Few weeks ago fellow artist and friend Rob Anthony asked this:
“Any quick tips on how to get more YouTube subscribers?”
He, like a lot of artists, is starting to understand the benefits of building a presence on YouTube:
- Being on the second largest search engine on the planet
- Make some money with your music via the YouTube Partner Program
- Being present on site that 64% of young adults credit as the place they go to discover music
- Drive fans to your email list where you can build a relationship with them or to places where they can purchase or stream your music like CDBaby, iTunes, Bandcamp,Spotify, etc.
10 Ways You Can Get More YouTube Subscribers
Here are 10 things I can think of off the top of my head:
1) First and most important…Make good videos.
2) Send an email to your mailing list asking them to subscribe on Youtube. Add a little more touch by making it a video with you actually asking them. That would be a nice boost right off the bat.
3) The biggest one IMHO (and the one I am guilty of not staying on top of) is to post on a regular basis. Once per week at the least and even more if possible.
Even if your video is just music with a album cover or picture it works. It gets people commenting and sharing. When I was doing this every two weeks last summer it made, and is still making, an impact.
4) Comment on other videos by similar artists. Both textual and via a video.
I will find videos with music similar to mine that are getting a lot of views and comments (you can tell by looking at the how frequent the comments are) Then I make a “video response” and share one of my videos as the response.
I did that with my “Take This Ring”, which works well in the wedding circles, on video's like the latest huge country ballad and some of those popular wedding videos and my views, subscriptions, email sign up and downloads shot up.
5) After people sign up for my mailing list I send them to a page that asks where they hangout online. I have a column for Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and Youtube. I ask them to enter their info so I can stop by and say hi (I set it up using a Google doc and it works slick).
Check out TubeBuddy.
It's a YouTube optimization app for your browser that will save you tons of time looking for good tags, related videos and linking up related videos to keep people binging on your stuff. Click here or the image below to check it out.
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6) Share your videos on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, where ever as often as you can without being “that guy.” 🙂
7) Buy ads on other videos via Google Adwords
8) Put annotations on your videos with a Call To Action encouraging people to subscribe.
9) Collaborate. Network with other artist and see if it makes sense to take turns performing on each others videos. I'm sure you'll get a few fans interested enough to check out your channel.
10) Record yourself doing covers of popular songs. Just make sure you get the song and artist you are covering in the title so you show in searches.
Start small. Implement one or two of these ideas each week. See which one works for you and your audience. Use what does, dump what doesn't.
Most Recommended Marketing Tools and Services For DIY Musicians
Indie Bible – This 330-page music marketing Swiss Army Knife will show you how to get access to 4000 music publications willing to do reviews, 3200 radio stations willing to play your songs along with 1200 other resources looking to help you get the word out. They have also been adding resources to help you find playlist curators to help you get more streams on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Click here to check out the Indie Bible.
ConvertKit – Need to start an email list to build a fan base? Or looking for an email provider that provides made-for-you landing page templates? if so, ConvertKit is awesome. They cater to Makers and Creatives (like us music types) so you know you are in good company. It is also one the easiest to use for beginners and feature-rich for more advanced users. They now offer a totally free tier of up to 1,000 subscribers. Click here to try ConvertKit.
TubeBuddy – Just started testing this, but damn, the handy optimization tools alone saved me a ton of time already. So much to love for marketing geeks like me. They have a feature-filled free tier. If you do any YouTube Marketing you'll see the value instantly. Try it here and you'll see. Its a no-brainer!
