A powerful and effective way to get your own PR spinning is by creating your very own YouTube Premiere. Getting a premiere on a music blog is a great way to launch a new single, but they are harder and harder to get nowadays. If you are not experienced in garnering your own PR, they can be more trouble than they are worth.
One of the most unique ways that an independent artist can spin their own PR wheels comes from YouTube with their PREMIERE feature. When Facebook first announced that their premiere feature would become available to all users, YouTube quickly responded by adding their own version of the feature. While Facebook got rid of this feature, YouTube kept it going which is a great thing for you if you have a solid following on the platform, because all you need to do is schedule one.
So, what are these YouTube premiere features? How can they act as part of the independent artist’s self-promotional toolkit? Simple. The premiere feature gives users almost all of the benefits of going live, without the requirement of being present. In other words, you can pre-record and schedule them and go about your life! But, we suggest you hang around the social channel of choice as there will be a live chat to participate in on premiere day.
What do you get out of these premiere features? (A whole lot, and all these benefits are free.)
- When they set a reminder, fans and subscribers get a notification for your premiere ahead of time, increasing the reach of the content that you choose to premiere.
- The ability to interact with fans in real time! This changes the game for reaching your audience and causes a flurry of activity.
- YouTube allow you to tease your audience with shareable watch pages! This can potentially raise the number.
Premiering a video allows artists to generate buzz around an upcoming album release BEFORE actually releasing anything. Above all, setting up a premiere on either platform is EASY, and takes almost no time.
Here’s How to Set Up a YouTube Premiere:
- Click
to upload a video to YouTube. - Select the file you would like to upload for your Premiere.
- Fill in all of the information (i.e. – Title, Description, Keywords, Location, etc.)
- Click next and go through the normal process of uploading and optimizing your video.
- When you get to the Visibility tab, choose “Schedule” – pick the time and day you’d like, and then click the “Set as Premiere” checkbox.
- Upload the video – while it is uploading, select the Premiere button, and enter your desired publishing date and time.
- Click “Schedule” and wait for the video to process!
Altogether, the YouTube premiere feature is an excellent way of boosting audience engagement and allowing your music to reach the ears it is intended for. Please let us know if you are planning one – we’d love to see what you come up with.
Premieres are just one teeny part of the puzzle when it comes to planning your PR. Come to download our Music Publicity Checksheet to walk yourself through the best practices and tasks for music publicity.
Thank you so much for this article, it’s exactly what I was looking for. I have one question though – if I want the audience to be focused on the music video while it’s premiering, rather than chatting, can I turn of the chat…? What I see as optimal would be to chat before the premiere, and then basically saying thanks and bye afterwards (or discussing it if people want to do that).
Yes you can indeed do this! Good strategy to keep everyone focused and not scattered during your premiere.
I think that either scenario could be desirable. If it is a formal presentation, then may be better to focus on the music video without chatting. But, if it’s quite an informal one, sometimes a chat alongside can act as a buzz to generate some more excitement. I performed a recital in late November 2020 online via Facebook, but on that occasion it was a ‘live live’ presentation in which I was playing in real time while the audience were listening! I actually enjoyed looking at the comments in the chat afterwards 🙂