Why YouTube Shorts matters to musicians
Today I want to talk about YouTube Shorts and why YOU should use them!
YouTube’s new short-form video platform, YouTube Shorts, is now live in the US.
With more features and countries being added soon, this is an exciting opportunity for artists and musicians to share their music on a global, developing social network.
In this article, we’ll be diving deeper into why this platform is so important for musicians, and how WMR Music Group can make sure your music is discovered by Shorts’ growing audience.
What is YouTube Shorts?
Shorts is the YouTube equ
ivalent of TikTok — a platform that lets creators upload short, shareable videos for the world to see. YouTube rolled out the beta version of Shorts in India, back in 2020. The platform quickly gained momentum with fans: the number of Shorts creators in India has tripled since December 2020 alone. Now that Shorts is live in the US, the platform looks set to shake up the world of social media. Shorts is a way for people to connect with a new audience using their smartphone and the Shorts camera via the YouTube app. Videos can be up to 60 seconds long. Users can then choose to spice up their clips by accelerating or slowing down their recordings, add captions, or add sound. YouTube has claimed that Shorts will allow creators to use audio from videos across its platform, which YouTube says “includes billions of videos worldwide”.
Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Publishing, Warner Music Group and Warner Chappell Music, Believe, Merlin, 300 Entertainment, and Kobalt are just some of the label and publishing partners already involved.
Why YouTube Shorts matters to musicians?
As an independent artist, why does this matter to me? It’s just a video platform, right? Wrong. Users can also add music to their videos from millions of songs in the Shorts library, including any song distributed to YouTube Music.
This is huge. With 2 billion viewers visiting YouTube every month, this is an opportunity not to be missed. The advantages of making your music available on Shorts are endless: you will expand the reach of your music, grow your fanbase, access the huge Shorts audience, and more.
As Shorts continues to develop, the option to monetize Shorts clips may also come in the future.
How you can use Shorts to promote your music
Over the coming months, Shorts will roll out the ability to use audio from billions of videos across YouTube, unlocking new ways to create content — like reacting to another artist’s new music video, adding your own spin to another artist’s track, or adding your own vibe to a viral dance trend.
To use audio from another video on YouTube, just tap the “create” button right from the video to make your own Short with that audio. As a creator, you will be in full control of your content and can opt-out if you don’t want others to remix your videos.
Ideas for promoting your music on Shorts:
Collaborate with a YouTube creator and get your song used as a soundtrack on their Shorts video
Collaborate with professional dancers on YouTube to start a dance challenge using your song as the soundtrack
Create a fan-generated content campaign: ask your fans to record a video of themselves doing something with your YouTube video audio looped over the top. Incentive your fans by offering up a prize to the best videos, like a backstage meet and greet, gig tickets (post covid), or signed merch
Ready to get started promoting your artist project on Shorts? Start by spending time browsing through Shorts to get a feel for how other artists and creators are using the new feature. Or get in touch with us and we will help you to get started!
Get in touch with us here: www.wmrmedia.com/quote