Posting to YouTube
Titles
YouTube titles are pretty flexible, but there are a few guidelines we recommend:
Keep them consistent - If you prefer putting artist then title, do that on all of your tracks, same if you prefer the opposite. If you specify “duet” on one track by putting that in parentheses after the title, do that for all duets.
Put “karaoke” somewhere in the title. We don’t want to trick people into watching our videos, so we need to make it clear what they are. Something like “instrumental, with lyrics” is also fine, but “karaoke” is easier.
Thumbnails
Some people like to use a title card as a thumbnail, while others show a preview of the scroll to indicate it’s a real karaoke track. There’s no consensus on this. But whatever you do with thumbnails, make sure they have something related to the content and are easy to read.
Pinned Comments
Often pinned comments are more visible than the description, so if you want to attach an important note to your video, this is probably the best place to put it. That said, most viewers will still never read it.
Playlists
Playlists aren’t necessary when you first get started, but after you have a large collection of karaoke videos, these are incredibly useful to showcase the content of your channel, especially if you have a wide variety. It lets viewers find their own niche within your otherwise intimidating list of videos. A great example of playlist usage is Funbox’s channel.
Karaoke Nerds
Karaoke Nerds is a site indexing karaoke content. It works much better than YouTube or Google search in locating karaoke tracks, both in locating tracks that might otherwise not show up in results, and ensuring results are actually quality. It works by following YouTube channels (and some commercial vendors) known to produce good karaoke. If you followed the Titles rules, your content will be easily indexed by Karaoke Nerds. The maintainer of the site watches our Discord and is pretty quick to add new channels. If you notice your channel is not indexed yet, and you already applied and got approved for a Discord channel, you can ping @karaokenerd in the Discord.
Copyright Issues
Unfortunately, some bands just don’t want to have their music hosted on YouTube in the form of instrumental or karaoke versions. Posting songs by these bands could very easily cost you your channel in the form of a copyright strike. If you receive three strikes within a 90 day period, your channel will be terminated. It is possible to get strikes removed (even after your channel has been terminated – allowing you to be reinstated) by contacting the party who issued the copyright strike. Generally, they are willing to rescind the strike if you offer to remove your video. Below is a form letter you can send if you receive a copyright strike as well as a link to a document containing a list of banned bands.
Greetings,
I received a [Copyright takedown notice] last night for the specified videos, on the YouTube channel CHANNEL NAME. The video links are:
Please know that I respect the wishes of BAND not to be represented on my channel, and of any other artist similarly. I am fully willing to delete the videos and not include further content from BAND or any other specified artists in the future. Furthermore, the Karaoke community at large is now aware of the issue and will not be making any more BAND KARAOKE videos.
I do believe that singing is one of (if not the) highest form of engagement a fan can have with an artist. I have spoken with numerous artists (including Moist, Mike Turner, SNFU and others) who fully support this form of engagement. I am requesting a retraction of this notice that I will, in good faith, delete the videos and not include any BAND content in the future. I will always be happy to delete or not include content from any other artist you specify too.
Thank you for your time,
YOUR NAME
Note that we also have a list of some of the artists/labels that have issued bans and strikes.