New YouTube Channels allow off-site links!

Happy New Year.

I owe this one to @ThornyBleeder who posted about it over the holidays.

The post is on Social Times and sets out how to redesign your channel after the new makeover that YouTube has had.

The big notable improvement is that you can now have links to your site and social media profiles from your Channel page - every artist should go and add these now. The article tells you how:

...covers the ins and outs of the new site design, starting with the new YouTube channel design and layout.

If you haven’t visited your YouTube channel since the redesign then you’re in for a surprise.  Not only can you now post links in the sidebar of your channel, but YouTube is also now offering a series of layout templates, a new Feed and more.  Not sure where to get started?  Not to worry.  We’ll take you through all the steps of getting your new YouTube channel set up.

Read the article here.

And you can check out the quick spruce up and off-site links we have made to our YouTube channel here - http://www.youtube.com/MakeItInMusic.

8 ways to maximize your YouTube Presence

I thought that we'd covered this post when it was published on Social Media Examiner in July, but we didn't!

And, this week I have been doing a lot of work on YouTube - how to get your videos noticed and spreading. It's not easy but there are some tricks that we're testing at the moment. We'll let you know how they do.

The one KEY that we have missed before in our efforts for our artists (even though we've pointed it out in other posts!) is to use YouTube as a social network. The younger you are the more you probably do this (that's what the demographics show) but most don't. What does that mean? - well, add friends, ask them to subscribe, create favourites and get liking videos (and ask for likes back).

All that interactivity seriously boosts your channel and videos inside YouTube's ranking algorithm - more so if you can get views, comments, favourites and likes within the first 48 hours of uploading. This is a GREAT thing to ask your fans to do for you by emailing them and asking them to log in to YouTube and watch the video and favourite it, comment on it or like it.

This MASSIVELY increases your chances to appear in the 'recommended' or 'related' video lists which in turn exposes you to a wider audience.

We're trying to test how well this works - and it looks good - and we have a few other tips that we hope will make these 'best practice' approaches work even better.

It's also becoming clear that having your video embedded off YouTube on third party sites is a BIG deal to YouTube and proves that your video is hot - and hence they want to encourage more people to see it. Again, getting your video embedded on other people's blogs as soon as possible after you upload it becomes a marketing goal.

So, if and when we get some specific feedback from our own efforts, we'll let you know.

In the meantime, as I said at the top - I came across this post again in my search for tips.

It has some great basic tips that you MUST be using. Check it out here.

And here's the video from one of those tips. We've only just started adding this to our videos, but it works in a big way! An annotation that links directly to the 'subscribe' button for your channel. This video shows the old layout, but it explains it well. I'd recommend adding a 'Subscribe to us for more videos' annotation to every video you have on YouTube.

It WILL increase your subscriptions and that will help your YouTube marketing. Best tip - have the subscription come up at least twice, maybe three times. First time after 20 sconds or so, second time just after half way and thirdly, right at the end as the video ends.

Custom Backgrounds for YouTube and Twitter

I've been asked about this a LOT in the last few weeks.

And, I'm remiss, as I haven't done our YouTube channel background properly (it's just the logo) and our Twitter one is a simple repeated logo! It's on the very long list of things to do.

However, we do try and make sure that our clients have a custom background for Twitter and YouTube that fit with their site design. Some are prepared to invest the small-ish cost of getting a designer to do this and some aren't. YouTube is tricky to do well if you don't have Photoshop skills!

Nonetheless, it's what we recommend. A consistent look across your own website and your social media profiles is obviously a good idea - just look at what major label artists do to see the consistency of their look! In fact, look into what they do all the time in social media and steal their best ideas!

This oldish post on Mashable has some good pointers and is worth checking out - although the dimensions listed for Twitter are now wrong for the new layout - check our post here (point 2) instead for that.

If you Google 'YouTube Background', you'll get loads of detailed info and endless videos that show you how to do it if you have the skills.

Obviously, if one of you in the band is a designer or if the people that designed your site can do the backgrounds, you're sorted.

However, if you are after an all-in-one solution, check out these people - Custom Page. We've used them several times for various backgrounds and they will be doing ours for Make It In Music when we get five minutes!

The quality is good and they're reasonably priced and they deal with the photoshop stuff that gives me a headache!

That said, they have lots of free backgrounds that you can use as well, and a really good tutorial on how to make your own here.

 

Definitive list of Video apps for Facebook

Integrating video of you and your music all over the web is a really good idea!

On the main site we've looked at some elements of how to use YouTube for musicians, and we'll be looking at lots more over time.

And, we all know how we can put a YouTube video in a post on Facebook, don't we? If not, just search it on YouTube!

But, there's a whole load more stuff that you can do with video on Facebook, whether it's from YouTube or another site or hosted on Facebook itself.

This list is a massively helpful directory of methods that you can check out and adopt the ones that are best for you.

For musicians - probably the most obvious are having your YouTube channel on a Facebook tab and integrating Ustream.tv.

We've talked a lot at ReelSEO about Facebook video marketing and video apps, so it was only a matter of time before we combined all the options into one big list. So here you go, our ReelSEO Show Reel of Facebook Video Apps, with a myriad ways you can integrate video into your own Facebook Pages!

Driven by a singular goal to corner the market on this info, yet not so driven that we're bothering to do our own review and testing of every Facebook video app out there, I've put together a list of video apps that I think are beneficial for your Facebook video marketing needs.

Go and investigate the list here. You will get some ideas!

YouTube, Blogs and the Future of Music

Jon Ostrow (@MicControl) put me on to this yeterday.

Great interview with one of the founders of Elektra where he talks about how he sees music promotion today.

Watch it and get some ideas!

A YouTube case study

OK, last thing on YouTube for a while. I know I'm hammering the point, perhaps a little too much! Point 8 in this post - Build your fanbase - didn't get the message across enough!

The Midnight Beast is a trio doing what most would call comedy pop - a bit electro and a bit rap.

I am in awe of the following that they have built pretty much using YouTube alone.

I'm not saying that you have to be a comedy act - although I accept that their particular style is VERY suited to video, YouTube, covers/parodies etc - but what they have across all the platforms that they use is well worth looking at.

Their official site is all about video (I'd add an email sign up too, but you can't get everything right!), and their other social media profiles are all spot on too - regular Twitter and Facebook updates, although they use personal Twitter far better than the band feed.

And, they are unsigned. And, don't want to be signed. They just sold out their first UK tour and are selling loads of merchandise - follow their links to see what they do using Big Cartel.

They have over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube and I'm sure that's a Partner channel, so they'll be earning more that way.

OK, their kick-off was a Kesha parody that got people following them in their droves, and they can write very catchy songs or parodies (some of the material is original), but there is nothing stopping you making your band very focused on YouTube and getting a massive boost from people finding you there.

Learn how to stand out by studying what The Midnight Beast do.......and apply it.

The Midnight Beast channel on YouTube.

The Guardian view.

Wikipedia tell all on the Midnight Beast.

The official Midnight Beast site.

An example of their highbrow work!

YouTube Channel tips...and so much more

Whilst I've been on this YouTube theme I've been doing a LOT of research, and found the site that this post came from.

I am trying to shift a large proportion of my client's attention to YouTube and video marketing - i.e. taking my own advice! And this site is giving me a HUGE amount of ideas.

The link below is to one article that talks about channels and helps to clear up some of the confusion we were discussing over on the main blog about Branded channels in this post - Artist YouTube Channel.

BUT, go over there and root around for other stuff - like how to put a 'Subscribe to our YouTube channel' widget on the side bar of your site, or how to make a link to your channel actually a link to subscribe to your channel.

Endless great articles that you can use to learn more about making YouTube the social network that brings you fans. Remember that it is a social newtork just like Facebook but it is the other place that people go to find music (after your domain and, yes, still, MySpace). So be there.

Click here to read 'How to make the most of your YouTube channel'.