How to use YouTube to improve your online music presence

This is a beginner tutorial for those that are looking for ways improve online presence using YouTube. If you are not actively using YouTube as part of your online music marketing strategy, then you are missing a lot of opportunities that can help you in succeeding your music career. The following steps can get you started quickly:

Step1.) You signed up for a Google account. This will automatically grants you a YouTube account which is required before you can upload videos, etc.

Step2.) Make some original music videos of your music performance. To be very effective, try making music videos that showcase your core talent such as singing, playing guitars, music production, audio mixing or even audio mastering etc. It can be your original song or cover song.

But I suggest you put more work in your originals if you are marketing yourself as a singer-songwriter/original artist and not just a singer/vocalist. Also due to some recent licensing restrictions in YouTube; refrain from using copyrighted sound recording as part of your video production unless if you are granted a license to use it. So it’s best to perform live with a guitar or piano accompaniment and don’t use any copyrighted music along it.

Live music performance in videos is a great way to show some proof of your talent as a musician. It works best if you really have the talent in singing or playing instruments. You should also have great charisma/honesty in front of the camera; of course the quality of the audio and video matters. You should invest buying some gears that could help improve the quality of your audio and video recording.

Configuring for high quality audio and video can be tricky for beginners but below are some suggestions:

a.) Invest in high quality recording gears if you seriously need quality results. To record your audio, use either an external USB or Firewire audio interface and connect it to your computer. Check out this list if you are looking for the cheapest 24-bit/96KHz USB audio interface.

You do not need to build a high end recording studio just for producing YouTube videos. You can simply convert your PC into a recording studio. You do not need a high end nearfield monitors and you can still use your existing computer speakers since you are not mixing or mastering music. For camera, shoot at HD (High Definition) and use HD camera such as the Flip UltraHD as it provides the best video quality acceptable by YouTube:

Do not use cheap/low end web cameras, they do not produce quality video results.

Connect all your hardware for audio and video. You need software that can synchronize your video and audio elements. If you are on the tight budget but still want great results you can use Reaper.

For detailed video on how to do this, you can watch this video tutorial.

b.) Now you have produced a great video, it’s time to upload it to YouTube and start the marketing work.

Step3.) The first step in the marketing work is to gain friends. Start with your own friends in school, work, community, organization, etc. Using other social networking tools like Facebook; this will make your work easier. Provide them the URL where they can watch your video and kindly request them to subscribe to your channel so that in the future they will be updated easily if you add some new music videos or have some news.

Depending on your hard work and the quality of your music video, the good news can spread like wild fire. No one knows the video might become viral and would be viewed by a lot of audiences. Your buzz will then start to grow and you will start to earn a lot of fans and subscribers. The good thing with YouTube is that there are lots of users that are constantly looking for new and fresh music.

Step4.) Support your video with professional sound recordings of your original music. This be either be an album or single. I would suggest doing this if you already made a lot of buzzes and is confident that you can earn money from the sales of your music.

A simple guitar/piano and vocal arrangement is enough. If you are technology savvy you can create your recording studio and upgrade some gears like replacing your PC speakers with standard studio monitors. You do not need to hire a band or spend a lot of money. This is important because a lot of your fans and subscribers in YouTube will ask you where they can buy your music.

Step5.) Let your music available for purchase in Cdbaby or in another digital music distribution outlet. Then send message to all of your YouTube subscribers, fans and contacts where they can buy your music. Depending on your hard work, dedication and talent; you can make a living out of this way.

Sharing your Original Music in Youtube

You might need to share your music in You Tube and the only way is to convert the audio (MP3 file for example) to video. The good thing is that Windows movie maker is a bundled-free application in your Windows operating system.

To get started, follow the steps below:

Step1: Go to Start – All Programs – click Windows Movie Maker.
Step2: Go to View and click “Task Pane”.
Step3: Under “Capture Video”, click “Import audio or music”.
Step4: Find the audio file in your Windows hard drive. Make sure you are using a much higher audio resolution for best quality. The recommended is 320Kbps MP3 constant bit rate encoded.
Step5: Try clicking the play button to hear the music.

Step6: So far your video does not contain any images or background. This is where you can add pictures, images which will “synchronized” with your audio file. First, create a folder in your desktop and name it as “pictures”. Put all your images to that folder.

Make sure you own rights to your images, music and everything in your project. This will prevent any possibility of copyright infringement.

Step7.) You then need to import your pictures to your movie project. Under “Capture Video” in movie maker, click “Import pictures”. Browse to the picture folder that you have created in step6. Select all pictures (selecting one picture then press Control- A). All pictures will be highlighted after selection. Click Import.

Step8.) Let’s formally add the audio file to your timeline. Under collections, right click on the MP3 audio file and click “Add to Timeline”.

Step9.) Now for the images, right click each of them and click “Add to Timeline”. Make sure you do this for all of your images.

Step10.) Examine your timeline to make sure all images fit the entire audio file timeline. In this example, the images still did not fit the entire audio file timeline such as shown in this screenshot:

Inside the red box are the missing images.

Step11.) You can drag, adjust and fit all images in the audio file timeline. To do this just select any images in the timeline, click and drag it to adjust its length.

As you see all images now fits cleanly in the audio timeline.

Step12.) You can select each image in the timeline. Right click on it and add video effects if you want. You can test the video effects by playing the video.

Step13.) Select “Make titles or credits”. You can customize your title and credits easily. You can preview it by selecting it and clicking the play button.

Step14.) Its time to save your project, go to File – Save Project, then assign a project name.
Step15.) Finally when everything has been done, click “Save to my Computer” under “Finish Movie”. Assign a file name of your video and path to save.
Step16.) Just select the “Best quality for playback on my computer” (recommended)
Step17.) After Windows movie maker successfully creates the video file out of your audio. You can watch it using Windows media player to see if it works according to your plan.
Step18.) Now that everything has been created, you can now upload the video to You Tube and share it to everyone.

Below is a sample video of my originally written/produced classical piece “Viola Sonata in Gb Major-First Movement”. Take note that the raw audio file is only 320kbps MP3 and then I use Windows movie maker to convert the audio into a video file with images.

Content last updated on August 18, 2012