What Makes a Popular Video ?
That is the eternal question if you make YouTube videos.
I have been making music videos on YouTube for about 11years. I read somewhere that there is so many YouTube videos uploaded Every Day, that it would take you a full year to listen to them all ! That is a lot of videos. I don’t think I could even watch all music videos each day.
The result is that it most videos do not get many views, because there is so much competition for our eyeballs.
Fewer Views Than Expected, More Views Than Expected
I have more than 125 music and music related videos on my YouTube Channel, Richard Lepinsky Music.
Most of them are original songs that I write. I have been excited to release a new song and video, because I think it is a good song. But I am often disappointed when there are few views.
But it can work both ways. The opposite side is, that a video I don’t think is that good, gets more views than I thought it would.
My Top 5 Videos
If I had to guess which videos would be in my Top 5, I would have been totally wrong.
My Top Video
My top video is a song from my first album, Birthday 65, is about turning age 65. It current has just under 15,000 views.
I think the title of the song Birthday 65, I think is something that is searched for and I feel accounts for why it has the views it does.
Top Video 2
The second most viewed video on my channel is another song from my first album titled, Balance In Life with around 1500 views.
Knowing that my song needs to have a searchable title, I added the words – Trying To Find, in front of the song title, so the title of the video is – Trying To Find Balance In Life .
I feel this phrase was searched on YouTube and has accounted for the views.
Catchy Thumbnail
I’ve learned that an attractive Thumbnail picture that accompanies the video is also part of the attraction process that makes people click on your video. The thumbnail I used on this video was a silhouette version of a picture I saw, which is an unusually yoga pose.
Top Video 3 – A Cover Song
I started and lead the Merritt Ukulele Circle, an ukulele group that meets twice a month and plays popular songs of the last few decades.
A few times a year, we do public performances at public events around town. We did one at a local coffee shop and had about half a dozen ukulele members come out to play.
I videoed the songs we played that night, and I posted The Lion Sleeps Tonight, which has justunder 1000 views.
I feel this video had local appeal, from the ukulele group members and their friends, which resulted in the video places well.
Top Video 4 – A Drums Only Composition
I was a drummer for 50 years, and had some old audio and videos of me playing drums from around 2012. I decided to put them out as a “drum only” album. I had since sold my drums and no longer played.
But I had an unusual drum kit, with an electronic drum run thru an amplifier, a couple of cowbells, wood blocks and a tambourine.
The title of the piece is – Syncopated Tintinnabulation, and I put the word Funky Drums – Syncopated Tintinnabulation.
If you don’t know, Tintinnabulation means a tinkling sound, or a bell sound.
With this drum kit, I produced some one of a kind drum sounds which is why I felt they were worth putting out to the public. The audience for this music was drummers, and it caught on with the a few of them, and this video got just over 700 views.
Top Video 5
Years ago, I heard a business slogan – Doing Usual Things Unusually Well. It stuck in my mind, and years later I wrote a song about it.
If you listen to my music you know that Self Improvement is one of the song themes that I have written songs about, this song being one of them.
When I posted the video, I added to the words “Better Yourself “– Doing Usual Things Unusually Well. I feel people probably search the term “better yourself”, and I feel this is accounted for some of the over 600 views.
Conclusion
I feel putting out a good video is like many things in life. There are many factors that will affect the final result, and we cannot know the future with any degree of certainty.
Richard Lepinsky
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