You’ve got a brand new music video ready and you can’t wait to share it. You’ve spent both money and time creating it. And now you want to showcase it to the world. But how?
To get the PR ramped up, musicians find a publication to premiere the video for them. However, these days, that approach is becoming more difficult. Instead, musicians have turned to using their own platforms and utilising YouTube and Facebook Premiere.
In this blog, we’re going to look into how you can use the premiere functionalities on YouTube and Facebook to present your video to the world. But why? Premiering on these channels will get you visibility and engagement straight off the bat. This, in turn, means more organic traffic after the event.
We’ll also be looking over the Facebook Watch functionality, as this can be a great tool to use to build your community online. And if you have a large and active following on Facebook, this strategy can be very effective.
YouTube Premiere
Once Facebook decided to launch their premiere feature in 2018, YouTube followed suit. YouTube Premiere allows you to upload a video and schedule it for when you want to go live. Then, you’re able to promote it right away. As soon as you’ve set your video to premiere, you can start building the hype. Your subscribers get notified that you’ve scheduled a premiere, and can set a reminder to be notified closer to the time. They’ll even get a nudge 2 hours before and 30 minutes before your premiere is due to start.
A good idea would be to include a reminder for subscribers to get notified in the description of your video. As you’ll have a landing page for this video hours (or even days) in advance, make sure to use it to its full capabilities. You can post your premiere link to your social media accounts or send out an email blast to promote it. The more hype you build, the more people will come.
Now, for the premiere function to really work, you should already have a small fanbase. Your existing fans will have no problem clicking the reminder button, because they’ll want to be there when the video goes lives.
Personally, I would suggest using YouTube Premiere to launch a video that you have invested a lot of time and money into creating. It gives you a chance to present, promote and be part of a live viewing alongside your fans. The goal is to get subscribers and fans to join live and watch your video together. Think of it like bringing everyone to a private cinema to launch your new music video.
Live Chat Features
You can use the live chat function to get instant feedback and comments from the people watching. They can chat with you and with each other – building your online community further.
It also gives you the opportunity to cross-promote your other social media accounts. If you’ve got a new track that you know your fans have a lot of questions about – why not tell them that you’ll be answering them all during the premiere? Give them even more incentive to show up. If they want their question answered in front of a global audience – then they won’t want to miss out.
Maybe invite a special guest and promote this to your fans as a ‘secret’ guest. They’ll just have to attend to find out who it is!
Building the hype is important. This will dramatically increase the initial visibility of your video, and gain some instant traction on YouTube. Retention rate is much higher during a premiere. You will have different people interacting with each other, leaving comments and likes. You’ll be there too, so you can trigger more engagement by asking viewers to tap the thumbs up or ask a question for them to answer. You can even start the chat before the video launches.
Bonus tip: If you have Super Chat enabled, your viewers can pay to have their comments highlighted. This feature used to be available only for live streams, but can now be used for all other YouTube videos.
Once the premiere is over, your video will sit on YouTube like any other upload, but you’ll instantly have the views and comments from everyone that joined you on the launch. This initial traction gives your new music video the first boost it needs in order to start gaining organic traffic.
Facebook Premiere
Considering YouTube launched their rival premiere feature after seeing Facebook’s, you’ll be right to assume that the concepts are very similar.
Simply put, you can upload any video to premiere on Facebook – the same as you can on YouTube. But what type of video should you premiere?
Personally, I would choose a video that you have put a lot of work into, such as a music video. You could also premiere a performance that was filmed and edited ahead of time. This is perfect when you don’t want to set up a live and play. You’ve also got the chance to edit and add effects if you wanted.
You can schedule a Facebook Premiere anywhere between 10 minutes and 7 days before you want it to go live. At the scheduled time, your video will air and a premiere badge will appear in the top-left corner of the video. The same chat functionality is available – giving you the chance to interact with your community throughout. Once the broadcast ends, the video will be posted to your timeline, and viewers can engage with it as normal with likes and comments.
Facebook Premieres allow you to cross-promote across different Facebook Pages. If you’re signed to a label, for example, you can set the premier together with their page and increase your reach. If you’ve collaborated with another artist on your track, you can link up with them too. It’s the perfect way to reach everyone’s fans and followers.
Remember – premiere functionalities are a tool to use for existing fanbases. As you’re unable to boost or promote a premiere post on both Facebook and YouTube – it helps to have a decent following on both channels before deciding to use these features.
Facebook Watch Party
We’ve talked through premieres on both Facebook and YouTube, and you understand the concept of watching content live, together with your audience. So what the heck is the difference between that and a Facebook Watch Party?
Good question.
The key difference here is that, with a watch party, your content needs to already be published on Facebook. So, in order to create a watch party, you have to have the premiere.
What a lot of musicians do is this. They host a watch party afterwards that includes the music video and perhaps other live streams and content pieces that they’ve shared before. This could be presented in a playlist like this:
- The premiere
- Behind the scenes video
- Interview
Or, you could create a playlist which includes your premiere, but also includes videos of other musicians that have inspired you. You can then watch this all together with your fans whilst you chat and interact with them. This is a great way to build rapport with your community, as they get to engage with you live.
Another way of doing it is this. Let’s say you’re going live on your channel. You could get your label and other collaborators to host a watch party for your live session. You can include current live streams within a watch party, as well as videos from your pages or others.
Once you finish your watch party, a recap will be saved to your Facebook Page as a post, which will show all videos watched during the party.
Here’s an example of what I could do in my business for a watch party.
I’d take my followers through a video series on how to use TikTok, and include some examples of different TikTok trends to give them content ideas that they can use. Throughout this, I would be available in the chat to answer any live questions.
For the musicians I work with, I suggest using Facebook Watch Parties to mustly support scheduled premieres. This helps build up the views and increase engagement of past video streams and content.
How can you get people to tune into your premiere or watch party?
A day or so before the premiere launches, send an email to your email list. Or your Whatsapp list. Or your friends and family list.
This email is purely to invite them to join you on your premiere. Whether you’re using YouTube or Facebook, it’s the same procedure. However, only YouTube provides you with an external url to share. You will receive an internal link from Facebook, but this cannot be used for ads.
You could even send 2 emails (depending on how often you usually email your list). The first could be sent days in advance and present the music video launch. Then, on the day of the event, you could send a ‘1 Hour Warning’ email for them to join the premiere as it happens.
Social Media Content
All of your followers and subscribers on YouTube and Facebook will get a notification when you schedule a premiere. This is great – but it isn’t enough.
I suggest creating some content to share on Instagram and TikTok. Use this to entice your followers over to your other platforms to join you live. Share some value both on your feed on what to expect from the premiere and, if you can, share a swipe up link on your stories to the premiere page. Make sure this content is distributed evenly between your other content. You don’t want to be seen to be pushing it too hard.
Social Media Ads
There are some limitations to setting up ads for your Facebook Premiere and Watch Party. If you try to boost the announcement of your premiere through Ads Manager, Facebook will not recognise any media yet. However, you can boost a premiere after the content is live and published.
You can promote your YouTube Premiere url through Facebook and Instagram ads if you wanted, but this isn’t something that I would recommend. Think about it. You’re paying for people to go to a landing page where they can only set a reminder to come back again at a later date. The bounce rate may be very high.
I suggest prioritising ad-spend on the content once it is live. Instead, focus on getting your super fans to tune in live to get engagement rolling right off the bat.
If you try to target a premiere music video to someone who is not yet aware of you and doesn’t know your music or your brand, you’ll have your work cut out. Your ad copy needs to be extremely convincing, as well as the copy on the landing page, to make them hit the reminder button.
Whichever way you choose to promote your premiere, be sure to make it clear in the text that they should hit the reminded button. Clearer instructions mean better results.
Make sure to also let your audience know that you will be there live, answering any questions they have. If your community knows you’re going to be there, they’re much more likely to join and get involved in the conversation.
Conclusion
Premieres, both on YouTube and Facebook, are the perfect way to launch content without having to perform live. They are the perfect way to interact and engage with your audience, and build your community around you.
If you’re looking for more ways to grow your brand through social media, make sure to take a look at my blog. I give you all the tools you need to thrive online. You should also check out the Smart Launch Club, where I help musicians like you all over the world market themselves and their musical messages.
