Music

How to get your music videos on Vevo. What are the benefits & drawbacks?

March 19, 2020 | by Starstorm Digital | 5 Comments

YouTube vs. Vevo

Thinking of releasing a music video on Vevo?

Looking to see if it’s worth it? Think you’d be better off on YouTube?

It’s worth reading on whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks on this one. In this article, we will cover exactly that, and how to get on the platform itself.

What are the benefits of getting my music video on Vevo?

There are some great advantages of getting music on Vevo. Some may not feel important to some artists, but some would be a deal-breaker.

Higher earning potential

One of the main advantage of having your music video on Vevo is that they have a higher payout than YouTube channels who monetise their videos. Depending on the audience’s country, Vevo pays an estimated amount of $0.00222 to $0.0025 per view.

Give your brand a more premium image

When it comes to branding, your artist/band will appear to look more premium with the ‘Vevo’ tag on it. People who love music know who ‘Vevo’ are, and are likely to at least love a few artists and bands who are also on Vevo.

Also, as Vevo is known for having high-quality visual and audio content, getting your music video on Vevo will certainly add credibility to your music brand, and help you stand out against the artists who are not on Vevo themselves.

Chance to get more exposure

Vevo has promotional opportunities such as Vevo LIFT and Vevo Presents, which can get more exposure for your music. You will also have a chance to be featured in genre-specific playlists and get discovered that way.

What are the disadvantages of having a Vevo channel?

Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages of getting your own Vevo channel. It is definitely worth considering all the drawbacks associated with having a Vevo channel before you decide if you want to set one up.

Lack of control

One of the disadvantages is that you will not be able to update the channel yourself. You will have to send a request in to your video distributor to get any of the following details changed:

Artist image
Channel banner
Trailer video
Social media links
‘About’ section
Google Analytics Tracking
Google Ads linking (limited)
Featured channels
Playlists

Unable to access some useful features

You will also not be able to access your subscribers list, which is a huge disadvantage.

You will also not be able to fully track your YouTube conversions via Google Ads to see how your ads truly perform. If you advertise your Vevo video on Google Ads, you will only be able to track its views and clicks, but engagement such as how many ‘earned views’, ‘playlist additions, ‘subscribers’ will not be shown in the Google Ads dashboard. Some distributors will allow you to request linking with Google Ads, but these features are not fully-accessible and are limited.

Unable to engage with your subscribers

You will not be able to respond to comments via your Vevo channel, nor will you be able to receive notifications on new comments or subscribers, meaning that when you do receive comments, you would have to check your videos manually.

You will also not be able to delete/hide any comments yourself, nor ‘love’ comments to highlight them.

Exposure is not guaranteed

Having your music video on Vevo will not guarantee any exposure. You will still need to advertise, and plug your music video the same way. Unless of course, as mentioned before, being added to a well-exposed playlist such as Vevo’s very own playlists that feature similar music, but having that opportunity is very rare.

How do I get my music video on Vevo?

If the above pros and cons suit you, there are a few ways to get your music video on Vevo through the right channels. However, as mentioned before, there are no guarantees on whether Vevo will accept your music video submission.

Fortunately, it is not expensive to get your Vevo channel set up by the right people. Below are a couple of official partners of Vevo that can get your video potentially distributed on their platform.

Vydia

Vydia is an official partner of Vevo that can help get your video channel set up. You can begin setting up a channel with unlimited video uploads for only $20 per year.

The $20 package also covers video storage, meaning that your high-quality video will be stored on the servers. This is a great for those who need space saving on their hard drives and cloud storage (which we also recommend that you do if possible!).

Vydia also offers to help you set up Content ID optionally. This means whenever somebody uploads your song on YouTube, you will get paid for the views that use your content.

Vydia will accept official music videos, lyric videos, and audio videos. The advantage of using Vydia is that they will not charge you a fee for every video you upload, or new ISRCs.

Ditto Music

Ditto Music is another official partner of Vevo. According to their pricing plan, they will charge you a hefty one-off fee of £99 to create the video channel, and a fee of £29 to distribute each music video associated with the channel.

Video requirements

Requirements may differ slightly between distributors, however, the general list of requirements for the videos are below:

Must be in full HD (720p, 1080p, 4k)
Use H.264 compression type
.mov or .mp4 files are accepted
Video resolution of at least 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720
To be of high-quality in its visual and audio production, avoiding the use of low-quality webcam footage or phone footage (unless otherwise intended for art purposes)
Minimum of 7,500kbps in bit rate
Sample rate of 44.100 KHz
De-interlaced

Conclusion

Speaking from experience, Vevo can help artists elevate their brand and music career, however, you will lose out on the benefits of owning a YouTube channel directly.

When choosing whether you’d want your music video on Vevo, you ought to think about big picture. What’s more important? Adding credibility to your brand, or maintaining control with the content you distribute? Both are important, of course! It’s just about choosing what’s right for you.

What’s your verdict? Would you want your music videos to be on Vevo, or would you prefer to own your own YouTube artist channel?

How is your music career going? If you feel that you need consultation, general advice, or feel that areas of your band or artist’s marketing needs improvement, do reach out to us. Find out how we can help elevate your music marketing strategy.