A Band and a Viral Video, YouTube or Self-Host?

3 replies
So we've all seen the random, sometimes good, and sometimes bad music video "go viral" on YouTube with 20 million hits or sometimes considerably more -it pains me to think that "Friday" is approaching 200 million views, but...- the question is if you have a music video project that you think would "go viral" on YouTube without much marketing, what do you think is the better route when you are running a project for a band. YouTube, or self-hosted? I know that the bandwidth is prohibitively expensive even with Amazon Web Services when talking about 20 million video plays, but hear me out on this. I will provide the background below.

I ask the question because I have a few friends who are in a relatively new band. The lead singer has an above average voice. He finished second in a local radio station's fifth annual American Idol ripoff competition after 8 or 10 weeks in a competition that started off with more than 100 descent singers and about a 1000 horrible ones. He has a buddy who is an okay guitar player. In other words he is about half-way through the 10,000 hours of practice they say it takes for someone to become an expert at anything, but there are some songs he has played enough to be an expert. They have a passable drummer, and a passable bassist. In other words with an okay producer, which they have, and a reasonable amount of studio time, which they have, they could make a song sound pretty good -without autotune.

Several years back, the friend did a minor rewrite on a late 80's standard, and it pushes some different emotional buttons that weren't in the original version because it makes the song more about the military and our recent misadventures overseas, and this friend and his bandmates are all active duty soldiers, with a band name that again makes it instantly obvious that the rewrite is personal, and which again will touch emotional buttons in a large segment of the American audience -without being cheesy or pandering.

He has started the process of approaching the original song writers about producing a modified version and obtaining a license to synchronize his version to video. I think there is a good chance he will obtain the license at a reasonable price. Somewhere in the $1k upfront price range.

They have an interesting idea for a music video which has a very dramatic break point. In other words, a place where if the video were stopped people would want to see the ending.

I see that point as an appropriate place where in a self-hosted video, an email autoresponder form could be placed inside the video with a pop over video of a spokesperson walking on screen telling people if they subscribed to the autoresponder they would get to see the rest of the video for free.

I think video one would be played via Easy Video Player since it allows for the easy integration of autoresponders, and Facebook Like buttons or other social sharing features, and video two via Transparent Video Player.

After people subscribed to the autoresponder, i.e. completed the confirmation, they would get an email with a re-direct to a one time only URL to watch the full length video which would be played with a video player that supports RTMP, so it would only stream exactly what was watched, not an excess clip like flash players do for example. At the conclusion of that video, using the triggers available today, I would have Buy Now Button come up, allowing people to buy a download of the song for $0.99 cents. They could also upgrade to a download of the entire album for $6.99, or the album and the video for $9.99. I think the autoresponder would also incude city and state in the information gathered, to help determine if there are any cities where the band might want to put on a show. Of course we would have a ready made email list to help promote our version to local radio by encouraging people to call into a station in their area via email when we ramp up radio promotion of the song.

The plan, regardless of YouTube, or self-hosted, will be to conduct an initial promotion by targeting fans of the original act that did the song with an add on Facebook using the CPM, as opposed to CPC model of pricing explaining a new version of the old standard, hoping to get at least 100,000, but hopefully 1,000,000 or more impressions for a $1000 budget in about 10 days. The goal of the CPM advertising would be to kickstart the viral aspect of the social sharing that I think would occur with a well done version of what is truly a standard, with a new emotional twist on the lyrics because of the minor change made by the friend who rewrote it. I know it is a popular rewrite in the small town here where he has performed it a few times and I think it will catch on with a broader American audience because of its local popularity if it were recorded. It has that certain something, if you know what I'm talking about, and the video idea is very classy, and I think there is the talent cinematically in this guy's group of friends to make that work too.

Okay, now that I've beat that horse to death, back to the original question, which do you think would be more effective for the band, a marketing plan such as the one I've outlined where they exercise more control and try to make some money by self-hosting and funneling sales, or just throwing the video out there into the YouTube and other video sharing sites realm with the same intial marketing campaign to kickstart social sharing?
#band #selfhost #video #viral #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author smallbusinessguy
    I'd say to go the youtube route first. Here are some tips

    Start a blog at the same time. Embed the video on the blog when you upload the music video. Make sure you upload it to a number of other sites as well. In case Google decides to shut down your youtube account, you need a backup.

    Once you have a dedicated fan following, I think exercising more control will be a more viable option.
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  • Profile picture of the author OrangeBull
    I honestly don't know which way to go with the idea.

    I think that posting it on YouTube would result in probably 10 million views in a short order if the initial ad budget was invested as suggested. The song they intend to cover/redo is still a popluar song, and their version adds something new and unique.

    The nostalgia crowd will appreciate it, and the change is so jarring in terms of how it transforms the meaning that it will hook and audience in again all over in a new way.

    More exposure certainly seems wise, but potentially missing out on building a solid email list for the band seems like a costly mistake.

    Having said that, the bandwidth costs if it does go viral are potentially staggering if it doesn't result in the sale of a significant amount of material.

    I think my calculations suggested somewhere in the neighborhood of $20K in bandwidth charges from Amazon with 10 million views, not to mention the costs of mechanical licenses from Harry Fox and ASCAP's charges for a public performance license for the website.

    The original artists have posted the material to YouTube with authorization, so it wouldn't be a problem for Google to monetize the song for them using their copyright tracking software that identifies material, or at least I believe it wouldn't be a problem.

    The problem for the band would be failure to monetize if it did go viral.

    Any suggestions, is this a cart horse situation, as suggested in the first response, or does proper planning and preparation prevent piss poor performance as the old saying goes?
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  • Profile picture of the author O0o0O
    You might also get the same results with YouTube - Just put the shortened video on YouTube and then include a link in the resource box that directs the subscribers to finish the rest of it.
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