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)

In a new study looking at ‘How Stuff Spreads,’ Facegroup has identified key components that make things go viral. Looking at the spread on Twitter of two global memes, Gangnam Style vs Harlem Shake, Face discovered eight common characteristics which it says led to them becoming viral phenomena, generating thousands of spin-off versions and billions of views.

The eight common characteristics are:

1. Bursts and Rises: There are 2 models of virality.

The Burst model is bottom-up: the variations are more powerful then the original seed and there’s no clear leadership or narrative. The meme relies on community relevance to spread.

The Rise model is top-down: the original seed is always stronger than its variations and has a clear leader dictating the narrative.Bursts spread widely more quickly but don’t endure. Rises spread more slowly and less widely but they tend to endure because the meme has a focal point. Chose your model of virality and plan according.

2. Triggers.Whatever the model, virality is triggered by surprise, cultural relevance to a community, and endorsement by a leader or the media.

3. Waves. Whatever the trigger, virality is not asteady affair; it spreads in waves and spikes.

4. Communities drive viral spread way more than influencers.

5. Glocality. Memes transcend geography but a successful meme needs a balance of both local relevance and global appeal.

6. Leadership. A meme needs a focal point to live longer. Virality is only sustained through a strong narrative and leadership.

7. Slow and spikey wins the race.Weak ties and communities sustain for weeks but they don’t give you scale in the short term. Top-down media and celebrity endorsement gives you instant scale but burns out within a couple of days by decreasing the shareability of the meme.

8. Memes are like currency: you need to balance supply (or accessibility) and inflation.

In order to achieve high shareability and high popularity the meme supply has to be expansionary but strategically controlled so that it doesn’t negatively affect its shareability. This at the same time gives the meme the scale that can trigger and sustain exponential growth.

Face compared how the top 5 versions of each video were shared on Twitter, looking at 8 dimensions of each meme: Shape (number of shares per video, over lifetime of the meme); Lifespan (number of consecutive days where people shared the meme 500+ times); Popularity (number of unique users sharing the meme over its lifetime); Shareability (total Twitter shares per each million of YouTube views; Globality (how international was the meme); Amplification (how influential were the people who shared the meme); Variation (how much did attention to the meme vary day-by-day); Diffusion Network (hubs and nationalities who drove the spread of the meme).

Using their recently launched social media intelligence tool, Pulsar TRAC, they tracked any social media conversation containing a specific URL and analysed who is talking about it, gateways and hubs, topics of discussion, geography of the discussion and key channels.

While Harlem Shake turned out to be 3x more shareable than Gangnam Style, it still ended up being 4.5x less popular in terms of the number of uniqe users sharing it. It is a difficult balance for a meme to strike. Popularity doesn’t mean Shareability, and Shareability doesn’t imply Popularity. Community drives Shareability but doesn’t give you Scale (Popularity). Top-down influence drives Scale (Popularity) but kills Shareability. While Shareability is a key requisite of virality, scale is what enables and sustains exponential growth.

Source: Music Think Tank (by Kellan Drumgoole)

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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ThingLink, the most popular interactive image platform for publishers, brands, agencies and consumers, today added interactive image sharing to Facebook Timeline.  Now when publishers share ThingLink interactive images to Facebook, viewers can ‘touch” them to experience the content inside the image — without leaving Facebook.

ThingLink’s proprietary, patent-pending web-based solution allows publishers to create, tag and share any image, in any environment, quickly and easily. ThingLink allows content producers to better understand how their images are being used by consumers on the different social media platforms, both in terms of interactions with the image as well as a wide range of social behaviors.

Publishers and individuals can now use ThingLink to transform static images on Facebook Timeline into a discovery experience — with music and video players, social links and brand content that appear inside an image when it is “touched.” Rich media tags from services like Youtube, Vimeo, Instagram, Imgur, Flickr, and Twitter are supported from the beginning, and support for custom third-party tags will be added in the coming weeks.

“Images are becoming forums for conversation and discovery that include sharing, touching, commenting, and remixing rich media content created by others”, said CEO Ulla Engeström. “ThingLink is now enabling a new kind of discovery experience on Facebook Timeline that evokes emotion and brings moments to life in ways that drive higher engagement.”

Example: Mèdecins Sans Frontiérs on Facebook Timeline via ThingLink: https://www.facebook.com/msf.english/posts/10151343426237385

Founded in 2010, ThingLink is the leading interactive image platform with over 130,000 publishers. ThingLink’s enterprise level account for publishers, agencies and brands offers such key features as group account management and the ability to create and launch custom image apps and icons that enhance engagement. ThingLink also offers advanced metrics for measuring image performance across social channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, enabling valuable, new insights into consumer engagement.

At launch tomorrow, we are supporting YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Imgur, Flickr, Twitter, iTunes, and all Open Graph tags inside images. We will add support for more tags (including custom 3rd party tags) in the coming weeks. 

How does it work: Touch the FB sharing icon on any ThingLink image or drop a ThingLink image url to FB Timeline directly.

When ThingLink interactive images are shared into Twitter, brands have commonly seen 5-30x improvements in engagement. Wherever ThingLink images are used on Web pages,  the discoverability of content inside images makes those pages”stickier”, with increases in time spent on page.

For more information visit ThingLink.com and ThingLinkPress.com.

Source: ThingLink press release

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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Now that Twitter Music is finally out, we know what it is and what it isn’t.

It’s not a music streaming service, and Twitter isn’t (directly) selling music with it. It’s a music discovery service, similar in a way to Pandora, but leveraging the vast Twitter community that, as we all know, often takes to Twitter to discuss music or interact with favorite musicians.

And while it may turn out to be a useful service for users — it’s too early to tell, but I like the look and feel of it — it might turn out to be an even more important service for musicians.

The thing is, Twitter Music is practically making you follow musicians on Twitter. The more you follow, the better Twitter’s musical suggestions for you will be, and then, going through the “Suggested” section, you’ll follow some more.

I don’t follow many musicians on Twitter, but in the first hour of using the service, I followed several dozen new ones. And I reckon most people who will be flocking to the service in the coming days will do the same.

Major Influx of New Followers

If that premise is true, and if Twitter Music turns out to be successful, we’ll see a major rise in the number of people following musicians on Twitter. Those in the “Popular” section will benefit the most (Psy is currently topping it; it’ll be interesting to see how many new followers he’ll gain over the next few days), but even less popular artists will likely get a boost from the “Emerging” section, as well as the “#NowPlaying” section, which shows songs tweeted by your followers.

Will it turn into revenue? It could. Twitter is currently offering only iTunes previews of songs, with a link to buy the song on iTunes. Alternatively, you can listen to entire songs if you have a Spotify or Rdio subscriptions, both of which could ultimately have a positive impact on music sales — though it’s been said several times that musicians don’t make much money off Spotify.

But the simple fact that Twitter buzz about music is now directly tuned into music purchases is good news for artists. Plus, artists make money of concerts, and even if those Spotify or Rdio subscriptions bring pennies, the buzz around a band will bring more people to concerts.

Twitter — A Place for Music?

Most importantly, though, if Twitter Music is successful, it will turn Twitter into a place for music — similar to what MySpace once was, and what it based its plan for resurgence on in early 2013.

That’s a big IF, though. The lack of a visual component remains an issue. YouTube has long been the place for music discovery (even though its discovery engine is rudimentary at best) simply because the music is accompanied by moving images. Twitter Music doesn’t have that, and it might turn into a bore, especially for younger generations.

Source: Mashable (by Stan Schroeder)

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