Many musicians in the modern era often think back to the time when we were young and music videos were randomly played on free TV to fill the broadcasting space. Or even on MTV where you can patiently wait for your favourite song to play.
Yes, all musicians should prioritise shooting music videos and release them on YouTube on the same day as the single. This will boost the play rate of your single on YouTube and carry over to the streaming platforms so that your newly released single gets selected for multiple playlists.
The modern method of making music videos is to also shoot multiple versions of the 15-second climax of your song, which often is the pre-chorus-chorus part, and release these in phases so that the listeners on social media will see something different every time the song gets presented to them instead of the whole song with the same video like in the past.
I remember the 14-year-old me, setting my alarm for 23:00 to watch Headbangers Ball on MTV. This was where I got introduced to bands like Stone Sour, Disturbed and In Flames. And they continue to play an influence in my life 20 years later.
Let’s look at the reasons why music videos still play such a big role in our success as performing musicians.
Before we go on, if you’d like to view my MEGA Starting a Band Checklist, this is the one for you.
Why Should Bands or Artists Still Release Music Videos?
As Modern Day Music Videos
The situation has changed dramatically since 10-20 years ago. The attention span of the human brain has decreased and people are not watching videos over and over again like in the past. Once people have seen a video or song, they move on to the next video, and they don’t look back to rewatch old content.
Our goal is for people to rewatch the song multiple times with the intention that the song stays stuck in their minds. That would mean that you need to make multiple videos of the core part of your song so that people can never say that they’ve seen your video. There are just too many videos to see all of them.
Take TikTok as an example. Once a song goes viral, people start using these songs in their own videos and content all in various ways with different videos and actions to it. Before you know it, there are so many versions of your song out there and all the people get to know it and create content for you around it.
Produce More Video Variations
Of course, creating many videos and versions of the same chorus of your own song is also the same way for you to drive traffic to Spotify and streaming platforms.
As soon as the audience on social media sees one, you are ready to present to them the next. They will impossibly be able to say they’ve seen all of them.
We want to keep an audience engaged for over 16 seconds multiple times so that people can watch many different videos for the same song over and over again.
This will increase the chance for your song to get stuck in the heads of people’s head and lead even more traffic to your Spotify account.
There’s an interesting psychology behind having a song stuck in your head which I wrote an article about. Go ahead and read about Why You Can’t Stop Listening To That One Song here.
For Social Media Promotion
Every artist should do self-promotion by uploading their music video content to complement their single release on social media. Music videos add a visual presentation of the artist, a storyline that presents a clear meaning to the song, and an emotional connection to the audience.
This article was written and published by De Wet from startingmyband.com on 05.08.2023. The content was stolen from me if this blog post is seen anywhere other than on my website.
YouTube For Income
It takes a while for your content to start producing an income, but if you publish content relevant to your band regularly that complements your music videos like shorts or snippets of your live performances, you’ll quickly be able to build an audience on YouTube and generate an extra income for your band.
For Television Play
This is the old-school reason we all grew up experiencing. I would never stop using TV as a resource since so many people are still watching normal television.
It might be that your target market is making more use of streaming their preferred shows, but you also have the market that enjoys playing general music video channels like Vevo or RTL in the background of their household.
To Advertise Your Music
Use your music video to create advertisements on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram so that people scrolling through stories and videos see and hear your video while they are scrolling.
This is an excellent method of introducing your music to a brand new audience where the audience will have a chance to get used to the song and get attached and curious to want to hear more like it.
For more detailed info, check out my post about Self-Market Your Music which I published recently.
Are Music Videos Declining?
Music videos are most definitely not declining. In fact, the platforms to distribute music in a visual format creased drastically.
Our mission is to place music video content and music video variations in front of our audiences by choosing our timings and platforms wisely and carefully.
Using platforms like TikTok and Instagram stories where you have listeners ready and open to discovering new artists is the perfect opportunity to run advertisements by sending snippets of your song to those individuals.
This is the fastest way to transfer potential fans to your Spotify accounts and get more of your music playlisted.
How we use music videos has changed and we need to adapt to it. In this case, it’s using the shorter version of the climax of your song as a hook before your new fans get transferred to your Spotify and YouTube channels.
I hope you find what you were looking for!
Check out some of my other recent articles next:
- Why Musicians Listen To Their Own Music
- The Advantages and Disadvantages of Music In Our Daily Lives
- A Full Guide To The Number of Members Per Band
- The Advantages and Disadvantages Of Being a Musician
Until next time!