kudzurunner
5040 posts
Oct 12, 2014
5:50 PM
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This video has more than 500,000 hits in the past two-and-a-half years. It features a somewhat aimless acoustic jam between a solid harp player (advanced intermediate) and a decent guitarist. We've seen hundreds of videos like this. Or have we? What am I missing? His video has 150,000 more hits than "Little Walter's Jump," the live LW video we all love. Please explain. Also, please note that none of the other videos by this uploader has more than a few hundred hits.
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BronzeWailer
1485 posts
Oct 12, 2014
6:18 PM
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I suspect the main driver of all those hits is the title of the video: "Blues harmonica solo." A lot of vids say things like "blues harp" or "amazing [insert artist name here] harp solo" etc. For the naïve viewer who wants to hear some blues harp and has not hear the instrument played in a blues style before, this video may be the most awesome harp music they've ever heard. I don't know how the algorithms work, but it could have gotten in a virtuous viral spiral and carried on from there. It was the first video that came up when I Googled "blues harmonica solo."
Now its discussion on this forum will add to view numbers, cross references etc.!
I note there was a case in New York of some glasses purveyor who deliberately stiffed his customers to generate Internet discussion of his business, pushing him up the search rankings.
BronzeWailer's YouTube
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SteveTech
8 posts
Oct 12, 2014
6:36 PM
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I think BronzeWailer hit the nail on the head. Casual listeners, or newer interested parties, seekers we could call them, don't associate the term "harp" with harmonica.
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Pistolcat
716 posts
Oct 12, 2014
9:38 PM
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I agree. It has to do with the YouTube search engine and virality. I have about thirty or so videoes and the one called "slow blues - E Harmonica" just keep getting views and likes even though it's crap. About 25k views. That video is bad even compared with the rest of my videos not to mention all of the YT.
If you want a video with a shitload of views, call it: Awesome amazing best harmonica" (or leave harmonica out). And then tag it with "miley cyrus" "Jennifer Lawrence" or whatever starlet who lost her nude pictures on the net and: Voila! You are viral.
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
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nacoran
8051 posts
Oct 12, 2014
9:57 PM
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People like mellow warbles and bends. He plays the sounds that a casual harp fan will like. He puts emotion in it and he looks like he is feeling it. Most people don't like complicated. He finds spots where it sounds good and he stays there. It sounds a lot like what you here on A&E/Discovery/History Channel, harmonica without hitting you over the head with the harmonica.
Or at least that's what I hear.
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Nate
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HarpNinja
3953 posts
Oct 13, 2014
8:17 AM
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I just can't make myself whorish enough to title my videos just to generate hits.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
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6SN7
480 posts
Oct 13, 2014
8:37 AM
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I went to school with someone who makes his living achieving results like this. The harp players talent has little to do with this and more to do with the correct words that will generate your video to the top of the search results to direct one to the video. And there is money in it if you can generate enough hits. Hardly whorish.
Adam, go talk to some business students at your university and I am sure they can explain it better than I. It is a big business.
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HarpNinja
3954 posts
Oct 13, 2014
8:44 AM
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6SN7, I just don't have the nerve to use some of the language I see in some videos like, "best", "fastest", etc.
In this specific case, I don't think simply calling it Blues Harmonica Solo is a big deal.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
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6SN7
481 posts
Oct 13, 2014
9:33 AM
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Ninj, I do not understand the "science" behind search engines, but there are techniques in order to get your video/result to the top of the heep.
As you know, on Youtube, some clips run ads prior to the video content and that's where this all comes in to play.
Christelle Berthon has lots of videos out there that get an amazing amount of views. Some of them have ads before them and I assume (i could be totally wrong here...) she gets some compensation. Korean musical phenoem Psy has made a lot of $ with 2 billion hits on that song "Gangham Style" on Youtube.
I understand Ninj that you are a very sincere and low key individual and your Midwest sensibilities keep you from using words like "the best" etc.
But the fact is, you are a very talented harp player and I believe you could put a video out and "place" it correctly in search engines and it will come out as the first result and generate a lot of traffic to the video and boost your business. And not for nothing, but you certainly have the looks and prescence to be effective, heck, you are on a Hohner poster!
Edited additonal comment: Mike, I check out a number of your videos and I thought they were good, certainly as good if not better than the one above. I noted on one of the video (Rock Harp #1) that an advertisment ran before your content? Do you get paid for that? Sorry for being nosey, but I find this interesting..thanks
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Oct 13, 2014 9:37 AM
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JustFuya
615 posts
Oct 13, 2014
11:58 AM
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I also read somewhere (here?) that there are tricks for generating large numbers of hits on YT. It seems to me that YT (Google) would have technology in place to detect that, especially if the hits were generating revenue.
There are also tricksters who plant deceptive links to their videos (ie 'Live Nude Women') on other sites.
Google "youtube view increaser"
Last Edited by JustFuya on Oct 13, 2014 12:00 PM
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tookatooka
3703 posts
Oct 13, 2014
12:25 PM
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A search for Blues Harmonica is sufficient to bring this video in near the top of the search list. A search for Blues Harp will bring it in but further down the list.
Although 'harp' is not in the title, it does figure in the description so it's important to ensure the description is as descriptive as possible.
Once YT see a video climb up the viewing figures league, it will realise that that particular video is drawing attention so will ensure it is placed near the top. When attention dwindles the video will begin to drop.
The video owner has about 7 videos on YT all of which only have a handful of views except the Blues Harmonica Solo one. Therefore, I'd put it down to luck. Someone with YouTube experience/influence has shared it and it snowballed. IMO
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nacoran
8053 posts
Oct 13, 2014
12:40 PM
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HarpNinja, it's interesting- one of our local musicians was hosting an open mic. It was new and the owner wasn't doing much to promote it. He was counting on her to do all the dragging the bodies in. She was very uncomfortable when he'd ask her to Facebook all her friends and get them down there. Of course, she was a musician, and a huge portion of her friends list was people who specifically were friends with her on FB so they could find out when she was playing!
You might not know it from the quantity of posts I make, but in 'real life' I'm quite the wallflower. I'm usually pretty tongue tied the first 200 or so times I talk with a person (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, it might only be the first 100 or so!) I'm always worried that I'll say the wrong thing (there is some precedent... lol). Our group of friends growing up would cut you down the instant you got too big for your britches. Bragging was the surest way to invite ridicule and no one ever outright praised you. I'm not sure of the sociology of that. It was strangely egalitarian in some ways.
Humbleness has a lot of virtue when you are hanging with your buddies. It's maybe not as useful when you start trying to promote yourself and your music.
If you've got the goods, sometimes, in a crowded room you've got to yell it at the top of your lungs. I can give that advice. Probably can't do it for myself, but then again, I don't play harp nearly as well as you do! The internet uses weird algorithms. It looks for certain words. If all else fails, do what my friend did. He couldn't write a description of his own music. He was too self-conscious to say, 'Sounds like Johnny Cash' or whatever, so he asked someone else to write his Reverb page. If you can't be that 'whorish' ask someone else to do it for you. :)
"Amazing. Popperesque!" (Huh, spellcheck says that's a real word?)
JustFuya, they do have a lot of technology, including a simple button you can hit if you landed on videos with misleading titles.
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Nate
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