yea i havent firgured out how some things get so many hits,Its a subject me and my best friend talked about the other day,He does some nice recording on his 16 track will spend about 2 weeks a song,and has about 50 hits and hes a good musician,And then there be someone feeding there dog or something similar getting 5000 hits.My friend googled a search trying to firgure how to get more utube hits but hasnt firgured out the trick,I tried putting about 1000 tags while waiting for my video to upload,on everything i could think of most tags were off topic just to see what would happen,but it didnt take but about a dozen tags.anyone know?maybe i should do a music video of my dog eating his dog food Dog food blues.I wrote a song years ago and some of the lyricks were aint supposed to eat dog food,it was about the homeless,Hey there i go utube watch out 500000 hits comming i feel it now lol
"yea i havent firgured out how some things get so many hits"
you mean like this one........
this should be on the thread - My Most Hated YT Videos ---------- The Art Teacher Formally Known As scstrickland
Last Edited by on Jan 19, 2010 5:44 PM
One not so obvious thing that I believe impacts hits is how many people do you know or are related to, specifically via internet through social networking, email,etc. This increases your chances of being discovered when they do an automated search for people they might know on youtube...and then they are connected to others as well.
It pays to get connected! Meet people and trade info.
-Have lots of friends, send it to everyone Might stress them after a while, but who cares... -Post it as a reply to a random super popular vid (then wait 30 min, remove and add as a reply again, remove and add, repeat, repeat...) -Post it everywhere you go/link it (spam the net) forums, guestbooks, comments, etc. etc.
-Good choice of title like 'MUST SEE' or 'BEST VID EVER' are good ones, anything sexual something like 'Miley Cyrus is DEAD' or 'Tiger Woods hottest girlfriend' should also do the trick... winner of latest '... got talent 2010' when it's first page news etc. etc... -Good choice of tags Anything that is in at the moment, anything sexual always works -Good picture on front, preferably babes
How-to vids or tutorials are always popular. Make em funny.
Make a vid on 'HOW-TO get hits on YouTube' ;)
...and you'll have 100,000 hits in no-time.
This is the vid i HATE! It is the only and most popular video on bending in germany. He has no clue but 20,000 hits and comments like the ones Adam gets (except of mine). Most of what he says or does is wrong and drives me crazy....
---------- germanharpist on YT. =;-) - Resonance is KEY!
jonsparrow- I think that video is a good example of how just mixing a couple ideas together can get people excited. People who listen to a little beat box will say, cool, beat box. People who listen to a little harmonica will say, cool, harmonica. It won't wow people who really know either but it doesn't have to. He is generic enough so he won't scare any group off.
As for getting more hits on YouTube, I think shanester probably hit the nail on the head. If you can get enough connections to get your hit totals up you move up in the search results. It's also a lot of luck, getting the right thing at just the right time. This is one of my favorite low hit wonders...
The girl in this video is also a singer. She sings with my bands guitar player and has an amazing voice but I don't think she has any YouTube videos up.
Last Edited by on Jan 19, 2010 11:24 PM
@oda@ I don't know if I'm really qualified to do so. However, I'll do it once I taught it to a couple of people and they got it.
I'll then apply the (appropriate) tricks mentioned above and kaboooom I'll be the nr.1 bending video :) ---------- germanharpist on YT. =;-) - Resonance is KEY!
I nearly killed myself while watching that vid at the top. All the will to live sapped from my soul.
About the getting hits thing. I studied it in quite a bit of depth a while back. It's incredibly boring and not worth the effort unless there's dosh in it. 'Search Engine Optimization' is the mind-numbingly dull subject it comes under. I'm getting all depressed just thinking about it. ---------- YouTube SlimHarpMick
Last Edited by on Jan 20, 2010 3:42 AM
@nacoran: That song was really good, and so was the music video. It's pretty amazing that that video has been up for 2 years, and only gotten a little over 1000 hits. Yeah. I couldn't tell you why a vid like that stagnates, while others go viral... Strange... ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
That being said, I'm extatic when my own videos hit 1000 views... And GH is right, it only happens when you do a "how to" video. Strangely, the most popular video I've uploaded is this one with 30,382 hits:
Jonsparrow, the harp with the beatbox thing is speaking to an entirely different generation whether we want to admit this or not and tho it may not be "virtuoso" playing to some people's liking, on the other hand, the instrument is in an entirely different area and unless you want it to be nothing more than a "niche" instrument, it has to do all sorts of other things as well.
There are those who think of harp as only a blues instrument, but it clearly is NOT true at all, as I've heard it play damned near every music genre from blues, country, rock, classical, jazz, klezmer, you name it and so why not beat box?
I guess for some of us, it shows our age and that this may no longer reflect our youth and what we grew up with that was rebelling agains what some of our parents, grandparents, etc. were listening to and we wanted our own identity.
At 54 years old, I've basically seen a repeat of such reactions from generation to generation, like the way rock and/or blues were once thought of as jungle music, and now seeing other genres thought by the generation that loved rock against their parent's wishes now dissing something that's not what they grew up with, and that will soon happen to the next generation and also the one following that, etc., etc., whether anyone likes it or not and it's part of life. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
its weird subject i guess it can be timing one of my past videos had 80 hits in less than 5 min of posting,It has just a little of over a 100 now and has been up for 3 weeks,It was the only time i had so many hits so quick it was about 5am here when i posted it, i thought maybe the time had something to do or a computer faul up i dont know
I think it's fascinating the way in which younger musicians are taking very "country" instruments like Jew's Harp and harmonica and mixing those sounds with the quintessential urban sounds of beat-box and techno. Jon's right: the guy in the first video can't really play harp, but then again, he's completely spontaneous with the harp part AND completely controlled and disciplined with the beat-box sounds. It's that combination, as much as anything, that grabs people. Even though the harp sounds per se are fairly beginnerish, he blends them extremely well with the beats--and not in a pre-fab way, but with real improvisational dexterity.
I like the second guy, on jew's harp and techno beats, a little better--and it turns out he came in fourth place in some beat-box championship. Those championships take place in many countries, apparently. This is all new to me.
I found the following, which is truly remarkable. It's like a magic trick:
From what I've read about getting YouTube hits and what I've put together from pages I want to get hits on there are a few things you need to do. Put up good stuff. If you are going to put up stuff that isn't as good occasionally (experiments you just want feedback on for instance) make sure you label them as such. Respond to comments. Network. Describe your site with good accurate keywords. You may get a hit by typing Obama sex tape but someone looking for an Obama sex tape isn't likely to give a harmonica video a good rating. Low stars will sink you.
Put links to it anywhere you can. Get a few things up all at once. If I see a cool YouTube video I look to see if there are other videos by that person. If there are I watch them too. If I like them too I subscribe. I don't think I've ever subscribed to someone with just one video up.
At your shows ask people for their emails and say your site name over and over. (JeffDunham.com Peanut!) Make an easy to remember name. Email people on your list with show updates and links to your videos, but don't get too pushy or people will unsubscribe. Join groups and forums that have something to do with your videos and talk to people there and network.
If you like something and think it's a good fit with what you have posted, link to them and ask if they will link to you. Some people just spam people with links. I won't watch any video that's spam on principle, but people do it so I guess it works.
Put up new stuff.
As for gaming the system, remember sites like YouTube are always changing their algorithms to improve their rankings. What works now may not work tomorrow.
I watched a PBS special that was about hiphop and sampling and I do have mixed feelings regarding that whole thing, but having seen how these guys sample and then remix things often using anything from Wes Montogmery guitar lines to James Brown's drummer trademark sounds and now with harmonica going with a beat box, I came away thinking even more that if the harmonica is to flourish and survive, it HAS to expand and just acting like some of us accused our parents/grandparents of being, kinda like crotchedy old fogies too damned conservative for their own good is gonna hurt the instrument more than anything else.
It was just 30 years ago tha SPAH was largely composed of almost entirely chromatic harp players, bass and chord harp players and many of them came from the background of the days when the all harmonica bands like Borrah Minevitch, Johnny Puleo, and Jerry Murad was their big thing and anything else was sacriligious to them, and now there's a wider scope of players there and now with the beat box thing (and before that, John Popper) is rankling what was once the young "whippersnappers" invading the premises of SPAH playing diatonic harmonicas, and even worse for them, blues, and now that generation is getting into a tiff with their feathers ruffled much like diatonic players did to the generation before and so just limiting things to our own perspectives only is gonna do the instrument far more harm than good.
The rhythmic aspect of what the guy with the beatbox harp is more important than the melodic side because it puts emphasis on something too many players lack enough understanding of and that's the groove and because what that guy does grooves, it works. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Okay, so I finally watched the vid in the OP (is it bad that I posted on this thread before I watched the vid? Yes. BAD Isaac!) and, well, meh... It was okay. I didn't hate it or anything, but I didn't love it either. I can certainly see why it would get hits (apart from any sort of search optimization they did), but it, and the orignal Yuri Lane vid, just aren't that good in terms of actually MARRYING beat box with harp. Not like that SPAH video. Not like Son Of Dave. Not like Brandon Bailey. I'm sure it's difficult to beat box WHILE playing (certainly harder than doing beatbox as a loop first), but that doesn't excuse you from being obliged to actually learn how to play the harmonica properly. This guy (in the OP vid) had enough space in between his mouth beats to play multi-note riffs. And to his credit, he WAS playing single notes, and making musical-sounding riffs. But he had no STYLE in his harp playing. The harp seriously sounded like any other campfire-ish harmonica playing. You know, with that weak, creaky, tinny, in-out tone. The kind of tone that makes you cringe and go "oh no, here we go again". He's lacking ALL the subtleties that differentiate okay harmonica from good/great harmonica.
It's very clear to me that beat-box and hip-hop music CAN mix very well with the harmonica. It's also clear that in that mixing may lie one of the keys to the future of the instrument. But this isn't it. This is Jason Mraz, not Kanye. This is the Backstreet Boys, not Boys II Men. This is Nickelback, not Nirvana. etc. etc. It just doesn't feel like the real thing to me at all...
