YouTube is not a fast-discovery platform. It won’t make you go viral overnight. But content you upload today can be found in a search three years from now. It’s the platform of lasting content: concerts, tutorials, process documentaries, acoustic sessions, making-of films. The logic isn’t “how many views do I have today” — it’s “how many people find my work through a search”.
Which artists benefit most from YouTube
Highly suited for:
- Musicians: filmed concerts, music videos, acoustic sessions, instrument tutorials, music theory.
- Visual artists with long processes: mural time-lapses, sculpture documentaries, video art.
- Creators with things to explain: artists who do criticism, theory, analysis, or teach.
- Performing arts companies: performance excerpts, tour teasers, behind the scenes.
Less suited if: you only have static photographic content and don’t produce video.
Formats and dimensions
Thumbnail: the thumbnail image is the single biggest factor determining whether people click on your video. It needs high contrast, text that’s readable at small size, and a compelling face or visual element. Thumbnail design is a skill in itself — worth spending time on.
YouTube SEO: getting found
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine (after Google, which owns it). Optimising for search is not optional if you want your content to work on its own:
Title: include the words someone would search to find your video. “Jazz Piano Concert Barcelona 2025” is better for SEO than “My Thursday performance”. Think like a searcher, not a marketer.
Description: the first 150 characters are visible without expanding. Put key information there. Develop the full description with relevant keywords, links to your website and social accounts, and if there are lyrics or set lists, include them (YouTube indexes them).
Tags: add tags with keywords from your sector. Include your discipline, style, instrument, genre.
Chapters: if the video is long (a concert, a tutorial), add timestamps to the description to divide it into chapters. YouTube shows chapters in Google results and in its own search.
Content types for artists
Concerts and performances: the quintessential evergreen content. A well-filmed concert continues to accumulate views for years because people search by artist name or song title.
Tutorials and explanations: “how I do X”, “the theory behind Y”. Educational content is what performs best in YouTube’s algorithm over the long term.
Acoustic / stripped-down sessions: a musician with their instrument in an interesting space. Low-cost format, high authenticity, heavily searched.
Making-of: the process of creating a work, album, exhibition or show. For a loyal audience, it’s some of the most valued content you can make.
Reviews and responses: artists who analyse others’ work or answer community questions build authority and attract searches.
YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s short-form video format (max 60 sec, vertical 9:16). It lets you repurpose content from TikTok or Instagram Reels. The audience is different and the algorithm is independent. Useful for increasing visibility of your main channel, but less powerful than TikTok for initial discovery.
Frequency: quality over quantity
On YouTube, one good video published monthly is far better than four mediocre ones. Production quality matters: clean audio, stable image, decent lighting. You don’t need a television production, but a concert recorded with phone audio will return far less than a decent recording. Invest in a basic microphone before investing in a camera.
See also:
Ressona works with LinuxBCN for building professional digital presence for artists. Get in touch.