- YouTube is awash with millions of artists vying
for a minute of the viewing public's time and interest.
So how does the emerging artist
cut through the noise to get noticed on YouTube?
I've got many of the answers coming right up.
- [Woman] Sound check.
Check one, check two.
(crowd cheering)
- Good day there, welcome back to Voice Essentials.
My name is Doctor Dan,
and I'm a contemporary singing voice specialist.
Here on my channel, I have over 400 learn to sing videos,
so if you're keen to get the most out of your singing voice,
then I'd love for you to subscribe
and join our ever-growing Voice Essentials community.
Many of my subscribers upload videos
of themselves singing to YouTube,
so today I wanna help you get more positive views
and reviews on your YouTube videos,
as well as offer some helpful tips designed
to build resilience around your brand.
We're going to be looking at five key areas
of YouTube success today.
One, know yourself, two, know your audience,
three, build your community, four, love your haters,
and five, do your hard yards.
All of these points are crucial to your success, but all
of these aspects hang off the first one, know yourself.
Did you notice that I referred to your brand just before?
Like it or not, you are a brand.
Right now, you might not be an overly memorable one,
but you are a brand nonetheless.
In the excellent book, Primal Branding,
Patrick Hanlon writes, certainly there have been
remarkable products in the past, worthy causes,
and persons with extraordinary talent, but for some reason,
they fell short in the public imagination.
What YouTube and other social media platforms like it
have taught us is the world is not short of talented people.
A day doesn't go past when I don't see a human being
doing something remarkable in my Facebook feed.
Talent just isn't enough to cut through the noise.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say,
talent is merely the entry point
to hop on the rollercoaster.
If you are going to capture the public imagination,
you need to offer them something unique.
Fortunately, you have something unique to offer, you.
Just like every TV talent show contestant,
you have a back story.
Granted, some back stories have broader appeal than others,
but rest assured with over five billion videos
being viewed every day on YouTube,
there are people out there who will resonate
with you and your story.
The key is to know yourself.
Who are you as an artist?
What genres do you like to sing?
Do you sing originals, covers or new arrangements of covers?
There are no wrongs here if you know how
to focus your brand and zone in on your niche.
My dictionary defines niche as a specialized
but profitable corner of the market.
Specialized but profitable.
Now it's necessary at this point in the video that I outline
that not everyone is uploading singing performance videos
to YouTube to make money, and that's okay.
But if you are, then I highly recommend
the counter-intuitive wisdom of going niche.
Part of being a niche artist is about knowing your audience.
For example, if you're a folk singer
with a 1960's free love kind of vibe,
then you need to know how to connect
with the baby boomer generation.
That's not to say that there aren't any 16-year olds
who will love your material as well,
but much of your audience will be 60 plus who like
to reminisce about their teenage years five decades ago.
Of course, the age of your audience
and a myriad of other factors will influence
how you shoot your video as well as your production style.
So, if you are shooting performance videos
aimed at pre-schoolers,
then bright saturated colors are advisable
whereas teenagers may engage more with darker hues.
As you can see, knowing your audience
has a significant influence on what you choose to upload.
Once you know your audience,
you can start to get to know your community.
Not everyone who watches your videos
will subscribe to your channel or even like your videos.
But the people who do are saying,
hey, I like what you're doing enough to become a subscriber.
They're saying, I want to be a part of what you are doing.
As you begin to gather subscribers,
you have the opportunity to form a community.
Hanlon writes, that community can surround a product
or service, a personality, a social or political cause,
an internal organization, even a civic community.
Properly managed, the primal construct
can help you create a belief system
that results in a group of evangelists
committed to advocating for you through thick and thin.
And trust me when I say,
you will need advocates who will back you
through thick and thin because if you choose
to upload your singing performances to YouTube,
you will attract trolls and haters.
One way to avoid the haters is
to disallow comments on your videos, but I don't advise this
because it also kills off interaction with your community.
Instead, I encourage you to learn to love your haters.
In Primal Branding, Hanlon calls haters,
pagans or nonbelievers.
He writes, in order to have the yin of believers
you must also have the yang of nonbelievers.
Part of saying who you are and what you stand for
is also declaring who you are not
and what you don't stand for.
Believe it or not, haters help you to do this better
than any other mechanism or method.
Now, this is not to say
that some of the criticism you'll receive won't sting.
Indeed, at times it will hit you where it hurts most,
but this is all part of the online game.
If you don't feel you're ready for harsh critique,
then uploading singing performance videos
to your YouTube channel may not be for you just yet.
It's also important to note that criticism,
although sometimes harsh and hateful,
can be used to fuel your improvement.
Some of my harshest critics here
on Voice Essentials channel have also provided me
with my best lessons for improving my videos.
It's never easy to read hateful remarks,
but I choose to compost the crappy comments
and make fertilizer for future uploads.
We've got one more super important area to discuss
that will enhance your singing performance videos,
but before we do, please take a moment
to hit the thumbs up button
if you're enjoying today's video.
By now you've figured out this is no smooth ride.
But knowing yourself, knowing your audience,
building your community and loving your haters,
is all to no avail if you're not prepared
to do your hard yards.
This is not a sprint.
This race is a long-distance run.
In fact, I'd describe it more as a triathlon than a marathon
because you need to be able to do
more than just the music to be successful.
To do well on YouTube,
you need to add at least two more disciplines,
production and promotion.
We don't have time to deep-dive into these two subjects now
but suffice to say, you are going to have
to refine your video production skills
as well as your audio recording chops.
All the YouTube gurus will tell you
that your audio quality must be excellent,
and in 2018 and beyond,
your visual edits need to be excellent also.
Once you've worked tirelessly on polishing your production,
get ready to learn the art of self-promotion.
This can be hard for many artists because it requires
an unashamed putting forward of oneself to the world,
and in doing so, it exposes the artist to rejection.
It's worth noting that if it were easy,
everyone would be doing it, but it's not easy.
Part of the promotion process will be learning
about other social media platforms, like Facebook
and Instagram, that you can use
to leverage broader awareness of your content.
Finally, I cannot stress this enough,
get ready to upload regularly and consistently.
The YouTube algorithm responds better
to content creators who produce new
and excellent content consistently,
and your community will respond well
to a regular schedule of uploads.
Also, learn the art of batching your video recording
and production and then schedule a weekly release
at the same time each week.
As we close, allow me to highly recommend the book
I've been referencing throughout the video,
it's over here somewhere, Primal Branding by Patrick Hanlon.
YouTube themselves set this book
as a required reading for their creator academy.
I'll leave an affiliate link
in the description section below
so you can get your own copy.
I also suggest you check out my mate Tim Schmoyer
and his channel, Video Creators,
for more helpful tips about how to run a YouTube channel.
But for now, I'm Doctor Dan, sing well.