music from the service altogether. Is it really that bad? are the payments that low?

In an interview with Hypebot D.A. Wallach, lead vocalist & songwriter in Chester French who works with Spotify as their “Artist in Residence.”, had this to say:

…We make money in two ways. We make money through advertising to free users, who have access to Spotify only on computer. The service is interrupted by ads, and the functionality is a lot like YouTube. There is no mobile option for free ad-supported users, either. Second, we generate revenue from selling subscriptions. In the U.S., a subscription is $120 a year. In the U.K. it is ₤120 a year, and in the E.U, it is €120 a year.

We aggregate all of this revenue from these two streams, and distribute back 70% in royalties based on a pro rata share in accordance with the popularity of a piece of music. For example, if one of your songs has been streamed 1% of the total number of streams in a month, you will get 1% of the 70% of royalties we pay out to rights holders.

According to D.A Wallach in order for anyone to calculate what artists earn from Spotify, in say a month, a few numbers are needed.

1. Spotify’s revenue for the month

2. Amount of dollars Spotify pays out to rights holders

3. Combined number of streams

4. Their number of streams

5. Percentage of overall streams a song accounts for

Being that Spotify is a private company, we don’t have access to their revenue figures so here’s my hypothetical scenario based on real numbers that Spotify has released to the public. According to PrivCo, in 2011 Spotify generated 244 million dollars in revenue. In 2011 Spotify released U.S figures that showed there were over 13 billion songs streamed on Spotify in that year. 13 billion songs streamed doesn’t tell us how many times those 13 billion songs were streamed respectively but we’ll use that number being that that’s all we have.

$244, 000, 000/ 12 = $20,333,333 per month (Revenue for the month)

70% of 20,333,333 = $14,233,333.1 (Amount of dollars Spotify pays out to rights holders) 

13,000,000,000/ 12 = 1,083,333,333.333333 per month (combined number of monthly streams)

20 streams X 100/ 1,083,333,333.333333 = 0.00000184615%  (artist’s percentage of monthly streams)

0.00000184615%  X 14,233,333.1 = 0.26276867902 (artist’s royalties)

0.26276867902/ 20 = $0.01313843395 (artist’s per stream royalties)

So, if an artist on Spotify received 20 streams out of 13 billion and Spotify grossed 244 million dollars, that artist would have earned a little over a penny per stream. It’s pretty safe to assume that the 13 billion songs streamed were listened to more than once and the higher the amount of total streams, the lower the amount of per stream payout for each artist. At the same time, the higher the amount of revenue generated by Spotify, the higher the amount of per stream payout per artist. In addition, Spotify doesn’t accept music submissions directly from artists. As a result artists must submit through digital distribution companies like ONErpm, CdBaby and Tunecore.

Some of these distributors charge up to 15% of sales, from what I’ve seen, and have arranged their own rates with Spotify so what an artist can earn through them varies. For instance, from music I’ve released through CDBaby on average I see $0.004 per stream after their 15% deduction. With music I’ve released through a relatively new company called ONErpm, I receive $0.007 per stream after their 15% deduction. Artists signed to a label may have arrangements that are far less favorable. Aside from the digital distribution and label fees that are deducted from your per stream payout, a 10.2% publishing fee is deducted as well. What happens to that money? Well, I’ll save that for another post.

Source: Music Think Tank (by SF) 

Networking is the best way to get ahead in “the biz.” It isn’t all about sending your music to Pitchfork and blogs to hope it gets some airplay in the corners of the internet. It’s about talking to the people who matter most in your town to help each other out and to build a core fan base you can build from in the coming months.

Mutual Benefit

The whole purpose of networking is to establish relationships with people who can mutually benefit by helping you out. Or, you helping them out. When you start talking to bands, bloggers, press, or super-fans in your town, the goal is to build a positive relationship with all of them so that you can help them get things like stories for the blogs/papers, more fans out to their shows, or free swag (for the fans). The only way to help your local scene grow is by being a part of it, not just expecting people to drop what they’re doing and flock to your new creative endeavor.

Go To Shows

The first, and probably best, way to get more exposure locally is to talk to people at other bands’ shows.

Bands

Talk to the bands who are playing and congratulate them on the great job they did. Introduce yourself and ask if you can buy them a beer after the show. Just hang out. This isn’t about pushing your own shit, it’s about talking to other HUMAN BEINGS about the thing you love so much: music. Talk local music, albums, new artists, and life in general.

The goal here is to make your presence known and get to know other local bands on a personal level, not just from a distance. Knowing bands personally will open up many doors down the road.

Press

There’s never a huge press presence at local shows unless there’s a festival going on. Nashville (the city I live in) has local music festivals a few times a year and all of the newspapers and local music magazines make a point to show up to take some photos and see who’s big at the moment.

Try to go to these festivals to at least say hey to the guys/gals that write for the magazines you’d like to get a spot in. Again, don’t pressure them when you first meet them. This stage is all about just saying hello and letting your presence be known.

Networking – General

The internet has done wonders for reaching out to people in a virtual world, but face-to-face communication is still the strongest way to get to know people. Make it a point to meet new people every time you’re at an event. The more people you know, the bigger your network becomes. As mentioned before, this isn’t about advertising yourself to everyone you meet. The goal is to simply meet people and as time goes on with your relationships, your own life will eventually come up.

Networking positively means talking to other people about THEMSELVES. People love to talk about their own lives, so help facilitate it and learn to be a good listener. You never know who you’ll meet!

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It was towards the end of a long, cold, 2 month tour around Europe promoting my new album, just about to head to Portugal to finish off and enjoy a bit of sun. I got an email from a fan in Switzerland saying something like “Hey, check out this video, it’s pretty cool but the best part is the music ;-)” 

I clicked the link and it lead me to a video on Eurosport/Yahoo Europe. The video was by Red Bull and was of a guy called Daniel Bodin doing an amazing 220ft jump on a snowmobile, from an Olympic ski ramp. The music behind it was my song “What Am I?” from my second album “The Rooftop Recordings.”

I was very flattered that they had used my music and so posted the video on all my social media sites etc. Then I found the same video on Youtube, which had already garnered an impressive 250,000 views and noticed people in the comments asking who the song was by.

Why didn’t they know who the song was by? Well because Red Bull hadn’t mentioned me in the credits, nor in the Youtube description box. I called my publisher and he knew nothing about them using the music and assured me they had not asked for permission.

That’s when it dawned on me…. Red Bull had stolen my music!!! 

I had to do something about this. The video was getting thousands of views a day, had already been up a week and I needed to get some kind of promotion from all this. So I sent a mail to everyone my mailing list asking them for a favor, explaining what had happened. I asked them to go to the YouTube video and leave comments with my name and the name of the song, so at least someone who was interested in the music could find me and/or my albums. 

Well they really came through for me and throughout that day around 25 comments appeared on the  video thread, some very angry that Red Bull hadn’t given me credit nor paid anything. This seemed to work as Red Bull promptly put a link to my album on iTunes and my name in the video description.

This certainly helped things along as that song shot up to being my most played song on Spotify the day after and downloads from iTunes went up a lot too. BUT, just imagine how much promotion I lost from the beginning! Eurosport.. Yahoo… 250,000 YT views! Yes, Red Bull had really screwed me over good and proper. 

My publisher is still in talks with IODA/Orchard about what, if any, legal action to take. They also put in a claim for the YouTube video to be monetised on our behalf… I’m still waiting to see what happens. 
 
You can see the YouTube video here. Feel free to leave comments for Red Bull! ;-) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gybe0tOyAA8  
 
So what are the lessons to be learned from this little story? 
 
1. Don’t be complacent. It’s easy to think “Aaah that won’t happen to me” and not bother copyrighting your music. Well it could happen to you and it could be a huge multinational company like Red Bull. Get your music copyrighted so you stand a flying chance of doing something about it if it does happen to you… these people have no scruples. 
 
2. Build a loyal fan base and communicate with them. Gone are the days of the aloof rock star. Your fans are your best friends and the more you communicate with them the more they will be inclined to communicate with you. In this case this fan alerted me to something pretty damn important. Reply to their comments and questions of Facebook/Twitter etc, talk to them after shows, take time to be human and forget all that “hard to reach” rock star rubbish. 
 
3. Don’t be afraid to ask your fans for help. This follows on from point 2 in that, once you have a good relationship with your fans then they will be more inclined to help out. Mine attacked Red Bull’s video thread and got me some well needed attention which resulted in downloads, Spotify plays and general attention for my music. 

Source: Music Think Tank (by David Philips)

1. Authenticity

First and foremost, communication with your fans must come from you, the artist, in your voice. Not your manager, label, or intern. People aren’t interested in hearing generic updates from your label or agent. They want to get to know your personality, hear about your experiences. Essentially, fans want to feel like they’re on the journey of your career along with you.

Now, can updates sometimes come from your manager/label/intern? Yes, but sparingly, and it should be made clear when the updates are not coming directly from you. For example, on Facebook and Twitter, any updates coming from your management/label could be tagged with “- Team Example Artist”. Nobody else should try to “sound” like you if they’re updating your social media profiles on your behalf.

2. Consistency

Consistency is key when it comes to engaging with your fans. You can’t post an update on Facebook one day, then disappear for several weeks to come back and find that a bunch of fans responded with questions that you never answered. People will likely stop paying attention if you don’t have a consistent presence. There are tons of distractions out there, so to truly break through the clutter, you have to be consistent. Take some time every day to check your social media profiles, respond to fans, ask questions, and start conversations.

3. Sustainability

And finally, when it comes to fan engagement, you have to sustain it over the long term. Don’t expect immediate results. It might take months of being consistent to start seeing more quality interactions with your fans, which in turn could lead to new fans, more people at your shows, and increased sales.

There are literally thousands of distractions out there for people. But if you show up every day ready to engage with your fans in some way; answering a few emails, responding on Twitter, asking questions on Facebook, and you sustain that over months, then years, you will no doubt develop a solid fan base to give yourself the best opportunity to build a sustainable career. 

Never Leave Your Fans Hanging

One extremely important thing to keep in mind when it comes to fan engagement: never leave a fan hanging. If they email you, email back. If they leave a comment on Facebook, respond, or at least “Like” it. If they reply or ask a question on Twitter, respond back. A short answer or a quick thank you can go a long way in making that fan feel special, like they’re an active part of your world.

As an artist, it really has become part of the job description to interact with your fans. And since fans now have access to an unlimited amount of music, if you leave them hanging, chances are, they can easily find an artist that won’t.

Source: Hypebot (by Dave Cool)

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