The 30 Minute
YouTube Bootcamp
for Musicians
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world,
one of the most powerful music discovery tools in
human history, and the first place many talent buyers,
festival bookers, and other industry professionals
will look when they’re considering your music for an
opportunity.
This guide will serve as a quick primer to help you:
• Optimize your channel and videos
• Build your following on YouTube
• Increase video engagement
• Better understand YouTube revenue streams
• Create more compelling video content without
going broke
It shouldn’t take you much more than thirty minutes
to read through this guide, but if you’re just starting
to familiarize yourself with using YouTube as a music
promotion tool, the recommendations within will
keep you busy for a long time to come.
Alright, let’s get started…
The anatomy of a
highly optimized
YouTube video
You probably put a lot of time into producing your videos and you’re excited to
publish them on YouTube. But don’t rush!
Spend the extra few minutes optimizing
your videos, making it easier for users to
find and share them. Otherwise some of
your hard work and creativity could go to
waste.
The YouTube video optimization checklist:
- Choose a good video title — It all begins here.
A good (accurate) title helps viewers know they’re in
the right place, and a keyword-rich title is crucial for
users to find your video when searching YouTube. - Upload a custom thumbnail — The thumbnail
gives people a snapshot of your video. To hook viewers, upload a custom image that teases something
exciting in the video. Your thumbnail image should
have a 16:9 aspect ratio. - Insert YouTube cards — Add some interactivity to your video when it’s viewed on most desktop,
Android, and iOS devices. You can use cards to link
viewers to a specific URL, point them to another video or playlist, ask them to subscribe, and more. - List relevant tags — Enter any keywords that are
associated with your video content, location, subject
matter, or featured artist. Good tags can boost your
ranking in YouTube search results. Stumped for how
to tag your video? Try searching for similar content
on YouTube and see what they auto-suggest. - Write a good video description — Like your title, your video description helps power YouTube’s
search function (along with relevant tags), so be
sure to make use of this space with good keywords,
a compelling description of your video, and links to
your website, social profiles, retail store, etc. If you
want to get viewers to leave YouTube (to go to your
own website, for instance) put that URL at the very
beginning of your video description so it will appear
before the “show more” section. - Use an intro — Create a short intro (1-5 seconds)
that can be used across multiple videos in a series to
provide your channel with a sense of cohesion, continuity, and vibe. You can upload an intro to YouTube
as a private video, and then use the video editor tool
to combine that intro with any new videos you want
to publish. - Create HD videos — In the Settings section, a
viewer can change the speed and quality of your video, so make sure you upload the highest quality video possible (ideally at least 720p or 1080p). - Add End Screens — With mobile-friendly end
screens, you can drive more engagement at the end
of your videos, directing viewers to other videos or
playlists, asking them to subscribe to your channel,
offering merch, and more. - Put your video in a playlist — Add your video to
a playlist and, whenever you share the video, embed
the “share with playlist starting from current video”
code. That way if a viewer clicks “next,” you can lead
them to another one of your videos.
Now that we’ve looked at optimizing
your videos, how about optimizing your
whole channel?
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