Music has been a major driver in the rise of YouTube and most other social networking sites. Due to this, it is understandable that artists want an equitable share in their success. Making money online is not easy, even for popular website as YouTube. Online advertising and paid subscriptions are unpopular, especially considering that a large portion of YouTube traffic comes from teens.

So, what is the importance of YouTube for musicians?

What we tend to forget is that the digital world is still very young and far too small for us to realistically expect to reap rewards right now. Here’s a good example: Avril Lavigne’s video Girlfriend is the number 1 most viewed video of all time with 116 million views. Let’s put that into perspective. The clip was uploaded in February 2007 which therefore equates to 5 million plays a month world wide. That sounds impressive until you realise that it’s equivalent to just 1 play per month on Chris Moyles’ breakfast show on Radio 1.

If a track gets a rotation on Radio1 it will receive 10-15 plays per week which may equal some 50-75 million YouTube views in the UK. By the way, the most viewed music video in the UK has 83 million plays. That is less than 2 weeks on a Radio 1 rotation.

The importance of YouTube to the music industry has not been financial yet. It is about building fan bases around new projects. Having 100,000 YouTube plays for an artist’s new video can be sufficient to start their viral ball rolling. From that, a new artist is able to emotionally connection which is absolutely vital if the revenue is to start flowing.