How To Grow Your Music YouTube Channel feat. Adriel Rivera

In this podcast episode I talk to Adriel Rivera (Show Your Genius) about how to grow your music YouTube channel, since he’s grown his to about 13,000 subscribers! We talk about content type, how long it takes, and how to stand out. We also talk about music marketing topics, and general life stuff as well.

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Important Points:

• Adriel shares his journey to 100,000 Subscribers for her YouTube channel and how Adrielmanaged to double his audience in just three months. Adriel and Andrew emphasize theimportance of creating top-notch content and making sure it’s helpful to viewers.
• Adriel gives some tips on how to keep up with creating content, like using SEO to figure outwhat people want to see. He discusses with Andrew how to draw inspiration from other creatorswhile still bringing something unique to the table. And also how having awesome cover art canhelp establish your brand!
• Adriel and Andrew encourage other creators to keep at it and not give up when you are notgetting the results that you want.

Podcast Outline:

[01:09] Adriel recaps how he started with the series Journey to 100,000 Subscribers- Adriel[01:59] Andrew and Adriel talk about how they met each other on YouTube – Andrew & Adriel[03:59] Adriel defines his music as teen pop, indie pop music that teens his age listen to- Adriel[05:34] Inspired by the things he learns from his brother and the amount of music he’s alreadymaking in 2015, Adriel started his YouTube channel- Adriel[08:40] Initially, Adriel is hesitant to do tutorial videos because he wants to avoid being labeledas a YouTuber- Adriel[12:03] Adriel’s channel started with 5,000 subscribers at the beginning of the year, theneventually, his community doubled because of his consistency in posting content- Adriel[13:37] Andrew and Adriel agreed that quality content is important to truly engage yourcommunity – Andrew & Adriel[15:48] One of the key drivers of Adriel’s engagement is his Discord server-Andrew[18:01] The kind of content that will draw people in are the ones that show you also care aboutthem and their experience- Adriel[20:47] Christian Henderson’s YouTube videos are an example of entertaining and helpfulcontent – Andrew[23:50] Adriel also utilizes Reddit for very specific content, like his tutorial of the 115 plug-ins inFL Studio- Adriel[25:12] Don’t hold back on doing content that someone else has already done because thereare many ways you can build on that and add something new and valuable- Adriel

[26:21] Andrew shares how he builds on content others have already done but giving his owntake to add an improvement[27:53] Both Andrew and Adriel shared that even though you look for inspiration from othercontent creators, make sure to fill in the gap that they didn’t cover[28:53] SEO helped Adriel build a high-traffic YouTube channel- Adriel[30:55] Adriel takes advantage of the YouTube algorithm for SEO by targeting people with thesame interests[31:38] Adriel uses Tube Buddy, a Chrome extension that lets you see how much a search termis searched for and how much competition there is- Adriel[34:53] Andrew and Adriel both agree that video quality, especially sound, is important becauseYouTube auto-generates the sound and incorporates it into captions – Andrew & Adriel[35:45] Andrew recommends a similar tool to Tube Buddy, and it’s called Morning Fame –Andrew[39:38] Both love the Good Mythical Morning show and cite it as a great example of creatingquality content consistently- Andrew & Adriel[44:13] Chilled Cow Nostalgia, Chill Nation, and Mr. Suicide Sheep grew their channel fromcreating the same content over and over – Andrew & Adriel[48:57] Adriel draws his own cover artwork for the channel using Photoshop and stock imagesfrom Pixabay. Andrew uses Lightroom to enhance the color grade of the images – Andrew &Adriel[53:54] Andrew talks about how listeners don’t judge Spotify cover artworks but focus on theplaylist inside – Andrew[55:30] Using cover artworks for your brand helps establish who you are as an artist- Adriel[1:01] Adriel encourages listeners to not give up even though they can’t see the results soonenough- Adriel

Wise Words:

[15:48] You have great content, but you have a really engaged Discord server. And I think that’sbecause of how you’ve cultivated a community around you. It’s not just about the content, it’sabout the fact that it’s you doing the content.- Andrew

[18:01] Everything is related to providing content to people, like providing value to people. Ifyou’re posting beats, if you really think about it, it’s all just me, me, me. Like, here’s a beat.Listen to what I made. Like, here’s my music, listen to what I made. And that’s what I was doingwhen I first started off. Nobody’s going to care because you’re not really showing that you care about them. You know…for example, tutorials are really great ‘ cause you’re like, ‘hey here’s thethings I know, let me provide it to you for free, so you can, you know, learn too’.-Adriel

[25:12] Even though somebody has already done something before, that doesn’t mean you can’tdo it again in your own way.- Adriel

[28:53] That’s how I started off my YouTube channel, and I still do SEO. You know, I still look forthings that people are looking for. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever talked about it on yourchannel before, but that’s something that I tell people… SEO is what helped me start off myYouTube.-Adriel

[1:01] There are so many times when I feel like I wanted to give up. Because I’m not getting theresults that I want to get, but you know, I look back at the things that I’ve done. I’m like, ‘youknow, if I had given up