Today we have an exciting interview with Meghan McCormick of YouTube Tunes. She resides in the D.C. metro area where she’s a web content editor and social media strategist for the U.S. Army. Meghan is always up for grabbing coffee to chat about society, music, social media, technology or brainstorming words that rhyme with “purple.†You can connect with Meghan at mccormmk@gmail.com, Twitter at @meghankathleen and www.youtubetunesblog.com.
I asked Meghan to try something different for this interview. Since we are talking about YouTube videos and marketing I wanted to see if she would shoot an intro to this interview via video. Meghan rocked and was up to the on the spot opportunity. Here is her quick video and then some really great info on how indie artists are using YouTube to market their music!
GYRS: What are some of the things that make a YouTube video stand out?
Meghan: With 1.2 billion streams on YouTube each day, it’s highly important that musicians make their videos stand out on YouTube. Sometimes all it takes is a fun and charismatic personality that keeps people coming back, other times it’s a unique arrangement or cover of a song. Pomplamoose is a great example of this. Many of the videos on their YouTube page are VideoSongs, which follow two rules: 1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). 2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).
They take popular songs that people love and transform the song to make it their own. Personally, I find some of their covers better than the original. It’s their unique style that keeps me coming back for more.
GYRS: Does quality of the recording have any bearing on what you consider a good video on YouTube?
Meghan: What’s really special about people “making it” on YouTube is that they don’t have the opportunity to hide their voice behind auto-tune and a mixing board. What you see is what you get. It’s amazing how far a strong voice and a little spark of personality can take an individual on YouTube. I’d prefer a fun, great sounding Web cam shot video over a high-def, Pro Tools/Garage Band produced video with an OK voice any day.
GYRS: How much does social proof (comments, ratings, etc) affect the viral and pass around characteristics of a YouTube video?
Meghan: Comments, ratings, views and subscriptions actually really help a video rise to the top. If you search for a video on YouTube, the search is filtered via those categories, so a video with more views, ratings, etc. will be seen by more eyes. When I’m browsing videos I’m more inclined to watch a video that has 10,000+ views over one that’s got about 300. A video with a views in the thousands means that for some reason, people are watching it. Numbers aren’t everything though; I’ve definitely found a few “diamonds in the rough” and I make a note to rate and comment, to help them get their video seen by more people.
People shouldn’t be discouraged if they only have a few views– everyone starts at zero. To help get more eyes on a video, artists should make sure they’re tagging their videos correctly, rating and commenting on videos similar to theirs and promoting their videos via their social networks.
GYRS: For artists looking to get involved in YouTube marketing, what are the 2-3 things they should focus on?
Meghan: A few things that help artist in YouTube marketing include:
1) Commitment and consistency
If you’re going to set up a channel with stellar music, make an effort to be consistent. Are you going to upload a video every week? Every day? Twice a month? Pick quality over quantity, but make sure you stick with it. Committing and building consistency will keep your audience assured that your channel is THE place to find great music.
2) Style
Are you a classically trained opera singer with a knack for covering 90′s pop hits? Do you do covers of hip-hop chart toppers on the piano (or banjo)? What is it about you that sets you apart from other musicians? Maybe you’ve just really got an awesome voice. Whatever it is, hone in on it and deliver something great.
3) Connect with your audience
On YouTube, your audience is your biggest ally. Without them, there’s no one to watch your videos or get your music noticed, so pay attention to them! Enable comments on your channel and videos, accept friend requests, ask your viewers for song requests that they’d like you to cover or ask them to contribute to your new original song. Try letting your audience participate in your videos. Julia Nunes did a really fun video where she had her fans record videos of themselves lip syncing one of her songs and she incorporated all the clips into her music video for Binoculars. It was a great way for her audience to be a part of her music.
4) Branding and promotion
Take a few minutes to customize your channel. Fill out all the biographical information and make sure you provide some form of contact (someone might want to book you for a gig!). Upload a profile picture, upload a background image, highlight the subscribe button. If you’re on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. make sure you include those links on you channel and then promote your YouTube page via those sites. Are you trying to get more views on your videos? Put your YouTube channel’s link as your bio link on Twitter, set it as your Facebook status, email it to your grandma (she’ll be so proud!).
GYRS: What are your 3-4 favorite music videos on YouTube, NOT from a major label artist? Why?
Meghan: It’s really hard for me to pick favorites, but here are some videos of musicians who’ve caught my eye on YouTube.
Michael Jackson Medley Sung by Sam Tsui arranged by Kurt Schneider
This video pretty much speaks for itself as to why it’s great. It’s a creative, energetic, and it is well produced. It’s got over 5 million views for a reason.
Mrs. Officer (Lil Wayne Cover) by Brad Doggett ft. Corey Smith
Brad and Corey are actually the reason I got interested in musicians on YouTube. I used to manage a band that they were both in and saw the power of YouTube when promoting their music. What makes this and their other videos great is their acoustic adaptations to popular hip-hop songs.
With almost 151,000 subscribers on YouTube, Aj Rafael is the 28th most subscribed musician on YouTube of all-time. His channel features almost every genre, from R&B and Hip-hop covers to classical Disney tunes and catchy originals. Aj is a true musician who plays the guitar, the piano and has a strong voice. He collaborates frequently with other YouTube musicians (including current American Idol contestant, Andrew Garcia). These collaboration are a great way for his audience to discover new musicians, too.
L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole Cover
The videos of Julia Nunes are quirky and unique. She’s doesn’t just sing into the camera and call it a day. Her videos feature ukuleles, melodicas, hand-clapping, you name it- it’s probably there. Julia also does a really good job of engaging her fans (like I said earlier in this post), making them feel like they are on this musical journey with her.
Thanks Meghan for hanging out with us and shedding some insight into the world of YouTube. We see a lot of artists using it as a place to post, but not a place to interact like they would on Facebook or Twitter. The community on YouTube is really strong and you showed some amazing examples for us today. If you liked what Meghan shared, please go say hi and pitch her some fun videos that she needs to be aware of.
Tags: meghan mccormick, Music Marketing, youtube
Leave A Reply (8 comments So Far)
The comments are closed.
Debra Russell
692 days ago
What are the copyright issues when posting a cover of a song on youtube?
gregrollett
692 days ago
Hey Debra – that’s an awesome question and perfect timing as we just sent off an interview with an entertainment lawyer that deals with copyright issues. I hope he has a better answer than I do which is that “if you have someone telling you to take a video down you must be doing something right with your music and your marketing!”
That was definitely not legal advice and I look forward to getting the information from the source early next week. Thanks for the comment and have a great weekend.
Dave Huffman
690 days ago
There are loopholes to laws abound, but I’m almost 100% that if you are not selling or making money from the cover you posted, not much can be done as far as asking you to remove it.
Song melody/lyrics aside, I’m pretty sure you would “own” the “performance” of that song…
But like Greg says, maybe I just haven’t encountered a video or mp3 that was doing well enough to garner attention in that manner.
Either way, great stuff guys.
@davemhuffman
p.s. Have you heard of Boyce Avenue? They are probably one of the first bands I’ve noticed that used adaptations of cover songs to direct interest towards their original material.
Andy Rogers
690 days ago
Yep, doing the quirky covers thing is a great place to start as there are already people actively searching for those songs titles.
In fact Google will actually tell you that information at their keyword tool page.
Then it’s just a matter of getting in front of that traffic that already exists, rather than having to create interest from scratch.
Andy Rogers
http://www.ViralGigs.com
Will
690 days ago
This is great! While the ‘selling of music part’ might come naturally from people’s enjoyment of the YouTube videos, I thought it would be worth discussing the sales process (ie. what happens after they watch your video) which to me is critical even with a smaller following.
From YouTube you need to be putting links in your video descriptions where you could offer a free download or something in exchange for their email address, or send them to a Facebook fan page to become a fan. With email and Facebook you build a list and can send them updates in the future or you’re constantly in their news feed and minds. From email/Facebook you would build a relationship and trust providing useful, interesting posts and occasionally send them to products for purchase or make those links available somewhere.
You might also want to consider the Google partner program once you get more views because that can bring in revenue. I’ve made over $1000 on YouTube from my guitar lesson videos so every little bit helps!
Meghan McCormick (@MeghanKathleen)
686 days ago
Sorry for the late comments back y’all. I was out of town, then under the weather.
As far as copyright goes, I don’t have exact answers either, but I think Dave really hit home to the root of the issue. Most people who do covers are not trying to make money off of it, and more than once I’ve seen disclaimers to the effect of: “I do not own this video, I don’t claim to have rights to it…” That typically seems to work.
I haven’t heard of Boyce Avenue, but I’m going to check it out now.
@Will- That’s awesome that you’re leveraging the Google Partnership program. I got you e-mail. E-mailing you back now!
Ojo
685 days ago
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here. The copyright law does not have an exemption for whether or not someone is making money or not, or for whether or not someone posts a disclaimer. The copyright owner has the EXCLUSIVE rights to 1) Reproduce the work, 2) Distribute copies of the work, 3)Perform the work publicly (live or recorded), 4) Make a derivative work, and 5) Display the work publicly (this is more for the visual arts). As a result the copyright owner could ask violations to be taken down no matter what. Often they don’t though. I have a number of videos posted by others on youtube that I allow for various reasons. A Creative Commons License is one interesting way to be more chill about this and still protect the artist’s rights. Great job, Meghan!