This guest post was written by Aditya Mahesh, founder of AMBeat.com, a complete resource for entrepreneurs complete with advice articles, start-up profiles, interviews, news analysis, and more.
It was about eight months ago that I was talking with a friend of mine who had been rapping recreationally for a few years and had built up a small group of local fans for his work. His lyrics and beats were great, but he had never had access to a medium that would allow him to attract a larger audience and build up a serious fan base for his work.
His primary promotional technique was to distribute mixtapes and MP3 files to friends and family and encourage them to share it with everyone they knew. While his content was good enough to get him some traction in the community, this strategy never allowed him to reach an audience beyond a limited geographic area.
It was only once he began to promote his work online that he was able to start to gain traction in the area. The first video we created an uploaded to YouTube, a remix to the hit song “I Love College” by Asher Roth, took off amassing over 450,000 views and leading to requests for concerts, interviews, possible recording deals, and countless messages from new found fans. This is how we did it:
There are hundreds of up and coming songs released by unsigned artists on YouTube every hour. Most of these songs never attract more than a few dozen views. In order to get past this barrier, we had to do something different. A look at the industry showed that “I Love College” was a song that was quickly gaining popularity, but hadn’t quite reached mainstream media. Realizing the opportunity, we created a remix to the song and posted it on YouTube. While there wasn’t a lot of competition that this point, we knew we had to promote the video a little to get it to appear near the top of YouTube search results for “I Love College”.
One of the easiest ways to spread a video at first is to leverage social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. Seeing how most of our Facebook friends were college students, it was fairly easy to post links to the video on our friend’s profiles and have them spread around quickly through our personal network. You can also set up a page for yourself on Facebook and invite as many people to join as possible. (Invite all your friends and ask your close friends and family to invite all their friends)
Another very effective method is to find related forums and post links to your video. However, you have to be careful not to spam. Make sure your video is something the audience would be interested in and provide some background information on why people should watch it. Even though you are promoting your content, make it seem natural, not like a sales pitch.
It is important to get as many views as possible in the first 24 hours so that you can get your video on the “Most Viewed Page”. It may be difficult to get it on the main “Most Viewed Page”, but it is much easier to have your video featured on a specific category’s “Most Viewed Page”. This video was featured on the page for the subcategory Rap and Hip Hop under Music.
This allowed YouTube’s system to see that the video was related to “I Love College” and was something viewers were interested in. This allowed us to be ranked #2 in searches for “I Love College” behind the official video. The timing was perfect as it was just as the song began to get major radio play and the video amassed 100,000 views and then 200,000 views very quickly. Yet, YouTube search results are fickle and the video began to drop in ranking and eventually began to disappear and reappear from the first page. When this happened we had to take an alternate approach to keep the video growing.
While growth tapered off, we still amassed over 250,000 more views through our tags which allowed it to appear alongside more popular videos in the “related videos” sections, accepting video responses which placed a link to our video from other uploads, and continuing to comment which kept the discussion going and kept people talking about the video.
One thing we found after the process was that posting the video as a “video response” to a large related video was a good way to attract large quantities of targeted traffic.
The Results
To date the video has been viewed over 450,000 times and attracted over 575 comments. It was “favorited” 2000 times and was featured on Maxim.com. One of the things we did with the video was to put our phone number at the end of the video which has attracted hundreds of calls, mostly from new fans, but also from people interested in performing concerts, other artists interested in collaborating, and some possible production deals. Not bad for something which was simply a hobby and a video which was created with just a Macbook.
It was also the largest remix to “I Love College” on YouTube, which is especially remarkable considering remixes with well renowned rappers from Ludacris to Lil Wayne have been created.
While I know most of you may not be rappers, the situation is similar. Chances are you have quality content, but have trouble getting it out there. Video promotion is a great way to attract some publicity. As a few final recommendations, market to those you know through social networking and book marking websites in the first 24 hours to try and get on the “Most Viewed Page”. Always respond to comments and tag the videos so they are featured next to more popular related videos. As a last reminder, take a look at what is currently being talked about, or better yet will soon be talked about, in the industry and create a related video.
You can view the video below:
January 14, 2010 at 11:29 am
I was looking a case study like this, since I have a friend who is launching a song on youtube (for those who might want to watch it, this is the link, but I warn you that he sings rock in spanish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAz1_4pHIsU).
We started giving video responses, and got good traffic the first days, but then the owners of the related videos deleted the video response. So it is important to choose carefully which video you intent to respond
Regards,
July 19, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I Love College, great song
July 13, 2009 at 1:14 am
that is one if the dumbest strategies ever. all they did was help promote the actual artist that made the original song. If any one was really attempting to contact this guy for shows , its because they thought they were contacting Asher Roth. not to mention he’s wack!
Please do not do what these guys did. If u are going to do a freestyle to a song..do your own video. dont use the same shit. geesh
200,000 views for nothing lol
July 9, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Sounds cool for me lol, I should try this
July 7, 2009 at 8:32 am
I guess video promotion is the next big hit in the web space.I think the total online video space is around 17 billion or may be more then this.
July 5, 2009 at 9:38 am
Asher Roth sounds a bit like Eminem
July 5, 2009 at 9:38 am
This guy really took advantage of the viral possibilities..
July 1, 2009 at 7:51 am
That’s the power of the Internet, everyone has a chance to get noticed.
July 1, 2009 at 4:37 am
Wow – is this guy another cool Israeli? Seems like an Israeli name.
Who needs the American Idol tv show when you’ve got YouTube.
June 30, 2009 at 8:39 am
I really like it that you sometimes let other people write post here. Kind of bring new fresh air in here.
June 30, 2009 at 3:25 am
I like the video… I guess video promotion is the next big hit in the web space.
June 29, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Thanks for all the compliments guys, if you have any specific questions feel free to ask and I will get back to you as soon as possible
June 29, 2009 at 10:34 am
There’s no doubt some of the social media sites have changed how marketing efforts can be undertaken. Pretty nice article.
June 29, 2009 at 10:18 am
Thanks for sharing! I definitely had to pass this along to a few friends! Hopefully it can help their band promoting skills!
June 29, 2009 at 9:39 am
Pretty fascinating if you ask me.
June 29, 2009 at 6:48 am
I kinda like it! The story and the song
June 29, 2009 at 4:31 am
It’s great that young artists have a way to reach the masses if they know how to use the internet correctly. Let’s face it, talent shows happen once a year and, speaking from the UK, very few of them come to anything. Real talent is found when videos like this go viral because they are genuinely talented at what they do.
June 29, 2009 at 3:02 am
Video promotion has become a new trend
June 29, 2009 at 2:33 am
i think aditya mahesh …is a good writer, made a good point
June 29, 2009 at 1:05 am
Video marketing is one of the most powerful tool these days for VIRAL marketing. I have also found Aditya Mahesh’s few posts on Jogn Chow blog, he seems to be pretty interesting writer.
June 28, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Video marketing has always been very impactful and rewarding. I have not done too much of video marketing though, but of about 7-8 videos that I have released, 1 video gained popularity and is the sole biggest source of traffic to one of my minisites and I make a good amount from that site.
It indeed is powerful, but the time and effort that it takes to make a video is what drives me away from it.
July 1, 2009 at 4:50 am
What, you think those bicinni clad dancers are going to become celebrities now?
June 28, 2009 at 3:59 pm
DAMN! It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can become a celebrity with a little video marketing!
June 28, 2009 at 2:10 pm
very inspiring
June 28, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Video is direct comunication and one of the best tool for everyone with online bussiness!
This is top stuff
P.S.If you want to know how one man bought a Brand New $1.2 Million Home using ONLY affiliate commissions earned while he was unemployed go to event:http://tinyurl.com/lgt4em
June 28, 2009 at 9:15 am
Video promotion of website content is a very interesting idea; however, not everyone has a sweet looking nanny in a logo t-shirt like Shoemoney to feature in the vid…..
June 28, 2009 at 5:39 am
Great guide, not just for musicians or such, but for anyone using Youtube for promoting themselves, business, blog or whatever. Pay attention to targetting spesific category, use “keyworded” title to target spesific search and tag your video with tags on popular videos with similar topic (to get yourself to the related videos section).
June 28, 2009 at 2:36 am
As a music lover I am absolutely thrilled with the freedom of choice the internet brings. Anybody can get their work heard, and no more record companies censoring and filtering what music we listen to works for me.
June 28, 2009 at 12:08 am
I’ve only seen one other person on youtube that has a shot at making this work and its this guy named Ryan Knorr. He is has some pretty popular vids and when I found him a while back I was so amazed at his talent.
You can check out his youtube page here:
http://www.youtube.com/knorrby11
Seriously wow…
June 27, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Not surprising at all!
After hearing all rags to riches stories, this seems to a far cry.
June 27, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Very interesting.. that’s all I can really say
June 27, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Awesome post… thanks!! =) … we’re going to give it a go with our Electro Pop band STAARK … our singer (Kat Valerie) has an amazing voice and writes amazing songs and we want to see her get the success she deserves, but just haven’t been able to break through the crowd until now … thanks again for a great article.
June 27, 2009 at 4:38 pm
This ain’t no Paper Clique
June 27, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Nice story: THANKS
http://www.teratips.com/facebook-vs-twitter-infographic/
June 27, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Nice story. Innovation always leads to success!
June 30, 2009 at 8:43 am
Totally agree!
June 27, 2009 at 1:07 pm
New Innovation makes you successful in any field
June 27, 2009 at 11:22 am
When you have guest posts…Why does it say “by Jeremy Shoemeister” instead of having it by the person who wrote…It should say “Published by, Written by” instead…It confuses me…
June 27, 2009 at 6:11 pm
It’s probably because it’s physically published by Jeremy himself that’s why.
June 29, 2009 at 1:07 am
Well if you will have a close look at the starting of the post Shoe has already mentioned that it is being written by Aditya Mahesh. So in simple words to make you understand its is written by Aditya Mahesh and posted by Shoe …
June 27, 2009 at 10:23 am
Sounds pretty good! (in both ways, hehe) nice vid 2
June 27, 2009 at 10:19 am
Hmmm,…. so interesting when i read it.. Thanks for the information
June 27, 2009 at 7:33 am
Very good post and even better video.