Pre-Release

Building Anticipation and Setting Your New Music up for Success with a Multi-Format Release Plan

700M

times fans discovered a song on Shorts and consumed it on long-form video within a week.¹

2B+

Over 2B logged in users watch a music video each month on YouTube.

What is a multi-format release strategy?

A promotional strategy that uses more than one type of content format to promote the release of a song or project.

ON YOUTUBE, YOU CAN USE:

SHORTS

VIDEO

LIVE

Why should I start promoting my music before my release date?

Reminding fans about an upcoming release can build anticipation, familiarity and overall hype leading up to the big day. Get your fans excited for your new music by promoting the track with teasers, previews and more.

Pre-Release Hacks

Plan Your Creative Vision

Cohesive branding can have an impact on how fans connect with your release, so:

Build a world around your music and immerse fans
Make promotion easier to recognize
Help fans connect and engage more deeply

Engage (Or Re-Engage) Fans before Your Music Is Out

Consider the pre-release phase a way to “warm up” your channel ahead of your release. It can:

Boost channel engagement
Help algorithm learn who to recommend your music and content

PRO TIP

If you haven’t put out music in a while, give yourself more time to post teasers and content to re-engage your fans. Remind them of what made them fans of your music, but also get them excited for what’s next.

Shorts

Tease Your Release with a Preview

A Preview is a clip of a song that is available on Shorts before the song is officially out.

Romy used the Preview of her song with a compilation of performance and behind the scenes footage on Short.

Learn More Here

On Previews

When you deliver a Preview of your song, fans will see a ‘Notify-Me’ button to tap in order to get notifications once your song is officially out.

WHERE DO THEY APPEAR?

1. On your Shorts using the Preview sound

2. On the Song Library Page for your track.

ROMY

Encourage and Inspire Fans to Create

Build hype for your song and create Shorts that invite fans to start creating using your upcoming track or make compelling Shorts that stand out to get fans hooked early.

Ciara made a Short teasing the beginning of her song power walking with dancers from the music video.

CIARA

Pre-Saves

YouTube Music is available for pre-saves on Feature.fm and Linkfire.

Set up a pre-save campaign to build momentum ahead of your release to allow fans to automatically save your release and increase streams on release day.

WHY?

Get a head start on promotion
increase number of creations and views before release is even out,
Grow audience & subscribers ahead of release
Build excitement for release day.

Video

SUMMER WALKER

Upload a trailer or teaser for your upcoming release about two weeks before your release.

WHY?

Fresh content for new fans coming to your channel
Build anticipation for your upcoming release.

Live

Set up a live stream to serve as a pre-show to your music video premiere.

TAKE IT A STEP FURTHER

Set your stream up as a Live Redirect so fans are taken to your music video immediately after the live stream.

Premieres

Set up a Premiere for Your Official Music Video

Premieres allow you and your fans to watch and experience your music video together with a live chat.

Build hype for your premiere by promoting the link on socials.
After the Premiere, the content will live as a video on your channel.

WHY?

Fans will get reminders to tune in
Engaging with fans in live chat during a Premiere can make them more likely to engage with you and your new music
You can promote the Premiere link with fans on your socials