Question: I’ve been searching out a heap of different blogs to find some creative ways my band can use YouTube to help grow our fan base. Any ideas?
Answer: I want to share with you a little-used technique that I learned from Bob Baker that has proven to be a powerful way to find your ideal fans and much more of them through YouTube — if used correctly.
I’m pretty sure that most bands out there haven’t considered this idea yet. But I hope you do, because the rewards have been great for people I know that have tested it out.
Before we get down to it, I just have one request – reserve judgment till the end because this strategy involves playing and recording cover songs.
Ouch! I can hear you already asking yourself, why is this guy talking about covers?
I’m sure you’re an original artist and you probably have dozens of fresh songs the world has never heard, so why on earth am I talking about cover songs?
Hold on.
I agree with you.
But there’s something about cover songs you should know.
It’s something that most bands and musicians have never even thought of so bear with me.
The basic premise is to record a cover and publish it on YouTube as “link bait” to strategically lure your ideal fans into your world and make them aware of you.
Let me explain a little more. Say you’re in a rock band (or whatever style you play), and you record a simple video playing a popular song by a bigger more popular artist in your genre.
At the beginning of the clip look into the camera and say something like, “Hi, I’m xxxxxx, from a band called xxxxxx in xxxxxxxx. Even though we write and perform a lot of our own material, a lot of people seem to think I /we sound like xxxxxxx. I’ll let you decide for yourself …”
Then proceed to play the song acoustically and wow people with your presence, attitude, voice and interpretation of the song.
As the video progresses, this text should appear along the bottom: “To hear more of our music, visit www.xxxxxx.com”
At the end of the video, you could say something like,
“Thanks for listening. If you’re a xxxxxx fan, like I am, I think you’ll enjoy our original songs, which you can sample right now at xxxxxx.com”
To make this even more powerful, add: “If you subscribe to our mailing list on my web site today, I’ll send you three free downloads of our songs.”
This way, you’re not just attracting attention; you’re also converting some of these people into active fans!
When you post the video to YouTube, you should put the bands name and song title in the title field to make sure that that particular bands fans find it.
Get it?
Can you start to see where I’m going with this and how you can use cover songs on YouTube to attract new music fans?
BUT … you must use this tactic strategically.
You should ideally sound like the more popular artist, or your version of their song should be so unique that it amazes people.
Take some time to figure out how to really deliver the tune in a creative way that would impress the viewer.
Also, the type of person searching for the artist and song that you cover should be the type of music consumer who would also like your music.
That’s the goal: Not just to attract lots of people, but lots of the ideal kinds of people.
Are your wheels turning yet?
Do you have a different way of looking at cover songs now?
Finally, here is an example of someone that has done this strategy successfully. Her name is Maria Zouroudis who implemented this very strategy and received over 1,000,000 views on YouTube of one of her covers of Rihanna – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9_AODMeXoo
Check out her YouTube video below
If you click on this link to her page www.youtube.com/mariazouroudis you’ll see a dozen videos that she’s put together following the very same strategy I taught you yesterday and I can guarantee you one thing – she has certainly grown her fan base from all these covers she’s performed!
Granted that Maria is a solo singer songwriter and it would naturally make sense to record covers like this but this strategy flat out works – regardless of what style of music your band plays.
Great idea? What do you think?
Do you have any other creative YouTube strategies?
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