As I recently started a channel on YouTube for my own fun/endeavors in singing (I sing covers of songs that I like), I begin to wonder while looking for a model to start my own channel successfully: How do people who post covers or music on YouTube become successful/famous? Do they go viral, or do they have consistent viewership for every video? What steps do they take to promote their channel and their own success? What does their path look like before they “make it big”?
In this post, I will first introduce the topics of virality and YouTube channel curatorship for musicians, then will take a look at people who became famous on YouTube for music because of their actual talent in covering songs. We will analyze their stories, the tactics they employed for their own success, and apply those tactics to your own personal YouTube success, if you so desire.
I will take a look at the personal stories of two to three people (Justin Bieber, Esmee Denters, Boyce Avenue), from their start on YouTube to the peak of their success and the result of that success. But this post won’t concentrate on what happens after success is achieved; it will focus on the path to “making it big” and observations about achieving so-called “YouTube fame” in the music world.
What is “making it big” on YouTube, anyways?
If you make it big, you command attention for a long period of time, not just a second of fame: (ie: one viral video). You’re “in our face” for a while. Loads of people subscribe to you, and you have a fan-base of people who will watch essentially any new material you put out loyally. You might even be making money off of your videos. A label might try and sign you for an album. You get the kind of attention you would have never gotten as a regular human being with a talent/idea but without a good producer/promoter.
What is virality? Why don’t Youtube musicians want that exclusively?
To be viral, you need a sheer quantity of hits. According to the Insider’s Guide to YouTube Fame, a viral video is “one that is so funny, so outrageous, or so shocking that it is immediately shared from one viewer to the next, and on and on; it goes viral, like the flu. (But in a good way.)”
Basically, going viral generally is good for promoting your work. And feeding off of another person’s fame or virality is a useful tactic employed by many YouTube wannabees. This is presumably why a lot of cover artists actually exist on YouTube. They post their response videos/covers of famous songs on YouTube in the hope that these covers videos will get more publicity than a regular video they created themselves without any connection to a famous artist would get.
But you can’t just have one video, you typically have to be consistent in uploading and networking to acquire YouTube fame and foster an online community there. Therefore you should be working towards achieving consistent video ratings and a network of support on YouTube.
The idea of having a self-curated channel (little music) versus being part of a music company’s channel, curated and creatively owned by others(big music)
The idea of having a YouTube channel is fascinating. It’s a channel for YOU, whoever you define yourself as an individual. It’s a bit like TV, where it’s something other people tune into with expectations of entertaining or enlightening material. But unlike television, this medium is much more interactive, allow you to control what information users see, what videos are posted, what type of videos (and what kind of publicity you want to achieve), and so on. It’s something you manage and curate on your own according to the feedback you’re receiving and your own creativity. For musicians, at the core of their own YouTube channel is the essential idea of little music, embodied in their very own personal space for their own music. They have the potential for a lot of viewers, but they must market themselves and their videos through word of mouth, networking, and using the Internet as a resource for small-scale self promotion, unlike a “big music” artist’s videos, which get an instant leg up through mass media and other resource promotion.
The Insider’s Guide to YouTube Fame describes the hope this “level playing field” gives to little music, saying, “The related videos, as with most of YouTube, seem to be a level playing field, meaning your video with 20 views could easily place right beside the latest viral video with 200,000 views. It's this level playing field that keeps new YouTubers hopeful; without it, the same channels would receive promotion time and time again, and the content would quickly become stale”.
Says The YouTube Reader, “The peculiarity of YouTube, then, lies in the way the platform has been negotiating and navigating between community and commerce. If YouTube is anything, it is both industry and user driven. Consider music videos, which dominate categories like “most popular” and “most viewed,” while still being marginal to the site’s overall content in terms of clips uploaded. Then again, the long tail of content generated by amateurs seems almost infinite, and that sort of material often appears to be the “most discussed.”” There is a definite tangible split between amateur and professional content on the site.
The Justin Bieber Model of Success and Fame- from Mom uploading videos for relatives to #1 Most Subscribed Musician on YouTube to unthinkably popular signed Child Pop Star
The 1st most subscribed musician of all time on YouTube is actually Justin Bieber. I didn't want to admit it, but it’s true. Bieber started out with a YouTube channel and got noticed and made it big time. I decided to look into his past, and his growth from a YouTube singer to commercial singer. Justin’s mother actually started the journey for him, creating the channel kidrauhl, and uploading some videos of him performing at local talent competitions.
Link to Bieber’s channel/videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/kidrauhl
Creation of a Channel
His channel was actually started by his mother as a way to share his performances with relatives over the internet. The first YouTube video Justin Bieber’s mom uploaded, Justin Singing So Sick by Ne-yo, features the singer as a young boy singing a very high rendition of the song in some sort of performance atmosphere. Though the video is very dark and grainy, you can see that Bieber dons formal wear. An unseen guitar acts as accompaniment in the background. Bieber awkwardly dances and belts out high notes despite his apparent 12 years of age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csymVmm1xTw
Getting Noticed by the Outside World
After uploading a good amount of videos of Bieber singing various different songs for competitions or fun, even one where his slightly overzealous mom heard him singing in between brushing his teeth and jumped in the bathroom to record his pipes, Bieber’s audience began to grow steadily. After he did a cover of Chris Brown’s “With You”, which has 33 million views and could be cited as one of the videos that got Justin Bieber noticed, he was contacted by many talent agents, and ended up signing with one who flew him out to Miami and promised him a lawyer, Scooter Braun.
A video about the discovery of Justin Bieber in his own words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch=X_XopFLciYQ&feature=related
Bieber's Tools for Success: Support, Support, Support
Bieber talked about his success in various video interviews on YouTube, detailing his journey, his bewilderment, and some of his tools for success. One interviewer asked him: “Did you ever think anyone would look at these [videos], much less what’s happened?”
Said Bieber, “Not at all! It’s been such an amazing experience, coming from a little town in Canada, and to have it evolve to where it is today. I’m very blessed.”
Bieber advises fellow YouTube musicians to just get there stuff out there, despite quality: “I don’t know how I got discovered, I just put up the crappiest video. If you’re a singer or whatever, you've just got to put it up and hope for the best. You’ve definitely got to tag the video right.”
Bieber lauded the whole YouTube user support system for growing artists, saying, “the Internet is so great. It makes people feel like they’re part of the whole process.” His supportive fans certainly were a large part of the publicity process in his ascent to fame. Bieber said of his fans, “if someone sends a bad message to me, they’ll like “attack” them for me. My fans stick up for me.” Bieber also said how his YouTube connections had been so useful for promotion, saying, “because I have so many fans online now, it’s definitely gonna help me be able to promote stuff more easily. Like I can just put something on YouTube and it just blows up.”
Bieber doesn't ignore his fans though, he tries to maintain as largely of a reciprocal relationship with them as he can through Twitter. When asked if he read what people tweeted back on his Twitter website, he said, “Yeah, absolutely! I retweet a lot and I try and read as many as I can. I try and follow my fans.”
Bieber also seems to have caught a lucky break with the unconditional support of his mother.
Said Bieber of his mother, “My mom, when she was younger, she wanted to be an actress. She got into a few local shows and she wanted to go to this school in Toronto that was two hours away but my grandparents wouldn't let her, they wouldn't give her that chance, so my mom was like “I want you to have this opportunity”.
More of the Katie Couric interview with Justin Bieber: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCoXM6t_NGc
One website slyly commented on Bieber’s rise to fame via regular internet content upload (even after he was discovered by an agent), describing Bieber as “a talented boy discovered first by fans on YouTube, then cannily marketed to them through a fresh influx of studiedly raw videos on the Web site.
I've got to hand it to Justin Bieber and his excellent self-promotion skills. According to Wikipedia, Justin Bieber is more influential in the social networking sphere than Barack Obama or The Dalai Lama. His account was reported in November 2010 to have over 6 million followers, and he gains an average of 24,000 per day. Bieber's new music only really sells after he promotes it on Twitter, or it is put on YouTube for his followers to watch.
The unbelievably successful Justin Bieber actually made a video with Esmee Denters, another YouTube star I will talk about in the next part of this post, which is posted on his channel. In the video, he sings a song to her. These two lucky “success-story” YouTube stars must have obviously met somehow through the workings of YouTube.
Bieber singing to Denters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko8gepM8MBU
The Esmee Denters Model of Success and Fame- from grainy webcam obscurity in Norway to signed pop star
Esmee Denters is the first unsigned singer in history to go from personal YouTube postings (which have gotten anywhere from 10 to 25 million hits) to commercially performing on a major stage, according to an article from People Magazine.
The YouTube cover-artist turned singer posted a video a couple months ago, marking the anniversary of four years since she posted her first video. She thanks her viewers, because without them, she would have never ended up where she is now as a singer who is actively recording songs, meeting with famous producers, and touring across the world. But still many comments on the video ask “Where did you go?” After becoming famous, Esmee seems to have forgotten or neglected her channel and her fans a little, which seems to irk them as YouTube viewers seem to claim the responsibility for promoting someone to stratospheric levels of fame.
Before her rise to fame through the YouTube vehicle, Esmee did covers of artists she describes as “soulful” on YouTube, but now has her own singing career with own music. But she still uploads videos to YouTube of covers of other artists very sporadically, even now. Two weeks ago, Esmee uploaded a cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You”, sporting a completely new hair color, her first update since her update for her 4th anniversary on YouTube.
The Famous First Video
Esmee’s first video, like Justin Bieber’s first video, is of terrible video quality, but not bad audio quality. It is dark, and you can barely see her face, but you can tell her vaguely attractive face is mostly looking away from the camera, perhaps embarrassed with posting this first video, but curious to see what happens. This allows us to rate her voice, as that’s what users seem to really paying attention to with a music cover video, anyway. Comments on the video say things like “girl, you can really sing!” Or “try out for American idol!”
Esmee’s first video: http://www.youtube.com/user/esmeedenters#p/u/60/GPKzgr2yb4g
Esmee started her channel in 2007. According to her myspace, Esmee is from a small town in the Netherlands, Oosterbeek. She started posting covers to karaoke tracks of soulful artists by Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, and John Legend. After posting them and receiving such initial recognition, Denters said, “I had no idea anyone would even listen or watch me. Now every time I post a new videoblog of me singing, people tune in! And yet, it’s still me in this little bedroom in Oosterbeek with my mom yelling for me to come down and eat something. Life is funny.”
Getting Noticed by the Outside World
As viewership for her channel grew exponentially, Esmee's videos didn't improve much in quality, but she did consistently produce quality vocal content. Noticed by a Dutch artist producer, Jonathan Berhane, she was eventually signed by Justin Timberlake and started production on an album, which came out in May 2009. Though Denters is not an American star, her debut album charted as number five in her home country.
Boyce Avenue- Model of Success and Fame for YouTube Cover Bands
Boyce Avenue, one of my personal favorite cover bands that also produces original content, is currently number 13 of most subscribed channels of all time on YouTube. They have achieved their fame from their drive to cover anything and everything, including popular pop songs that have little to no content, and make it arguably sound even better (in their own style, of course). The band started in the members' small hometown in Florida 2004, but they began uploading videos to YouTube in 2007. They specialize in acoustic rock.
You can check out their channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/boyceavenue
The Video That was Heard 'Round the World
Boyce Avenue’s first video is not bad, the quality is as if a friend had recorded it at home on a very tight budget. The lead singer/guitarist sits in front of a poorly draped sheet, singing a cover of a goo goo dolls song. This song did not obviously go viral, as it is not as popular, but his next covers, where a friend joins in with instrumental covers of more popular songs (drawing on the fame of others) have over 8 million hits. The channel started with the lead singer/guitarist just uploading videos, but as viewership and demand increased, the band's videos grew to include his brother, and then his other brother, until the three membered band became actually a legitimate, touring band, performing both covers and their own original content. On YouTube, they cover songs that their fans suggest for them, creating a participatory music-culture where creator and audience interact on a very collaborative basis. This has definitely played to their advantages.
Boyce Avenue’s first video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/boyceavenue#p/u/103/R2DMEKrdmmw
On their YouTube channel, a shout-out posted by one of the members says, “Because of your support we are the most viewed band on all of YouTube!! We do what we love everyday because of you! Thanks so much! ;)”, acknowledging the fame and support YouTube fans give to them. They regularly update Facebook with very detailed posts, news, and videos for their fans. They originally were a member of an indie label, but recently were signed to Universal Records, due to their ever increasing popularity.
Recently, Boyce Avenue has enjoyed even more fame from covers such as Katy Perry’s “Firework”, which they covered with another popular YouTube star, David Choi. This collaboration seems to have increased traffic and subscriptions for both YouTube channels even more.
Is there common ground in the backgrounds of all of these YouTube stars who supposedly arose out of "nowhere" to their level of fame today?
All of these artists arose from insignificance and obscurity in small, rural towns, but had talent, charisma, a devotion of time and energy to the site, creativity, great networking, and an ability to motivate people to keep coming back for more material. I find it interesting that both solo stars moved to the United States upon garnering a certain amount of reputable YouTube fame and hits, creating the potential for music careers.
In today’s musical world, talent is not enough. The current day model of American Idol has reinforced that in addition to musical talent, you need elements such as a crowd and audience, timing, opportunity, style, and entertainment value to be a “real star”. Just because you have a great voice doesn’t mean you’ll be a star in the music industry world. YouTube adds on even more varied requirements for idol status, but loosens the above ones slightly to make exceptions for YouTube users lacking professional resources. The requirements YouTube adds on to becoming a star include video quality and watchability, open-minded communication with a community of users, networking within YouTube, presence, and a host of other factors.
How to “succeed” as a cover artist on YouTube (according to the model these artists have created):
Moderating your own success on YouTube
With more human-based contact, an unknown musician/user will earn more Youtube community support for their artistic growth and endeavors, perhaps leading to eventual “YouTube fame”.
Part of what the audience wants on YouTube is to get or give comments; this is called participatory culture. It’s not at all like modern TV, which is what the authors of The YouTube Reader less-than-affectionately call “ThemTube”. YouTube is about you and your community, whether it is online or real. People can interact with you and provide feedback that you can respond or listen to, affecting their perception of you as a person they should support, and also your future uploads and artistic work. Boyce Avenue, a YouTube cover band (we will talk about them later in this post!), is currently 1st most subscribed for bands, and 13th most subscribed in musician channels. They plays covers of songs that their subscribers request. This close connection with their viewers obviously has allowed them the fame they are currently experiencing on tour outside of YouTube. So listen to your viewers.
Collaboration and Competition with other YouTube Viewers
Another way to moderate your channel is by getting ideas to collaborate with other users with similar ideas or ideas for collaborative pieces on YouTube! Then both of your audiences will watch, and you will both benefit.
As your channel’s moderator, you are its promoter as well. So promote it. Enter contests! Do collaborations!
Do response videos and vlogs (video logs). Think of your fans and what they’d like to see, but maintain your personal internets in creating the channel in the first place and take it where you want to go.
Networking
Use other platforms as a way to keep in touch with fans/YouTube subscribers: a blog, a twitter (Take a note from Justin Bieber: he updates his Twitter 20-30 times a DAY), fan response videos, etc. Create a genuine connection with your fans, and establish a solid internet identity and presence.
This also means stay in contact with fans/subscribers. Make friends. LisaNova, a very popular user on YouTube who was interviewed for YouTube: The Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts, said she interacts with her audience in “all the normal ways like comments and personal messages, and so on, as well as doing live vlogs/chats. I like to watch video responses when I have time and leave comments.”
Branding
YouTube is a great place to start your career with successful networking. But according to YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts, many of the people who are most successful with YouTube have realized it’s a vehicle for also building their brand. What’s their brand? It’s their name. While subscribers are important, it’s not the end goal (The Insider’s Guide to YouTube Fame). If you like Justin Bieber somewhat, would you buy a Justin Bieber CD, or a CD from an unknown artist (even though there's a chance you could like him/her!)? It's that clear.
Social Media Promotion
Social bookmarking websites are websites that allow you to keep your bookmarks/favorited videos or links online. They are a great way to promote your work, as they are an easy way to share video or other material with friends and keep track of what’s popular.
YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts suggests using video-sharing sites that are smaller than YouTube (in YouTube, you start off as a small fish in a big pond… why not start as a big fish in a small pond and attract more attention and followers to transfer to YouTube?) Sites like Revver.com can help you do this.
You can also use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Ning to promote your channel or new music videos. Alan Lastufka, one of the writers of the YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts, said of social networking sites, “my friends on these sites are people working on projects similar to mine and promoting projects similar to mine. They understand, and at times are even interested in, the bulletins I post advertising my latest video, my next live streaming event, or where to pre-order this book. Once you've amassed a few hundred, or a few thousand, friends on these sites, the bulletins and notes you post can become very strong marketing tools.”
Lastufka also wisely warns against too much self-promotion, saying, “I strongly suggest you post only when you have an important project or video and post about each project only once. Too much self-promotion, and eventually your friends will stop clicking through.”
Lastufka’s final note is to stay reciprocally socially connected with your friends or subscribers by making “sure you occasionally read and respond to or comment on your friends' bulletins and notes. Not doing so will also make them lose interest, rather quickly, in your postings.”
Become a Partner: Make some money from your hard work!
I will define success in this post as becoming more than an individual uploading videos from home and not making money. Success for a cover artist on YouTube can be defined as either making enough money from your videos to count as a real job, becoming YouTube famous, or getting signed by a legitimate record label, or all of the above.
Becoming Successful, but Staying True to Your Originality
Taking your channel wherever you desire artistically doesn't neccessarily mean getting commercial. You are an individual, not a corporation. Maintaining an indie, home-grown quality is a key to success for YouTube-born stars. You don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard, or “selling-out” and forsaking your fans on YouTube that you’ve cultivated surprisingly useful cyber-relationships with. Justin Bieber and Esmee Denter maintained this quality in their videos for a while even after getting famous. An article in People magazine attributed Bieber's fame to his contrast with other mass-media disney-produced stars, "his fans passionately believe [he] is homemade.” The famous cover band, Boyce Avenue, which we discuss later, also maintains the same video level of “home-recordings”, but just bumped up the audio quality because that seems to be the important factor when assessing today’s musicians (despite the attention a great video can get your song!)
Final thoughts
What is success? Is it leaving the YouTube internet community that made you famous and influencing the world outside of YouTube? Do these stars continue using YouTube to garner respect and fame after the success YouTube has brought them?
Although YouTube is a great platform for upcoming artists to get their stuff out there, when they are noticed by talent agencies and commercially signed, should that be considered success? Most would argue it is, as they are now no longer associated with YouTube and have made a career in the music industry, but who’s to say making money off of having a YouTube channel is not as successful?
YouTube stars seem to have a prolonged gratefulness to YouTube, and maintain their connection with YouTube and the fans they cultivated on the site. Although Denters only sporadically updates her YouTube channel, Bieber still spends time every day keeping up with his fans on YouTube and Twitter and trying to maintain as much contact as possible, probably to not alienate the medium that made him famous in the first place and jinx his unbelievably lucky fame.
To You and YourTube!
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