Musician’s Guide To Promoting A Music Video In 7 Easy Steps
After expending a massive amount of time and energy assembling a music video you're proud of, it can be tempting to kick back and relax, but promotion is when the rubber really hits the pavement, and having a solid strategy is essential to making your music video a success.
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Guest post by Alexandra Kennedy of the Symphonic Blog
So you just finished up your music video that you spent HOURS and HOURS putting together with your team and are ecstatic about the end result. Don’t sleep yet! Although a high-quality music video always has the chance of going viral, that chance is SLIM if there’s no promotional strategy to back it up.
We’ve put together a list of ways to promote your next music video that will help give it maximum exposure.
- Build up the excitement: Don’t wait until the day your video drops to start promoting. Share the exciting news with your fans weeks ahead of time, and by doing so you’ll be essentially setting up a promotional army who are ready to hit the share button once it releases. Use every avenue available to you in order to reach them, from widespread social sharing to email blasts. Everyone’s pre-release strategy differs, but reminding fans of the release date multiple times leading up to it is essential, since there’s a good chance a decent number of fans didn’t see your initial post or may have forgotten.
- Make sure your music video’s SEO is on-point: If your music video is being released on a YouTube channel, making sure it’s fully optimized is key in setting it up for maximum discoverability. This means making sure your video’s Title and Description correspond, tagging and categorizing your video appropriately and utilizing an eye-catching, yet non-misleading, thumbnail. Learn more about how to boost your YouTube views here.
- Reach out to music blogs: When it comes to reaching out to blogs for a feature, you must email professionally and keep it simple. Many editors receive hundreds of emails a day from other artists and their management seeking a feature. They don’t want to spend five minutes reading a pitch. Be creative, thoughtful and to the point in order to sway editors. First and foremost, do research and make sure you are only reaching out to blogs that you can honestly see posting your genre of content. Additionally, do not limit yourself to only the better-known blogs. Dig a little deeper and reach out to music blogs that have a smaller following too. Any and all PR is good PR when it comes to music video promotion. Check out some creative blogs that will feature your music video here.
- Share digitally and literally EVERYWHERE: It should go without saying that sharing your music video across all of your social media channels is a must, and so is encouraging all of your family and friends to do the same. Use engaging post descriptions and CTA’s in order to get fans to watch the video and, more importantly, share to their networks as well. *PRO TIP: In addition to sharing on the typical and more traditional social channels, explore some non-traditional ways of sharing. These can include online forums and groups, such as reddit and Facebook groups. The key to being successful in this endeavor, however, is to not come off as spammy. Instead, use a more down-to-earth tone when posting; not a self-promoting tone.
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Send out a fan email blast: This is another more obvious method of sharing, but an avenue that many musicians don’t take advantage of. If you’re just starting out with an email list, check out our tips on how to build an emailing list for email marketing. Collection of emails on your artist website is a must, and collaborating with other artists in a video can double your email list. Running a fan competition in the form of a meet-and-greet or ticket giveaway can also help you out in the email department (not to mention, will help to add more followers to all of your social and streaming networks too). - Utilize YouTube Ads for Musicians: In order to set up your video as a paid Ad on YouTube, you must first have a Google Adwords account. From there, you can easily target your video to reach certain audiences that are similar to your fanbase. Paid YouTube Ads are one of the best ways to quickly start racking up those YouTube views and make sure the right demographics are seeing your music video. Learn more about YouTube Ads for musicians here.
- Reach out to social media influencers: Sliding into the DMs of influencers can sometimes go a long way if done right. If you see an influencer actively promoting music of your genre and think they would enjoy your video enough to share, take the chance and reach out. Twitter tends to be the easiest place to gain support for a music video or song link due to its simple usability and gives content the power to go viral faster than most other social sharing sites.
As with anything else, the more effort you put into planning a promotional strategy for your music video, the more success and exposure you are setting it up for. Every strategy is going to differ, but by implementing the promotional tactics listed above into your next music video release strategy, you are sure to see positive results. Want more YouTube tips? Download our FREE Complete Guide to YouTube for Musicians.
Interested in distributing your next music video to Vevo, TIDAL, and other top music video platforms? Check out our Music Video Distribution service.
Making strong music promotion part of your music marketing plan includes online tools like digital distribution, social media and email, as well as traditional means like live shows, press kits and mailing lists.