Ideally, you shouldn't just promote your music video with a post on Facebook and a story on Instagram – it's best to go directly where the users who should see your video already are. This also helps you build essential talking points for yourself as a musician in conversations with labels or promoters.
The View Count as an Argument for Concert Promoters
As an artist, you need a few strong arguments these days to get heard by bookers and promoters. First and foremost, your music has to be the right fit. Beyond that, numbers matter – numbers that prove you can mobilize people – because anyone who can show a high number of engaged fans or streams likely also has the potential to sell tickets, albums, or songs. And among those key metrics are undoubtedly the view count of your music video on YouTube, and quite often also the amount you invest in advertising for your band. Even better if you can prove that the views and subscribes come from a relevant audience in the city of a venue. When promoters also know that you're willing to put money into promoting your songs, it suggests your willingness to promote your upcoming shows as well. Because in the end, everyone wants the same thing: a gig with a packed crowd.
Promoting Your Music Video with YouTube InFeed Ads
We all know the ads that appear before or between two videos on YouTube. These are often campaigns from companies with large budgets to promote their products. This type of ad is usually more about being seen rather than driving a specific action. Since you and your band probably don't have a corporation's budget to promote a music video, it's worth prioritizing InFeed ads. With this type of campaign, a user has to actively click on your video, which is placed in search results or in suggested videos. This means people are more likely to watch the song all the way through, subscribe to your channel, leave a comment, or give a rating. The cost per view on your video is minimal, and the view itself is high quality because it was actively initiated.
Cost-Effective Reach on YouTube
YouTube is a very predictable channel when it comes to investing advertising budget. You can be fairly confident that a video view won't cost more than €0.04, and if it does, there's a good chance something went wrong on your end. Accordingly, you can promote your music video and watch your view count grow with relative ease. For example, if you want to reach 10,000 video views and assume a video view costs €0.02, you know you'll need €200 to achieve that goal.
Very Precise Targeting Possible
One of the key advantages of running YouTube Ads is that you can precisely define who you want to reach. The settings range from basic demographics (age, gender, location) to retargeting (users who have already interacted with your YouTube channel) all the way to channel placements, keywords, or topics that place your ads in the context of your chosen settings. You can simply select a set of specific artist channels, add them as keywords, set a few topics such as pop music, and let the algorithm do the rest for you.
Video and Social Combined
Beyond the technical approaches that YouTube offers as an advertising channel, there are of course other important arguments that have less to do with advertising per se. When you as an artist release a music video on YouTube, you naturally want people to see it. The visual extension of your music is not least a creative act connected to your artistry, and it deserves to be seen. No one needs to explain anymore why YouTube is the right channel for this. The addition of social interactions to the video platform – likes, shares, comments, subscriptions – is another key reason why YouTube advertising is worthwhile. Promoting your videos will also generate feedback on your songs. People who watch your videos or interact with them can be reached again and again through your future campaigns. The likelihood of a mildly interested user eventually becoming a true fan increases enormously.