Sunday, July 5, 2015

Music Business/Law Tips - "Become A YouTube Star"

Musical artists would be well advised to follow the lead of the dorky YouTube duo "Smosh" (i.e., 2 bozos with a webcam) who have built an empire of 7.4 billion combined views and become very rich in the process (grossed 10 million in 2013 according to Forbes). Here are a few tips of how they did it: 1. Make a video performing a popular song (their first successful video was a goofy cover of the "Pokemon" theme); 2. Post new content often (over 10 years they have uploaded over 3,000 videos); 3. Target and create content for a specific audience/demographic (in their case teens is the market they connect with); 4. Diversify the brand (they have a YouTube Channel, a website, a blog, an app, a videogame, they release records, they have their own merchandise line, they filmed their own theatrical movie for digital release, they created an original web series - they even have Spanish language versions of their content); 5. Encourage fans to create their own original Smosh related content/take-offs and upload them to YouTube to expand the brand; and 6. Partner with a larger media entity to help push and fund more content and create more advertising revenue (e.g., YouTube, Maker, Machina, Awesomeness TV, etc.). Advertisers pay big bucks to be affiliated with a brand that has lots of views online. A recent Variety survey polled teens ages 13-18 about the Top 10 most popular stars in digital media. The top 5 were YouTube Stars and Smosh were #1 (Katy Perry was #9). Clearly becoming a viral sensation on YouTube is serious business these days and a great way to launch a real career. Ben McLane Esq benmclane.com

1 comment:

  1. I think becoming a youtube sensation is just pure luck, there are no tips that can work, some really lousy people gain success, while some really talented people are left behind. So yes pure luck.

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