Expand your global audience and connect with fans across the world on YouTube.
From fans of viral hits to loyal superfans, a global audience is key to taking your music’s reach worldwide.
Developing a thoughtful global strategy can help your music reach fans regardless of language, culture, or location.
YouTube gives you access to global audiences, adding potential consumption and creation with your music.
As you continue to grow your audience in your home country, there’s opportunity to build new audiences in others. Growing your international presence can:
Help your music reach a larger audience
Find fans in new markets
Unlock new opportunities in other countries
Touring, publicity, collaborations
Create new monetization opportunities
Merch sales, fan funding
While you can grow your global audience at any time, some key moments to consider 
include when:
You have a new, upcoming release with specific markets in mind
Your song starts to trend and audiences in new markets start to grow
You have a tour and want to engage certain market
The first step in planning your global strategy is understanding your music's current audience. From there, you can prioritize top audience markets, which can have high value and potential.
Gain deep insights into your audience, both broadly and for specific songs or videos, using the Audience tab and Advanced mode in Analytics for Artists.
Think internationally with your content
As you think about your global strategy, it's important to be clear on what your intentions are when expanding your global audience. Ask yourself whether your goal is to:
Think of broad, universal concepts that could appeal or relate to a general audience
What this can look like:
ERIK joined a popular, global trend and put his own spin on it to reach a broader audience.
BRUNO MARS created a new song and Short to announce his anticipated return to Brazil for a tour.
Tailor your content to fans in a specific market or incorporate popular content formats or trends from that market
What this can look like:
Content strategy
Create alternative or translated versions of your song or content to appeal to fans across markets
Music fans around the world have unique listening habits. Tailor your tracks with clean versions, local remixes or translated lyrics to really resonate with your audience.
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MITSKI created translated lyric videos to cater to top markets discovering her song 'My Love Mine All Mine'.
Lean into trends
Look out for songs that begin to trend in your region or abroad as new trends can take off anywhere at any time.
Trends present great timing and opportunities for you to broaden your reach while you have heightened attention on your music.
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MOLIY created local remixes to further build her audience upon the success of her global, viral track 'Shake It To The Max (FLY)'.
Content and channel optimization
Translate video titles and descriptions
Enhance discoverability of your videos by using translations in video titles and descriptions
Optimize closed captions
YouTube automatically provides localised closed captions for content, but quality varies. We encourage you to review and edit incorrect captions
Tag featured artists and creators with Collaborations
Use Collaborations to cross-promote content with other international artists and creators. Add up to five collaborators to a video or Short, which will be shown to all channels' audiences.
Please note: Collaborators will need to enable mentions, which can be managed in the 'Privacy' section of YouTube account settings.
Highlight international content in playlists
Make it easy for international fans to find your content. Consider organising content by making a playlist for translations, content with international collaborations and more.
Boost audience reach and channel growth
Just getting started? Try Promote.
Promote allows artists to boost their own videos and Shorts to achieve their channel and audience growth goals.
Set goals like audience growth (add subscribers), increase video views and increase website clicks.
YouTube Engagements are Demand Gen campaigns on Google Ads with a goal of growing YouTube subscriptions and follow-on views.
For more on how to set up music advertising campaigns in Google Ads, take a look at our Music advertising guide
Need help with your campaign?
Leverage the insights on YouTube Music Charts for local music preferences and understand the unique characteristics of different music markets
Develop a global team to manage the logistics of international promotions and licensing deals.
Understand and recognise the challenges in new markets, such as cultural differences, the law and regulations and the competitive landscape.
Participate in global events. Music festivals and award shows around the world can provide valuable exposure for artists.
Global strategy thought starters
When developing your global strategy, consider the following before and during the campaign.
