Get More YouTube Views – Tips for Musicians and Creatives

I am nearing the end of my YouTube project! This post is about *after* you’ve released your video. How can you get more views? My last post was about how to market your videos, so this post will focus on outreach. You’ll want to contact specific people to help you get more views, but who should you contact? And how? Fear not friends, I’m going to walk you through it!

More Marketing Tips for YouTube Videos

The goal here is to find people who are interested in your topic and to have the right audience. One of the best, but admittedly scariest, methods is to reach out to them and ask them to promote your content for free.

Before contacting them, make SURE you’ve done marketing on the video (see previous post) so that you have “social proof.” You can have friends and family interact with the video also, but I caution you with this. Make sure their comments are worthwhile (not “love u hunny! luv mom”)

“Who Can I Contact? I don’t know anyone!”

I know, this can be a daunting step. I am the shyest, most sensitive, introvert of all introverts and if *I* can do it, you absolutely can. I’m going to give you some ideas and show you real times when this worked for me.

If you’re scared to do this but want to try anyway, tweet me and I can give you support!

1). Contact Brands or People You’ve Mentioned

Last year, I did a project about Cupping Therapy for Singers. I did this without contacting the company or asking them for help up front, I just went and did the project. Here is the video if you want to see it.

After I posted this, I realized they might like to see what I’ve done, so I sent them the link to the post. They liked it so much they sent me more free cups. They also corrected something I did wrong in my first video,

Of course this is no guarantee that someone you mention will give you free stuff or promote you. However, it’s worth a shot! If you love a brand, maybe write a song about it and send it to them. If you use something often, mention it in a video and send it to them. Don’t think of it as ‘selling out,’ it’s simply showing people things that you love and getting some publicity or swag in return. It may have been selling out 100 years ago when people became millionaires from music, but those days are long gone, friends. Embrace the present!

Making response videos are also a good idea. If a YouTuber talks about a topic you’re interested in, why not make a response and send it to them? Just remain friendly because people won’t want to respond or support people who aren’t nice. It’s fine if you disagree, just state your case kindly!

2). Contact People You Admire

Without a ton of social proof, you’re unlikely to get a response from Ariana Grande or Max Martin. However, look around you for other people you look up to. Would they be willing to work with you?

Earlier this year, I wanted to see if crystal therapy would do anything for singers. I didn’t want to just try this without help from an expert, so I contacted someone I greatly admire. Not only did she respond, she helped me put together a huge project that I very much enjoyed. It was a 6-part series and I discovered that yes, crystal therapy can in fact work for singers.

Keep in mind, the worst they can say is “no,” and if they do, you’re no worse off than you were before.

3). Contact People Who Post Similar Things

I get this often on my blog. People see that I’ve linked to articles about certain things (let’s use music lessons for children as an example) and they write to ask if I would link to their similar blog or video also. Most of the time I will, unless I can’t for contractual reasons or if I don’t think the link is a good fit. But you can try this!

In my video below, I gave the example of a cover video. Let’s say you do a cover of an artist’s song. Do a search for “Artist name’s fan blogs” and you’ll find a list of the top-rated ones. There are fan blogs for pretty much everything out there, so chances are you’ll find at least one! Write them a friendly message asking if they would consider checking out your video and perhaps posting a write-up of it. If you’re cool about it and they like you, you might have a shot!

There are paid ways to find these people, but I haven’t used any of them. They can be quite expensive, but perhaps worth it if you are willing to put in the work to contact everyone. Some examples are Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, or Moz.

These will show you what other resources link to similar content (i.e. if you have a video about vocal warmups, you’ll go to these sites and find out what other sites link to warmups. You’ll then contact those sites).

4). Contact Artists You Cover

Obviously, this one is a long shot. But why not give it a try? You’ll want to make sure you have the rights to cover the song because some artists can be testy about this. You could also contact the people who work with them, such as their producers or mix engineers. I wouldn’t expect much from them because they’re obviously busy, but if you have an awesome cover they may like it or give you a shout-out on social media.

Hint: Instead of asking them for a tweet or post, try asking for specific feedback. If you struggled with something in the cover, ask them to review it and get advice on how they would improve. People are more willing to help if there’s something they can do specifically, and most people are willing to give advice if asked.

I need to stress though, please do not spam or harass industry professionals! This goes for anyone you choose to contact in this post, but it’s especially important to remain professional and likable. The music industry is surprisingly small and you never know who you may encounter later in your career.

“This seems like too many people to contact, I’m overwhelmed!”

I get it, it’s a lot. I definitely don’t think you should do this with every video, that would be overkill. It’s worth it if you have a new music video and you’re trying to grow your channel though! A tip from the class I’m taking is to create a spreadsheet of your contacts. This will allow you to see who you’ve already contacted, if and when they responded, and what their response was. It may be too much, so go at your own pace!

Here is my video this week where I give an overview of this post:

So what do you think? Will you give any of these a try? Have you already done any of these? How did they work out? Let us know in the comments!