Music videos are a great way to promote your music, but how do you go about promoting your music video in the first place?
Let’s face it, competition in the music industry is fierce and you need to give yourself the best chance of success. And in the age of viral videos, it’s no surprise that video content is the most popular type of content. Not only is it a great way to promote your music, but it’s also a great branding tool, as your fans can see you and really see what you’re about as an artist.
So you took the plunge and created a music video. Now what? Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to promote your music video and increase its visibility to reach a wider audience.
Here are a few effective strategies.
1. Social media is your new best friend
Having an online presence is important for any musician and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are crucial in today’s music industry for any artist who wants to stand out and grow their fan base.
What you need to do is share engaging posts about your music video and don’t forget to use targeted hashtags to boost it. Make sure you encourage your followers to like, share, and comment on your video to increase its visibility, and always welcome and share user-generated content related to your music video.
But if your goal is to promote your music video, it’s important to get on TikTok. Like the others, it’s a social media platform but it’s targeted to video content and used to create, share, and discover short videos ranging from a few seconds to a minute so using TikTok is a great way to connect with your audience and promote your music video in a smaller format. TikTok’s algorithm can push content into the spotlight, leading to viral trends and challenges, meaning that a catchy music video or song snippet can quickly gain traction and reach a wide audience. So take a look at what’s trending on TikTok and choose the footage you show based on your research.
One thing that seems to always work well is making-of videos of your music video or interviews related to the making of your music video. These can add depth to your content and can attract more viewers interested in the creative process behind the music video.
| Read also: 9 Tips for small budget music videos
2. Don’t forget YouTube and other video platforms
With the rise of TikTok and Instagram reels, YouTube and other video platforms such as Vevo, Vimeo, and Dailymotion seem to have taken a step back. And that’s understandable, because attention spans are getting shorter, and people are tending to prefer bite-sized content.
That said, these platforms are still extremely popular and they even offer this new shorter format through YouTube shorts, so you should take advantage of them to share your content and promote your music video.
If you don’t already have one, create a YouTube channel and upload your first video to encourage people to subscribe to your new channel. When you publish your music video, make sure it’s optimized for search engines by using relevant keywords in the title, description, and tags of your video. This can help your video rank higher in search engine results and attract more viewers and maybe even subscribers.
A great thing about YouTube is that it can be interesting from a financial point of view, as you can actually earn money with YouTube videos, through ad revenue, affiliate marketing, and even direct sales.
If you want a case study of success on YouTube, take a look at the music video of the song “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. It became a global phenomenon and reached billions of views on the platform in a few short months.
One of the best things you can do to promote your music video is to get your music online and upload it to a distribution platform like Spotify. Although Spotify doesn’t play full-length music videos like other platforms such as YouTube, you can still promote your music video by creating a video loop that represents part of your video.
You can do this with Spotify Canvas, a tool that lets you upload short visual loops to accompany your music on the Spotify mobile app instead of the static album art.
To use Canvas, you must be a verified artist on Spotify by applying through the Spotify for Artists platform, and once verified, you can access the dashboard and upload your video loop for each of your tracks. Most people are visual and if they like the teaser, chances are they’ll go check out the full music video.
Don’t forget to submit your music to playlists, as a curated playlist could help you reach a wider audience and promote your music to new fans and listeners, which in turn could drive traffic to your music video.
Looking to get into playlists? ⬇️
4. Rely on word-of-mouth publicity
Word-of-mouth advertising may still be best when it comes to building credibility, so don’t hesitate to contact relevant media outlets such as music blogs, online magazines, and music websites to pitch your music video for possible coverage or a feature.
You can even write a compelling press release announcing the release of your video, making sure to include high-quality images, a link to the video, and any interesting or newsworthy angles that might attract attention.
You can also contact music influencers or bloggers in your niche who have a large following and ask them to share your video with their audience, to increase the visibility of your video and help you reach new fans. You can go further and feature them in your videos, and the same goes for your fellow artists.
Collaborations are a great idea when it comes to promoting your music video and partnerships with other musicians, record labels and music industry professionals can help you extend your reach and promote your music video to a new audience. So always carry business cards on you and remember that touring and merchandising can also be good ways of getting your name out there, as gigs can arouse the curiosity of people who can then search for you online and stumble upon your music video.
5. Advertise, advertise, advertise!
You may think that the music video is the publicity tool for your music, but you need to advertise your music video first and there are plenty of ways to do this. It can be a good idea to invest in targeted advertising on social media platforms, such as Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or YouTube Ads to reach specific demographic groups or regions, as these platforms allow you to tailor your campaigns according to various parameters.
To do this, you can either go through the own advertising platforms of these apps (Facebook Ads Manager and Instagram Ads) or you can use Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords), which is Google’s online advertising platform that allows you to display ads on Google’s search engine results page and on its advertising network.
Conclusion
With the rise of social media and image and video applications, people are becoming increasingly visual. This led to a peak in video marketing and because of this, it’s becoming easier and easier to drive traffic to your music video. However, remember that the key to promoting a music video effectively is a multifaceted approach that will allow you to reach a wide audience.
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