YouTube can be a powerful force for music discovery and fan engagement, but most artists don’t know how to make the most of it. We can help
Let’s be honest: The music industry is divided on YouTube. The popular video platform is free to use and has spent a full decade being ranked as the best music discovery platform. However, YouTube has also come under fire for underpaying musicians.
A report from 2017 found that a musician hoping to earn minimum wage from YouTube alone would need at least 2.4 million video views per month. That view count is far above the number of streams required to make the minimum wage through Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or other services.
Another report from January 2022 found that YouTube pays an average of $0.002 per view to musicians. Only two services, Deezer ($0.0011) and Pandora ($0.00133 per stream), pay less.
Still, the music industry needs YouTube. The brand name is synonymous with online video, and everyone looking for video clips will come to YouTube before searching anywhere else. Nobody can deny YouTube’s popularity regardless of how you feel about its policies and royalty rates.
The same can be said for millions of music fans. Listeners will browse YouTube for official streams and videos before turning to other streaming services. To abandon the platform would mean alienating a massive potential audience.
In this Music Biz update, host James Shotwell tells artists to fight YouTube’s system by growing their channel with original, regularly scheduled content. He offers advice to improve your channel, promote your content, develop ideas, and set long-term goals. If you want 2022 to be the year your Youtube following skyrockets, then this video is for you.
Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.
Need help growing your YouTube channel but cannot access the video above? Don’t worry! Our friends at Hypebot recently published a great article on the same topic.
Despite everything that happened this year, 2020 taught us a lot about building a brand and audience on YouTube, the world’s premier video platform.
You can fill blog after blog with details about 2020 and all that went wrong in it, from the spread of the Coronavirus to the ensuing shutdown of practically everything related to entertainment that followed. You can write about the live music drought and how no one can agree on when the shows we bought tickets for way back in 2019 may actually happen. You can complain about the stars who left completed albums on shelves because they feared what might happen if they released music during a pandemic. Unfortunately, you can find countless examples of artists using their platform to spread misformation about everything from COVID-19 to the 2020 presidential election. This year is as messy as any year on record, and we are happy to be leaving it behind later this week.
But before we leave 2020 behind us, we think it is important also to recognize the good. We saw record client growth, despite a lack of releases from major labels. We spoke with and learned from people in dozens of countries at all hours of the day. We shared our problems with others, and more often than not, they shared theirs right back. We grew closer as an industry because, for once, everyone was going through the same thing at the same time.
As a company, Haulix spreads its message of hope and music business education through various channels. We have two podcasts, a blog, a live panel series, and a YouTube channel. That last one, which we call Music Biz, grew in leaps and bounds throughout 2020. Our audience swelled to more than 2,000 subscribers, which marks a 300% growth compared to 2019. We shared more than a hundred videos on topics such as music business education, finding careers in music, marketing on social media, and what scams are most likely to trick young artists. We did all of this to help people and build a community. Hopefully, we did both well.
In this Music Biz update, James Shotwell shares lessons we’ve learned about establishing a YouTube brand. He also looks to the future, outlining goals and hopes for 2021. We have a lot of work ahead, and we sincerely hope you’ll join us for the journey.
YouTube has dramatically expanded its Analytics for Artists tools, including mobile support and enhanced audience-interaction statistics.
Data is the name of the game in business today. With the vast majority of engagement and interaction happening online, especially during the pandemic, those getting ahead are doing so by studying their analytics. Most platforms offer musicians so level of insight into how fans are interacting with their art, but YouTube’s latest development is leaving many competitors in the dust.
YouTube unveiled an upgraded Analytics for Artists program this week. The rollout included a short video and a release published under the YouTube for Artists banner. Check out the clip below:
Analytics for Artists, now in YouTube Studio, provides a new and improved view of an artist’s catalog on YouTube. Analytics for Artists will be available for all Official Artist Channels and provide access to a unique set of features that will equip artists and their teams with the knowledge they need to make the most informed and strategic release plans.
What can you expect from Analytics For Artists:
Understand Your Audience: The new ‘Total Reach’ feature gives artists and their teams the most comprehensive view of how their music is reaching audiences across YouTube. This includes videos uploaded to their official channels in addition to those created and shared by fans, tastemakers, and collaborators that contain most of the artist’s recordings.
See How Your Music Inspires Fan Creation: The new ‘Song Detail’ feature makes it easy for artists to see all of the videos that have been created for a specific song within their catalog and contain most of their song recording. This content created by users benefits artists of all sizes and is largely incremental to views of their official content on YouTube. On average, the top 1,000 artists on YouTube get over 20% of their chart eligible views from videos created by users. From official uploads to fan-created lyric videos, covers, dance videos, and more, Song Detail shows all of the ways in which fans are enjoying and engaging with any specific track, all in one place.
Comprehensive and Actionable Data: Analytics for Artists is home to the most robust set of audience and performance insights you can´t find anywhere else. Understand how your catalog is distributed across the entire YouTube ecosystem and how your audience engages with it: impressions, clicks, demographics, retention, and engagement data. It’s all here and now in real-time.
Easy Access to Real-Time Insights: In addition to desktop, artists can now easily access these new insights on the YouTube Studio Mobile app, enabling them to get data and notification updates, in real-time, whether they are on the road or in the studio. Having the most up-to-date information at your fingertips will help with prompt and informed decision making.
What makes YouTube’s new developments so impressive is how it show’s the company’s understanding of its unique ecosystem. Unlike Spotify or Apple Music, anyone can upload their favorite song to YouTube. The new tools crawl the depths of the platform to provide insight into the ways an artist’s creative output inspires others. That kind of information can completely change a musician’s approach to marketing and fan engagement in meaningful ways.
YouTube, one of the most popular destinations for music discovery and consumption, is citing huge 2019 payouts to change the conversation around its notoriously low royalty rates.
In a quarterly blog post released this week, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki praised her company’s relationship with the music industry. “YouTube offers twin engines for revenue with advertising and subscribers,” she wrote. “Paying out more than $3 billion to the music industry last year from ads and subscriptions.”
YouTube recently announced $15.5 billion in ad-supported revenue for 2019. Before you start believing the company gave nearly 20% of that money to the music business, take a moment to read Wojcicki’s comments again. The $3 billion paid to the industry is from a combination of ads and subscriptions (meaning YouTube premium subscriptions, which now number above 20 million worldwide).
That said, the $3 billion mentioned in Wojcicki’s report is pretty stunning. According to calculations published by Music Business Worldwide, the 2019 payouts account for one-quarter of YouTube’s lifetime payments to the music industry. MBW believes YouTube has overtaken or is close to overtaking Apple Music as the industry’s second-largest digital partner (behind Spotify).
These numbers are huge, but they are nothing compared to the video consumption rates YouTube has shared in recent years. In 2018, YouTube claimed that “more than 1 billion music fans come to YouTube each month to be part of music culture and discover new music.” In June 2019, a report came out claiming that music videos were watched just under two trillion times on YouTube in 2018, representing 20% of total views on the platform. $3 billion is a lot of money, but is it enough to represent one-fifth of the total consumption on the platform?
Wojcicki also shared the following insights about YouTube’s evolving relationship with the music business:
We’re also partnering with artists to support and amplify their work through every phase of their career. Dua Lipa was in YouTube’s first-ever Foundry program — our initiative to develop independent music acts. Justin Bieber and Billie Eilish have built massive global audiences by directly connecting and engaging with fans on YouTube. At just 18 years old, Billie is now one of the world’s biggest stars with five recent Grammy wins. And from its early days, YouTube has been a home for artists who found creative ways to use the platform to help expand their reach. In 2005, OK Go had one of the first viral hits with their music video, “A Million Ways.” Fans posted their own versions of the boy band-inspired choreography, and OK Go decided to make it official with a dance challenge on YouTube. We continue to see unknown artists make it big with a single viral hit. Last year, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” became a YouTube phenomenon and the longest-leading single atop the Billboard Hot 100.
YouTube has long been criticized for its notoriously low royalty rates on views, but the numbers from 2019 show that image may be changing for the better. We’ll bring you more on the platform’s relationship with the industry as soon as additional details become available.
Following the lead of Twitch and similar live-streaming platforms, YouTube will soon allow viewers to support content creators directly.
YouTube is the largest video platform in the world, and it often ranks as the most popular service for music and content discovery. However, the service has repeatedly come under fire for its notoriously low royalty payments. YouTube pays less per view than Spotify, Tidal, or Apple Music pays per song stream. It pays less than virtually anyone, in fact, but the company is testing a new tool that may offer relief to content creators.
Applause, which is now in the testing phase of release, allows views to contribute to content creators directly. The idea is very similar to the micro-transactions available to viewers of Twitch streams. On that platform, Twitch viewers can purchase ‘bits’ with real money. Viewers can spend bits in a variety of ways. Creator channels can offer custom emojis, special channel statuses, and more for bits. Twitch pays creators one cent for every bit they earn from their viewers in a month.
Youtube’s Applause is less transparent. It is unclear how much creators make off the contributions to their channel, which is upsetting creators currently involved in the testing phase of the product rollout. It’s clear YouTube hopes this development will off-set criticism for its royalty payments, but the company will first need to provide clarity on the exchange rate.
Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and the USA are on the beta test shortlist. You may see an ‘Applaud’ button under participating content creator videos. Clicking the button offers a pop-up to see how much an applause costs. The U.S. pop-up appears to offer a standard $2 donation option.
There are no limits on the number of donations or Applause that can be given to a single video. YouTube also guarantees that personal details are not shared with the creator and are not made public. That seems rife for abuse, right?
Purchase limits for the YouTube Applause feature are in place to prevent abuse. Users can only spend $500 a day or $2000 per week Super Chats, Super Stickers, and Applause. These payments are tips to the creator and cannot be refunded.
Want the benefits of a music business education without the debt of student loans? YouTube is the answer.
YouTube channels are the new blogs. Actually, YouTube channels are better than most blogs. The content creators working on the video platform today can convey complex information in entertaining ways that create a more enjoyable learning experience for everyone. Whether you’re hoping to be the next music superstar or hope to work in the industry, YouTube is filled with experts offering the benefits of their experience and education without any of the cost or hard times.
For virtually nothing, anyone on the planet can access more hours of music business guides and criticism than any person could hope to devour in one lifetime. We haven’t tested that theory, but we’re pretty sure it’s accurate.
There are more than enough content creators releasing quality videos regularly on YouTube for everyone to find the channel(s) that suit their learning style the best. We could not hope to bring together all the channels worth checking out, but we have gathered a handful of picks that we believe to be worthy of your time. They offer everything from music criticism to history lessons, industry stories, and essential step-by-step guides to navigating the music business as a whole. Enjoy!
Finn McKenty is more punk rock than you. Lucky for us, he’s sharing his knowledge of punk and all things alternative with anyone willing to give him attention. Punk Rock MBA offers an in-depth look at the history of punk, rock, metal, and numerous niche areas of alternative/underground music, as well as lessons learned from important moments in music history. Most videos McKenty releases play like short documentaries, each with his unique perspective on a moment in music that more mainstream publications often overlook. He also recruits seasoned professionals to weigh in on the latest music from aspiring musicians, as well as commentary on the recent industry trends that may be shaping the future of the business.
McKenty is the perfect entry point for anyone new to YouTube, and also those hoping to improve their careers as musicians. As he explains on his channel’s about page, his goal is to offer “information, inspiration, and hopefully entertainment for people who want to live life on their own terms.”
Some of you may be questioning how a music critic ended up on a list intended for industry professionals. The answer is simple: Anthony Fantano (aka The Needle Drop) understands the digital generation. Unlike many of his industry careers, Fantano has found a way to connect with audiences in an increasingly saturated marketplace by sharing his informed opinions on a wide variety of music. His influence is so great, in fact, that numerous musicians have referenced his work in their own creative endeavors. For example, you may have seen Fantano’s animated cameo in the “Old Town Road” remix video from Lil Nas X featuring Young Thug and Mason Ramsey.
There are ten-thousand articles claiming that professional criticism is dead in the age of social media, but The Needle Drop is proof those hot takes are wrong. Fantano’s reviews often garner thousands of reviews within minutes of going live, and he’s using that platform to expose people to music they may otherwise have never given a chance. Anyone hoping to influence others through their work in music would be wise to follow The Needle Drop because no one else in this business has done nearly as good of a job building a community around their voice as Anthony Fantano has accomplished with his channel.
James Shotwell wants to do everything before his time in music is done. After opening a venue in his hometown with a grant from the city council at fourteen, Shotwell tried his hand at everything from touring to promotion before he even graduated college. Since then, he’s written for some of the biggest publications in music (including Alternative Press and Rolling Stone), ran a record label, traveled with Warped Tour, spoken at major industry events (SXSW, LAUNCH Music Conference, Music Biz), and spread the word about the power of promotional distribution.
On Music Biz, which is powered by Haulix, Shotwell shares his knowledge on how professionals and musicians alike can build a successful career in the entertainment business. He also explains the stories behind the biggest headlines in the music industry, as well as in-depth conversations with a wide array of industry professionals.
Sean Taylor is a music branding and marketing expert who, according to his website, is‘working to build a platform that closes the knowledge gap for aspiring artists’ On his Youtube-channel, Sean shares information about branding, growing your career and building a fan base. His focus usually revolves around the hip-hop and rap genres, but the lessons shared can easily be applied to any area of music.
What we love about Taylor’s content is his energy and the way he often utilizes the knowledge of other industry professionals to make the most of the topics he discusses. Whether that means pulling content from his own podcast or referencing quotes made by musicians in other interviews, Taylor grounds his lessons in examples pulled from the real world. That approach makes it clear that anyone can succeed in this business as long as they are willing to put in the work required to get ahead.
Talk about a music business education without the burden of student debt. Berklee Online is the official YouTube channel of Boston’s iconic Berklee College of Music. With world-renowned faculty and unparalleled networking opportunities, Berklee Online brings the best of Berklee to students around the globe, for free.
More than any other channel on this list, Berklee Online offers an education portal for those unable or unwilling to pay for school. They do post about courses available through them, but the majority of the videos offer industry advice and analysis from experts that other content creators could never reach. The content shared by Berklee Online is polished, informative, and above all entertaining. You don’t want to miss out.
Despite being one of the lowest paying streaming platforms, artists worldwide can see their careers change overnight through YouTube.
The study by Pex showcases categories on YouTube that are dominant drivers of growth and engagement for the platform. The study examined the performance of publicly available videos on YouTube for a period ending December 31, 2018. The results reveal that YouTube has over 5.2 billion videos, 1 billion hours of content, and 29 trillion views.
To put that figure into perspective, it would take 41,666,667 days of nonstop watching to view everything that was available on YouTube when the study was completed. Even more content is available now.
According to the data Pex shared, YouTube saw around 621 hours of content uploaded every minute in 2018, or roughly 10 hours of content every second. That’s even higher than the 500-hour estimate shared by CEO Susan Wojcicki earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, the length of these videos has increased each year since the restriction lifted.
Youtube videos are getting longer, and ads are largely to blame.
The reason for the change of the average video length is likely the result of YouTube’s advertising deal with creators. YouTube shares a portion of the revenue for ads shown during the video with that clip’s creator, but the service limits how many ads can be displayed based on the length of the accompanying video. Longer videos, therefore, equal more ads, which means more money for creators (even if their viewers are frustrated).
Gaming is the fastest-growing category on YouTube thanks to the popularity of services such as Twitch, but music still has the lead.
The average length of a music video on YouTube is 6.8 minutes, with an average of 2,411 views per minute and 16,397 views per video. That’s compared to the gaming category’s average of 24.7 minutes per video with only 121 views per minute and 2,987 views per video.
Music is the category with the shortest videos, but it generates the most views per average video. The music category received 20% of all total views on YouTube last year — but makes up only 5% of YouTube’s content. Music and Entertainment are the two YouTube categories that deliver the highest returns, but YouTube doesn’t want you to know that because both entertainment and music videos often require the company to pay royalties. YouTube does not want to share revenue anymore than it needs to, which is likely why the streaming giant has been investing heavily into original content.
The less YouTube needs major labels and movie studios, the better, at least for YouTube.
The only thing worse than not being able to listen to music all the time is having to stop the music you’re currently enjoying to find the next song you’ll play. Streaming services have traditionally solved this solved this problem by anchoring the music player to the bottom of the application or mobile app, but video platforms are another story. On most platforms, to move from one video to the next users must accept a playlist determined by algorithms or leave the clip they’re watching in search of whatever will follow. That action creates gaps in the listening experience, and in the case of views, the decision to leave a clip can mean the difference between whether or not your enjoyment of the track counts toward the total view count.
Google, who owns YouTube, found a solution to these gaps earlier this year when it introduced a ‘mini-player’ to the YouTube Android app. The update created a picture-in-picture experience that allows those with a YouTube Premium subscription to continue watching their favorite videos while simultaneously searching for other content on the app. Now, that same functionality is being made available to desktop users.
Hover over the video player to see a new “mini player” button, which allows you to continue watching your video while you browse YouTube.
The video appears in the bottom right-hand section of the screen and cannot be moved around, but users are free to browse YouTube while watching the video. The mini-player also comes with controls when you hover over the miniaturized player. Users can click an ‘X’ on the player to close it.
Studies have shown that YouTube is one of the main reasons many music consumers refuse to pay for services such as Spotify and Apple Music. A report released in April of this year revealed that 55% of people claim to discover new music through YouTube or similar video platforms. The same report noted that 85% of YouTube users claim their primary reason for engaging with the platform was music consumption.
With the release of their mini-player, YouTube is actively working to increase video views for all creators. More views are good for everyone, and this tool will (hopefully) aide in discovery by giving people fewer reasons to click off something they might not initially enjoy.
We have more tips for navigating the world of YouTube in our archives. We also have additional content on the subject coming soon. Follow Haulix on Twitter and Facebook to ensure you never miss any valuable advice.
