Things to remember while choosing music for your YouTube channel
Starting a successful YouTube channel is an enormously ambitious and difficult task, but with the right attitude, information, and work ethic, you can maximize your chances of actually getting somewhere. We’re here to give you some of that critical information that you’ll need to make sure your background music actually helps your channel grow into what it ought to be. We’ve categorized this into four areas. Let’s take a look.
Know Your Audience
This part might seem simple, but many channels falter because they don’t have a clear understanding of what their audience expects from their channel. In order to pick the most appropriate music for your audience, you need to know what their expectations are. This works both ways. Your audience should shape the way you create your content, and your content should shape the expectations of your audience.
Be clear about what sort of content you’re creating
Clear expectations can make or break your channel. Many times, it’s easy to lose focus and create whatever sort of content you happen to feel like in the moment. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you need to build a community of mutual trust between you and your audience. This is severely hindered by erratic and unpredictable sorts of content production.
Let’s tie this back into music. In order for your YouTube channel music to help clarify these expectations, it needs to be appropriate with respect to the mood you’re trying to set. For example, if you’re creating high energy content, you might want to consider finding some dance music or metal to play in the background. To contrast this, if you’re making an educational video or a commentary video, you may want to look into playing lo-fi or jazz in the background. If you’re not sure where to find things like this for free, some websites offer royalty free background music for youtube. This can sometimes make the search process much easier.
Be consistent so your fans know what to expect
This involves putting out content regularly, and it involves putting out the sorts of content that people would expect to find from a channel like yours. In fact, this might actually be the most difficult hurdle to overcome because it requires you to put work into your channel consistently. Putting out content regularly may seem like an easy task, but it’s in fact the opposite. In the vast majority of cases, your other life obligations tend to take up more of your time than your YouTube channel, and this leads to a decline in the frequency, quantity, and quality of the content that you put out.
In terms of the music that you’re trying to pick out, we would take this same idea and suggest that you pick a certain style of music and stick to it. This way, you’re setting clear expectations for your audience, and you’re building up a brand for yourself. This way, people will know to look for you if they’re craving a certain sort of content.
Be unique
Now that we’ve established how important consistency is, it’s time for us to back-pedal that a little bit and talk about being unique. This doesn’t mean being random or quirky with your music choices just for the sake of being quirky. We would instead suggest finding and filling a niche that you think has not been filled yet. This process tends to be difficult because the current state of YouTube already has most sorts of content that anyone would ever need. Still, it’s feasible to find a steady position for yourself if you have a creative mindset and a unique set of skills. For example, mixing and matching between different areas can generally lead to success. As far as the music goes, you should search for a unique sort of sound that you would like to associate yourself with early on. This way, when people hear that music, they’ll associate it with your channel. This could potentially lead to further channel growth and user engagement.
In this article, we talked about being familiar with your audience and their expectations, setting clear boundaries for the sort of channel you’re trying to create, and making consistent content so there’s always a reason for people to come back and interact with your channel. Hopefully, this knowledge leaves you better armed to deal with the ferocious and unforgiving world of YouTube.
