Best Practices in Music on YouTube

BEST PRACTICES IN
MUSIC ONYOUTUBE
Channel Strategy
mostafa@digisay.com

YouTube Music Facts
■ Most searched for topic in 2015 onYouTube: Music.
■ YouTube is the #1 search engine for music fans.
■ YouTube has become the #1 listening platform for younger music fans.
■ YouTube viewers spent more than 37,000 years worth of time watching theTop 10
music videos in 2015.
■ Percentage ofYouTube video views that are music videos: 38.4%
■ Most subscribed-toYouTube channel: #Music - 93 Million Subscribers.
2/23/2016 Best Practices in Music onYouTube - Mostafa Shaaban (DigiSay Ltd.) 2

TOP STRATEGIES
For Music creators onYouTube

1. Design a
consistent
identity.
Design a channel that is consistent with your brand and creates an aesthetically
pleasing experience. Optimize your real estate to promote new releases, albums
and events.
• Channel icon: Design a bright, high contrast avatar that reflects the brand and
is recognizable in the smaller formats like the channel guide.
• Channel Banner: Create a channel banner that is formatted for all devices ,
clearly articulates the label, DJ or artist’s name and promotes upcoming
events; concerts, albums or singles.
• Welcome Video: Programme your most recent track or create an original
preview video.
• Thumbnails: Design consistent close-up high definition thumbnails that
reflect the title of the video and the content. Include branding that matches
the channel aesthetic.
• Channel Section: Organize music videos into themed sections for easy
navigation and listening.
• InVideo Programming: Promote your channel and feature a recent video or
playlist across your entire library of uploads.
• Featured Channels: Feature channels from your label or promote other
related artists.
4

2. LetYour Fans Listen
■ Music fans tend to be dedicated listeners that want to come back to your channel
often. Publish new content regularly and programme original track mixes to give them
something to come back to.
– Publish Regularly: Publish content to the channel at regular rate “weekly, monthly
or quarterly” and communicate this schedule to the audience.
– Upload MultipleTracks: If listeners come back to the same tracks on repeat, make
multiple versions of the popular tracks available on the channel to extend viewers
watch sessions.

3. Give
Backstage
Access
Your fans are looking for exclusive videos. Produce behind the scenes
content and clip footage to give them unique access to your artists
and events.
• ExclusiveTracks: Give your fans something to discover by
releasing exclusive tracks and cuts to the channel.
• Tour Footage:Allow the audience to see what happens behind
the scenes on the artist’s tour by publishing original tour footage.
• Artist Content: Let your audience get to the know the artist and
hear directly from them by producing vlog content with the
talent.
• Studio Sessions: Give fans the raw experience of how artists
work and where tracks are produced by showcasing the creative
process.
• Track Creation: Show your audience how their favorite tracks are
created and learn from the talent directly.
6

4. Live Events
■ Produce live content that captures the full experience of your event. Recreate the live
feeling for your fans who can’t be there and for those who want to relive it.
– Get prepared: Live broadcasts may take more preparation than your typical video. Make
sure you sufficiently test all the technical components well in advance of your live event.
– Let your fans know what is coming: Live events require much more promotion than
VOD because you really want fans to tune in at a certain time. In the days leading up to
the event, use spoken calls to action to direct viewers to tune in. It is also a great idea to
use all your social media outlets to remind people when the live event is starting. Even a
dedicated channel trailer about the live event can be a useful promotional tool.
– Pay attention to live comments:There are few ways better to build engagement than
to respond live to your fans. Keep an eye on the comments and talk back to your
audience.
– UseTimestamps: Help viewers navigate long content with timestamp links in the
description field. Simply add ‘#t=1m50s’ to the end of a video URL.

5.Timing Matters
AlbumAnnounced Single(s) Released Album Released Events and Festivals
Content Strategies
• Album teaser/sampler
• Live-stream announcement
• Countdown to release videos
Content Strategies
• Lyric or audio video
• Official music video
• Behind-the-scenes
Content Strategies
• Official audio streams for all
songs
• Google+ Hangouts
• Livestream launch party
• Release studio sessions / album
making-of’s.
Content Strategies
• Don’t stop uploading!
• Record and upload live
performances in long form and
VOD
• Event trailer/teaser and lineup
announcement
• Experiential videos
• Artist vlogs
• Collaborative videos
Video & Channel Optimisations
• Update channel branding with
release date
• Add release date and pre-order
links to annotations and
descriptions
• Enable In-Video Programming
Video & ChannelOptimisations
• Update channel sections to
feature new content
• Drive lyric video viewers to
official music video with
annotation
• Begin playlisting videos
• Update channel branding to
reflect album release
• Update video description and
annotations to drive to album
playlist or Purchase
• Update channel branding to
reflect the event
• Add event links to annotations
and descriptions
• Update channel sections with
tour footage and interesting
UGC
Plan a timeline for creating and publishing your content to develop an engaged fan base.

6. Build Hype
■ Music tracks have a long shelf life and listeners come back to them on repeat. Use your top
tracks to generate interest in your upcoming releases and events. Create trailer, first listen,
and sampler videos to build anticipation.
■ Ways to do it:
– LeverageTopTracks: On average Electronic Music tracks have very high view durations
and maintain viewership over long periods of time. Leverage these tracks to promote
upcoming events and new releases through InVideo programming, video and End Card
annotations.
– Produce Promotional Videos: Generate interest in upcoming events and releases by
producing original promotional videos:
■ Teasers: Create teasers of upcoming events, track releases and publish immediately after
they are announced to capitalize on organic search traffic.
■ Lineup Releases: Release lineup videos around upcoming events and festival artists.
■ Samplers: Create sampler videos for fans to get a taste of new albums.
■ First listens: Release videos for a limited duration on the channel to allow fans to be first
listeners.

7. Make It Discoverable
■ Ensure that your audience can find and buy your music by optimizing the metadata on and
offYouTube.
■ Ways to do it:
– Optimize Video Metadata:
■ Titles: A majority of traffic comes from searches on artist and song terms. Ensure that
these are present at the beginning of the title. Include specific descriptive terms such as
Remix,Acapella and Live about the track at the end of theTitle to set listener’s
expectations.
■ Descriptions: Include the artist’s name and song titles in the top of the description with
additional context about the track.Add additional links for subscription and to purchasing
below the fold. Where applicable include information about the event, the album and song
lyrics.
■ Uploads: Select music as a video category upon upload and fill out the metadata fields
when enabling content ID.
■ Translations: By providing translated captions, you'll not only make your video globally
accessible but also improve discoverability in other languages. Now you can increase your
audience by reaching more people around the world.
– Optimize Off Platform: MatchYouTube metadata with the terms used on the following
sites: Musicbrainz, Freebase, AllMusic, Songkick,Wikipedia.

8. Program like a DJ
■ Playlists drive huge amounts of views and watchtime in Electronic Music. Curate your fans’
session by organising your content into thematic playlists and encouraging them to keep
watching.
■ How to do it:
– CreateThemed Playlists: Playlists drive huge amounts of views and watchtime.Create
specific playlists around DJs, artist picks, albums and events to extend viewers’ watch
sessions.Think editorially by keeping these up to date and creating new playlists for
specific events.
– Curate Playlists: Create curated playlists that include videos from other channels.
– Push Engagement: Use cards, annotations, calls to action and descriptions that link to
the playlist in order to drive viewers into the playlist viewing mode.

9. Extend the Life of Live
■ Clip full length sets, events and live performances into short-form videos and optimize
their metadata to help your fans find and share them.
■ Ways to do it:
– Clip for On Demand:Clip live event and uncut footage into specific artist, DJ and
track videos.Create videos around specific moments that your fans can share.
– Optimise Metadata: Re-title and update the video description with specific
searchable terms to increase channel discovery.
– Include Navigational Annotations: Include annotations on the repackaged clips so
that viewers can navigate to related content such as other tracks by the same DJ
and back to the original long-form event.

10. Audience Engagement
■ Turn your audience into repeat viewers by engaging with them on the channel and by giving them
access to exclusive content.
■ WaysTo Do It:
– Engage with your Fans: Give back to your fans by showing them that you are listening. Including
shoutouts and responding to comments are a few ways to engage with them on the channel.
– Ask for fans opinions: Add Poll cards let your viewers participate in multiple-choice polls directly in
your videos.You can have the card show at a specific time in the video and see the results in real
time.
– Producing Fan Content: Producing content around requests and creating videos about the fans
(like with audiences at a concert) are also great ways to engage with listeners.
– ExclusiveContent: Releasing exclusive content such as artist q and a’s, pre-releases to top fans
andG+ hangouts with the artists onto the channel are effective ways to develop repeat viewers.
Producing these content formats regularly develops audience expectations and gives them
something to come back to.

11. Expand
Your Audience
■ Recommendations and partnerships are key to music
discovery onYouTube.Cross-promote and create
YouTube specific collaboration events and tracks to
raise your channel’s profile and attract new audiences.
■ Ways to do it:
– CollaborationVideos:Collaboration videos are
an effective tool to attract a new audience to the
channel.Create original collaboration tracks
with other artists on yourYouTube channel to
draw in new listeners. Ensure that the other
artists push traffic to the collaboration video
through annotations and social engagement.
– Guest Playlists: Invite DJs and other
tastemakers to curate specific playlists for the
channel. If managing multiple channels, create
specific playlists promoting your other artists
and their top tracks.
– FeatureChannels: Feature other channels in
your inventory and have other channels feature
your channel to increase awareness and
viewership.
14

12.Tap into your Community
■ While your audience may be a fan of your
music, they may not be aware of your channel.
Promote yourYouTube content off-platform to
drive engagement on your channel.
■ Ways to do it:
– Social Platform Promotion: Identify
where your fans are engaged online. Make
use of your social platforms to encourage
engagement and direct traffic to the
channel.
– External Sites:Work with external sites,
blogs and tastemakers to showcase the
channel’s content.Create a blogroll that
content is pushed to on a regular basis.
– LeverageTalent: DJs and artists typically
have large online followings. Have talent
push content and promote it directly to
their fans.

13. Push Purchases
■ Use your channel to push viewers to purchase your goods. Make use of strong calls to action and
annotations to promote purchasing.
■ Ways to do it:
– Offsite Annotations:When applicable include off-site annotations directing viewers to the
organization’s website.
– Cards: Include cards to promote merchandise, downloads and ticket sales.
– Merch Annotations: Include merch annotations directly on the videos to promote licensed
merchandise on Play, Songkick, Beatport and iTunes.
– PromotionalVideos:When programming teaser and samplers videos, include links to purchase
tickets, tracks and albums directly.
– Descriptions: Include additional links in the video description that promote sites where viewers can
purchase merchandise.
Be mindful of driving viewers off-site and decreasing the channel watch-time

YOUTUBE MUSIC APP
Part ofYouTube RED paid subscription service.
(US Only for now)

YouTube MusicApp Features
■ YouTube Music lets you watch and listen to a nearly endless catalog in
an app designed for music discovery. Just tap a track you love, and
see where your music takes you.
■ With theYouTube Music app you can enjoy your favorite tracks,
albums, and artists for free. Or you can use it with the newYouTube
Red membership to get ad-free videos and listen to music offline, in
the background, or without loading video.
■ AYouTube built just for music
– Any video, album, or artist starts a non-stop station
– Personalized stations learn your tastes
– A home tab with recommended tracks just for you
– A trending tab to stay up on the newest releases
– New songs and artists in ‘On the rise’
– The latest hits in ‘The Daily 40’
■ Amplify your experience withYouTube Red
– Get ad-free videos
– Listen to music offline on mobile devices
– Enjoy music while using other apps or with your screen off
– Listen in audio mode without having to load video
– Benefits work when signed in toYouTube or aYouTube app

THANKS!
mostafa@digisay.com

Best Practices in Music on YouTube

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