The Best 8 Ways to Promote a Music Video
When you have new music ready to launch, creating a music video can be one of the most creative, enjoyable parts of the process. But promoting the music video is often a different story. When you feel like your creative work is done, you’re actually just getting started on the most important part for your business as a musician—getting your content in front of viewers.
One challenge is that most music organizations are less than transparent about the industry best practices for music video promotion. That’s where we come in. For your next music video, treat these eight tips like your checklist to a stellar launch.
Interact with your audience regularly
The key to your music video’s success begins long before the music video is finished—or even begun. If you’re hoping to have a built-in fan base for each new release, you’ll have to build a relationship with your audience over time. Send updates, respond to comments and questions, and generally let people in on what you’re up to. When they feel like they’re genuinely connected to you and your music, they’ll be more likely to support your next music video.
Build excitement before the release
The next tip also requires a bit of advance planning. When you know you have a new music video coming soon, start building excitement with your audience ahead of time. You can go the direct route by announcing the music video and its release date, or take a more mysterious approach and tease a vague launch without a specific date. In either case, your fans will be invested in the new music video long before you release it.
Have an interesting thumbnail
As you prepare to launch the music video, you’ll be faced with the task of choosing a thumbnail for the video when you upload it to each new channel. While your thumbnail may feel like an afterthought, it’s the very first thing your viewers will see when they come across the music video while they’re browsing content.
Take the extra time to put some thought into your thumbnail, making it engaging enough to stop scrollers in their tracks. Just remember that many users will be engaging on mobile devices, so avoid small text or tiny details that won’t be noticeable on smaller screens.
Share across all social media platforms
After you do release the music video, your first step should be sharing it across the most popular social channels. When in doubt, the more channels, the better—you never know where your content might take off and unlock a whole new fan base. Your options here include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and even Pinterest. Share away!
Optimize SEO on YouTube
Next, you’ll want to optimize the SEO behind your music video when you post it on YouTube. Avid music fans expect every musician’s music videos to be available on YouTube, so you definitely shouldn’t skip this step (or this distribution channel). After all, according to Brandwatch, 93% of the most-watched videos on YouTube are music videos.
When you share your video, make sure the video’s title includes the name of the song and your name as the artist. Then, capture other keywords in the description and tags. If you’re not sure what to include, take a look at the titles and descriptions of other music videos in your genre to get an idea of the industry standard.
Collaborate with other artists
Your next step in promoting your new music video is to ask or encourage other artists to share it. This approach will work better if you already have a network of musician friends—and if you’re ready to return the favor next time they have a launch.
You have two main options for this promotional tactic. The first is simply to share the launch with your artist network to announce the new music video and hope that some of them will share it just because they love the work or want to be supportive. The second is to share the launch with your artist network and ask them directly if they can help spread the word about the new release.
Both options are fine, but as you can imagine, you’ll likely get more traction when you explicitly ask for promotional support. You can also mix and match both approaches, asking for shares from your closest music allies and just sharing the release with everyone else. Whatever feels best to you!
Engage influencers
If you want to go one step further than your network of fellow musicians, you can also engage influencers to share the new music video and voice their support. The scope of this tactic can be as large or as small as you like—you can spend a fortune on big names who can get your content in front of millions of followers, or niche down to go after a specific target audience. You’ll just have to balance the amount of money you’re willing to pay for the exposure with the type of people you’re hoping to reach.
Pay for ads
Last but not least, don’t forget about the many ad placement options you can use to promote your music video. If you’ve engaged with our blog before, you’re probably familiar with the series we did explaining exactly how to launch an ad campaign on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. A new music video is the perfect asset to promote in your ads, so follow the tips we’ve outlined there according to each platform you want to use.
Conclusion
There you have it! We hope these eight ideas help you celebrate your next music video launch and boost its long-term success. We’re all about helping musicians nail their music video promotion, so if you need additional support, you know where to find us! (Hint: Here’s our contact page. You’re welcome.)
