While the obvious choice when unveiling your latest track on YouTube is a fully-fledged music video, their creation can often be time-consuming and costly. Luckily, there are available alternatives that are simple to produce, can offer your audience a visual experience and create revenue for you and your fellow band buds.
The Teaser
Giving your audience a sneak-peak preview of what you have in store for them is an easy yet effective way of announcing your upcoming releases or live shows. The video could be a 30-second clip with some simple text outlining dates and other information alongside a sample of a selected track or it could be a one-minute preview with an accompanying visual of your choosing. Either way, it is supposed to entice a viewer and build excitement in your audience. Therefore, it’s important to drop a teaser video a substantial amount of time before the actual release – at least a week for a single and a month for a full album. A teaser clip could easily be created via Apple’s iMovie or Window’s Movie Maker. Check out Northlane’s Node official trailer below.
The Lyric Video
Next on the list is the ever-loved lyric video. While these clips often only feature a simple visual and some motion text, they have a habit of becoming wildly successful. The lyric video allows for a mutli-media release without an official music video and also serves as a way for you to share your lyrics with your audience – an uncommon practice for an emerging artist. The most popular clips often use animation, engaging visual art or even video footage of the band, their recording and performances. Using the lyric video as a way to give your followers a ‘backstage pass’ is a great way to drum up some attention in an affordable way. For those of you willing to spend a little to make a little, Superstring is a program created specifically for creating lyric videos and is available for both Mac and Windows for $39.99.
The Full Album Stream
The full album stream is an obvious yet often overlooked upload for up and coming artists. By placing all the tracks in the one clip, it ensures traffic is directed into the single video rather than individual tracks that subsequently may not get as many views. Listeners will also be given the opportunity to experience the album as a whole instead of waiting for single releases, potentially encouraging sharing.
The full album stream is very advantageous for you as a business. Longer videos allow you to include ads throughout, which can contribute to higher earnings. Furthermore, a longer video will leave a larger impact on your channel’s overall ‘Watch Time’. The video could be as simple as the cover art of your album with the track name placed parallel to it, or you could include a selection of images. Don’t forget to direct your audience to a purchase link for the album in both the video itself and the description box. Most importantly, this technique allows the artist themselves to profit from their record and the views it attains, rather than another individual illegally uploading the content.
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