Where I’m At: June 23, 2017 at 11:54AM
Fixing My YouTube Channel
When I first started my YouTube channel, the goal was to make videos of all the parody songs I had created, and then some. That goal became a reality when I introduced “This Time of Forty Days”, a video that goes viral every Ash Wednesday, for elementary school catechists and fans of The Police.
The one problem I had was that, not to put a fine point on it, making the video I did wasn’t cheap. And other than some signs to come to my page, there wasn’t a whole lot of engagement afterwards.
I knew that for me to do this, I needed to learn the skill of crafting my own music videos, even if they came off a little more cheap. I didn’t have a team of artistic evangelists in my neck of the woods, and I didn’t know how to do this solo. But still, I pushed.
In the meantime, I started growing in myriad skills:
Prayer Meeting Podcast
I first learned the art of podcasting, which gave me a microphone to the larger world. While neither of my podcasts (Prayer Meeting Podcast–mostly worship covers, and Nick Alexander Podcast–my wry observations) became sensations, they did give me the skills of learning how to produce content through audio, how to edit it properly, and how to release it to those with an interest.
From my work on the Prayer Meeting Podcast, I was able to build my skills on song composition and performance, not to mention stringing multiple varied styles together. It also awakened in me a desire to learn even more traditional music (i.e. Chant), and endeavor to craft congregational-friendly compositions, rooted in contemporary praise-and-worship, that borrowed melodic elements from the Roman Gradual, while being true to the antiphon texts. Fusion of this sort, I believe wholeheartedly, is the future of Catholic music.
In the interim, I took some of my best worship songs from this time and put them on my YouTube channel as well. Some of these songs have proven to be very popular, to which I am proud.
The Prayer Meeting Podcast is currently under a sabbatical, and cannot restart until I design a better business plan for it to continue. And that’s okay. The songs will stay on my site.
Musings
Then, I discovered I could learn to integrate my verbal musings on Youtube, whether it be from my podcast site, or me sharing my thoughts in a lovely neighborhood park. Some of this came from Snapchat (which I occassionally do).
The quality of these videos are not superior, sadly. Although I think they have a lot of good to share, not everybody has gravitated towards them. Most of my tribe, those who learned of me through my comedy songs, kept asking–where’s the parody songs?
After all, it’s been over ten years since my last album release.
Building a Studio
Over time, I have been inching towards progress. I have built a studio in my basement, getting a quality camera, purchasing lights, getting a quality microphone, and investing/learning a good editing software (Camtasia).
Even so, my YouTube channel still was a mess; it had no focus. It had no direction.
One of the last major changes I did was to invest in an intro and an outro to my videos, and to inundate my videos with clickable annotations. So a person can purchase a song if they liked it.
YouTube changed all that in March when they stopped supporting annotations, and instead allowed for an end-card, with a limit of three or four click-throughs. Part of the reason is that over half of all viewings were from mobile devices, which could not access these annotations.
With new rules, comes a new approach.
New Approach to Videos
I have since created an approach to video-making that I hope will create results.
The first thing is that I have simplified my booking video, my booking pages. No longer jumbled, it reads easily and clearly, explaining the benefits I hope to bring to one’s event.
The second thing is that I have updated my headers for my social media pages (in particular, my Facebook fan page, my Twitter feed, and my YouTube channel), to promote my latest comedy video.
In other words, every time I craft a new video, I will craft also the headers of my social network pages. Nice, eh?
The third step was to create a consistent set of end cards:
1. Subscribe to the Channel
2. My Booking Video
3. A link to where I share, in-depth, as to what drove me to do the parody song, and
4. A link to the previously made video.
The booking video actually has a link to an “extended” version of the booking video, and a link to my booking page.
The link to where I share, in-depth, will be an extension of my Nick Alexander Podcast. Which will be linked on my own blog. Which will also be linked to a product that I fully support, and serve as an affiliate.
A link to a previously made video will be of another parody song. And all the links will be together, one after another.
This is all in preparation for when I craft my next song, my next parody video.
I have not updated my vlog videos, nor have I updated my worship songs. Those will come in time. But they will have a similar setup.
My Next Steps
In the meantime, I am busy juggling my myriad duties, crafting another parody song/video, finding content to share, and putting the finishing touches on my very first online course. My latest idea is such that I may need to employ a crowd of artistic-minded evangelistic volunteers, one whom I may have access to after all this time. We will see.
You can subscribe to my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/CatholicWeirdAl. You can see the updated booking page at http://bit.ly/na-booking