 So we are now live on YouTube. Facebook is cracking down. There's a Facebook crackdown on copyright materials, on copyright music in 2020. We're now going to go through in real time what that means for you and what your options might be for going live here on YouTube. And we're doing that as a live YouTube stream. Hello, I'm Neil Mossy. Welcome to the Great British YouTubers podcast. I'm not used to doing this live. Usually I do about 20 takes. And it's a podcast where we help high achieving creators and performers, just like you, with advice and tips and experience. And also like my friend here, who's on that side of the screen, Mark A Wright. Hello, Mark. Just happened to be strumming my guitar as you cut live into my lounge. We've not done this before on the podcast. And we've not done this in a you and me sense. We'll explain who we are in a moment. But let's crash straight into the problem that you face at the moment. You are a live performer, a live music performer. I'm a live performer, live music performer, who obviously once lockdown came in, all of my gigs were canceled. So I made the decision that I would just carry on performing. And so here I am. This is my lounge. Welcome to my lounge. And so I've been doing all kinds of performances, both acoustically. I'm also an Elvis Presley tribute act as well. I'm impersonating in Diamond. I've done an evening of rap music. So I made the decision to carry on singing. And it's been wonderful. And Facebook as a platform has been, well, it's been a lifeline, actually, in terms of the interaction it affords you as a performer and for the audience with the emojis coming up in the comments. It's been fantastic. So that's what I've been doing since April I started. But there's a big problem coming. And you got in touch with me to ask some really basic questions about YouTube. I thought why not share this on YouTube? Because your insight to live music online, using Facebook Live as a platform is second to none. But you've got you've got an apocalypse coming, right? Well, it's actually a bit muddier now that it was when we last talked about this. So just to bring people up to speed, Facebook sent out an update on their app and on their website, updating the terms of conditions as from this October the 1st, 2020, basically saying that any music that could be considered a listening experience would no longer be allowed on the platform. Now, obviously what I do is a listening experience. You know, so many people have been singing through the platform as well, would constitute a listening experience. And so obviously we thought, well, this is going to bring an end to all the live streams, not just the live streams, but anybody filming any music whatsoever. So as musicians, we've been, you know, panicking something. I mean, I'm doing a few live gigs now, but not as many as before. So still live streaming is primarily how I connect with my audience. So we've all been panicking and trying to set up a YouTube channel, but Facebook have issued an update to their guidelines as from or a clarification, should we say, in the past day or two. So yeah, it's a little bit muddier than it was before, but the bottom line is we've all been trying to get onto YouTube and boost our subscriber numbers, which I suspect is why Facebook have issued a clarification, which basically seems to say, and I want to hear it from a few more sources yet, that everything can carry on as before. The only thing that, the only reason why I'm suspicious about them saying it's merely a clarification is because there was a rights agreement with the performing rights society here in the UK that expired in March. To me, it makes sense that that agreement that expired in March probably wouldn't have been able to be renegotiated during lockdown. These rules, these are an update to the terms and conditions. So, you know, why an update if things have meant to stay the same? I think what's happened in the in the previous two weeks, they've noticed, of course, that musicians like myself are basically just trying to migrate over to YouTube en masse. So it looks for now that we will be able to carry on live streaming. But as we've tried to migrate to YouTube, singers and musicians have found a whole range of issues. I thought it was as simple as putting a post on my Facebook page saying, hey, I've got a YouTube channel, all sign up to it. And if you subscribe to me, I'll subscribe to you. And then I noticed after getting about, you know, 350, I'll wake up the next day and suddenly I'd have 310. Okay. And then I get some more subscribers, maybe another 30 or 40. And then the next day, suddenly it would be down to 302. So for every subscriber I seem to be getting, I was kind of maybe at say every five subscribers, I seem to be losing about two or three of them within days. So it was not as easy as just setting up a YouTube channel. And why do we want to get more subscribers? Because YouTube now, you can only broadcast on your mobile phone, mobile device, which is what I'm using now, if you have a thousand subscribers. So that's been the issue. So we've been trying to run and get subscribers. And then YouTube are going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And Facebook are saying, no, don't go. Facebook, Facebook have now issued a clarification saying, no, sorry, I don't know where you got that idea from. What do you mean a listening experience? No, that doesn't include all the musicians and singers that have been streaming on Facebook live. So I'm not quite sure what the update was, if it wasn't that the wording was quite clear and quite specific. Understood. Understood. But this is a really timely reminder for everyone, everyone even on YouTube that the platform that you are on could disappear like that. Yes. You need to have some backup options. That's brilliant that we're having this chat. And basically, we're going to gain some experience and tips from what you've been looking into just by sounding out this issue. So whether or not there is a Facebook live crackdown on the 1st of October, 2020, there are some more general life lessons here or how to create life. Exactly. Right. It's almost irrelevant whether things change or not on October the 1st. It really was a wake up call for a lot of us that, you know, we might be able to use the platform, but it really is nothing. We got no say over it. And that can change like that. And it's not as easy as just jumping onto another platform. And there are limitations and restrictions on that as well. And so it's been driving us crazy. So let's go through the problem then. So the problem for you specifically is that you are a live tribute act. So you sing and perform music to backing tracks. And the fear was in the gray areas, these backing tracks obviously have their own copyright limitations. Yeah. And the Facebook algorithm would have given you a strike and might even have shut your channel down. Yes. If you were broadcasting live using copyright material. Yes, they use the word anything that constitutes a listening experience. And for music that you don't own the rights to a lot of acts say, well, I bought the backing tracks. So I, you know, I can sing them in a pub. Why can't I just sing them online? What's the difference? Well, the difference is a pub pays for a PRS license or performing rights society license. And that money is distributed amongst artists and stuff through royalty. So the pub has paid for the license for you to perform music using your backing tracks. I don't know what deal Facebook have had with the PRS. But that did expire in March. And I haven't seen an update to that. So I think this is what's happened with this situation. And Facebook, there was a bit of brinsmanship going on. And Facebook said, well, we just want to do music then. But then when they saw they were hemorrhaging musicians, because basically they don't want people to go to YouTube. Any more than YouTube want people to go to Facebook, which is great. Well, I would talk about Facebook on YouTube. Sorry, guys. But the two can compliment each other. And this is this is the journey that I've been on right week or so. So my goodness, what a journey this year. Let's just recap that briefly. So, you know, to state the obvious that the meteor struck the world of live music globally, where live performances were shut down, live performers then adapted and managed to get online by any means necessary, mostly in your case, Facebook live. So that's where you're following is that's where your fan base is. And to have that portal shut down or potentially be a threat is like a really big deal because you've then got to transfer that fan base over to another platform. So you've got to choose another platform. You need to work out technically how that works. And you've got to work out how that platform works with its culture of surfing followers. And it's different. You know, YouTube is different. I always see YouTube as a bit more of a passive. You consume it more passively than Facebook. Now, I know when you go live on YouTube, you can comment, I think there was an option to comment as a live stream is taking place. But with Facebook, it's even more interactive. Like you have the emojis that you can just tap on the bottom right of the screen. So I think there's some just set to go like a thumbs up and a love harp and angry face with certain songs. If I'm singing, say all you need is love by the Beatles, I then as I was doing this, I realized there's a whole way that we can communicate that we can only communicate via this medium. So let's make it special. So no, we cannot go out. No, we cannot be in the same room. But let's do something unique to this experience that could not be replicated in a live concert setting. So one of the emojis, all you need is love. And of course, I start singing it, come to chorus, you know, press love emoji, you know, and you're doing that while you're playing, while you're literally playing, you're firing the audience. I see. So as they're watching, so I might be strumming, you know, all you need is love that they would then start pressing the heart button come to that. And in the middle bit, this is love, love, love it. I'm deliberately not singing the melody because Beatles songs are notorious me. When you do the middle bit, the love, love, love bit, obviously everybody can then rather than sing along, they can press the emojis. So that's something about Facebook that made it very appealing, very interactive. YouTube is a little bit more passive in how you consume it. So there we go. Yeah, that's my personal page. That's pictures of me. That's from my gig at the weekend. An actual live concert outside, folks. But primarily it's been through streaming. It was also a way to have to adapt to YouTube as well, which I still haven't been able to do because I haven't been able to get to a thousand subscribers to go live. Well, let's talk about this because this is why this is why we're here. So the equipment that you have is a tablet or phone. It's a phone, isn't it? iPhone. And as you explained very clearly, on the YouTube app, you can stream live if you have a YouTube account. I think after about not many subscribers, just so long as YouTube knows that you're a kind of legitimate channel, you don't need that many subscribers to have the live enabled in your regular YouTube desktop account, which is great if you've got a laptop and a camera and that kind of setup. If you are using your mobile phone or your cell phone or mobile device, this is what it looks like after you get a thousand subscribers. If I open the YouTube app, there's a button here. If I press that, you can upload a video. You can go live or you can hit a post. And if I hit the go live button, it opens up so you can write a title. Let's call it T. And it starts to get a bit more complicated if you broadcast from your desktop. But that is what is made available to you from the get go. So that's problem number one for you. Problem number two is like beyond needing the thousand subscribers for the mobile YouTube app to be enabled. You also want a thousand subscribers. You actually want the number of followers from Facebook to be able to find you here. It really is a one step forward, two steps back. A lot of people think, Oh, you know, I've got say, I don't know, I think I might have 3000 friends. So a lot of people think, Oh, I've got 3000 friends. If just a third of them sign up to my YouTube channel, then great, I'm going to have enough subscribers. But people tend to stick to what they know. They tend to stick to the medium that they know. They won't transfer over either. So there's a challenge. They used to seeing you on Facebook. They kind of stick with you on Facebook. And also, because when you go to YouTube, it's different. It's just a series of videos that you've uploaded as well. It's primarily just for music clips, you know, so it's not as interactive as Facebook as well. So people stick to what they know. And that's the biggest challenge. And some people say, Oh, you should go on to Twitch, you know, and you should go on to Mixcloud. It's like, no one's going to bother going to Twitch or Mixcloud. You know, the average person that just loves Facebook, addicted to Facebook, there's a reason why you're on it so much. You know, they're not stupid. They know how to book you in and keep you. They're not going to go, Oh, what's this Twitch thing? Oh, hang on a minute. They don't, you know, you're talking some people in their fifties, sixties. Right. Right. They used to just consuming very easy to use technology. And that's, you know, that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Technology should be easy. As I said, everyone that starts subscribing to me, my subscribers would go up and then the next day I'd lose 20 or 30. That was a real challenge. So even I know, I'm nowhere near a thousand. So I'm just barely over 300, even though I know probably around five, 600 have probably signed up to me. We are, I've just checked. We are going live on YouTube at the moment, which is wonderful. And we are actually getting comments live on YouTube. Neil is doing this with you. So that's your answer. Basically find an established YouTube podcast. So from here on in every Friday night when I do my acoustic layback Friday, they're just going to have to put up with you. Right. I'll just get out of the way. I'll be a live audience. Just having a drink. Yeah. That's the only way I can do it. We've actually had some comments. Unbelievably, I wasn't expecting anyone to see this. So shall I punch up the first comments? I don't know if you can see this. This is from RM 52. Afternoon Neil, I'm at work, but we'll watch when home. Fantastic. There's one viewer. And there's a message from Marlene Scappellan. Bon dia. I have no idea whether that's it's lovely to hear from you, Marlene. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. But this is what's good about being able to go live on YouTube. Like telly. It is like telly. It is like telly. And because you and I over a certain age, every muscle in my brain is going, oh my goodness, we mustn't fall off the air and have all the usual, you know, BBC TV and radio training kicks in. When actually just messing around live, it's fantastic, isn't it? You must have enjoyed your live streams. I've loved it. The first time I ever went live, I was doing an Elvis show and I'd set up my tripod just on my windowsill. I live in a little cottage here in Wiles. I walked out to the music and I set my PA system up in my little lounge and I walked out and I put the lights on. I put my Elvis costume on and everything. And I thought, how's this going to be? I didn't know about emojis on the screen. I didn't know anything about that. And I thought I'd just be singing to my phone. Nothing. Nothing back. Just singing to my phone. I said, well, I'll just give it. I'll just imagine everyone there. And literally as I walked out, of course, I just see this flurry of thumbs-ups and love hearts and I thought, oh, wow, they're doing that right now. I get a sense right now when I start, there's about a 10 second lag from the emojis being pressed and me seeing them. But when I put a song that people like, I see a flurry of emojis. I get that instant feedback and response from people. And I was like, wow, this is a real live experience. It's a different experience, but we can still connect. And people comment as well as I'm singing and friendships have been made. People have friend-requested each other. Like my mum has become a bit of a star. Like she logs in. I start at 9 o'clock at night, finish at 11. My mum would tune in about 10 o'clock. And I was like, welcome Hazel Wright saying hello. And so everyone starts saying hello to my mum. And people start having little chats about how they're doing as a real community that's formed around it. It's been fantastic, actually. I mean, it really, really has worked. It would be difficult to replicate unless you literally just replicate it. I can't see how it can really be improved that much, to be honest. Do you have tips, any advice you can share with us if we're thinking of going live on Facebook or just going live full stop? What would your biggest piece of advice be for a music performer who hasn't gone live on Facebook or YouTube? Is there anything you can do to help? Let's do this. Let's go into this, because I think this might be a good little standalone bit for you anyway, Neil, to edit, actually, because this is like a separate bit. If you're going live, realize that everybody watching you, even in a live performance is an individual, they're seeing you through their own individual eyes. When you go live, you're just looking at your one camera, but that's still one set of individual eyes. Everyone is still consuming you just individually. The connection you have with your audience, if anything, it is more intimate because you're letting them into your home. Yeah, you're sharing more of yourself. And I found for myself that the best way to be when doing a live stream is don't try and pretend it's something that is not. Don't try and pretend that you're in some big venue. Don't put some big starry-eyed backdrop that's turning it into a stage. You're in your home, so don't be afraid of that. I'm very lucky that I've obviously got this fireplace here. It's a nice looking place, but when I do an Elvis show, I lights up. I've got lights that shine up on the back wall there. I've got a spotlight that shines on me, but it's still clearly my lounge. And I think what people like, because they're in their lounge, is the authenticity of that. And I think people like to feel that there's a connection there with your home to their home. It's probably one of the most intimate forms of performance, actually. That's what I would suggest from a mental point of view. Don't try and do a, hey, out there, how are you doing? Because you're just talking to maybe two or three people, one, two or three people at any time. So just bring it down, just have a conversation with people. No one wants to get that, okay, everyone, hey, okay, let's rock. Are you ready, folks, out there? Yeah, don't do any of that. Hey, out there. No, I don't think that works as well. You just want to say, how are you doing? Thank you for, you know, welcome to my lounge. How's your week been? And that tends to work out for me anyway. Brilliant. And do you have any other tips or advice for, you know, something that you perhaps didn't do at the start that you do now because you've done so many lives? Yes. Make sure you turn your phone the right way around. So on Facebook Live, you have your forward-facing camera, but it reverses the image by default. Don't ask me why it does. So for the first two months, I was playing, you tuned in, left-handed guitar, and I've got a little sign that says, live from the lounge, right, every Friday I would have to reverse those letters, right, back to front. Would see the letters in the right way. I thought this can't be. That's a great tip. No, no, no, yes. That's a great tip to reverse your backdrop. I did. But I thought this can't be right. They must, they must be away. So I'm sure enough, I went in and actually, this would be a good little one for you actually, just how to reverse yourself. So right, so I'm going to go live, right, on Facebook. What you do, you press that little wand button. So it's not obvious. And then you get the options. Then you get the tool button there, that button there, right, flips the picture around. And then you can see it the right way around. And people still do it now. They're back to front. They've like Elvis tripping. So not an Elvis sign in the background. The lettering is reversed. So that's something I was doing. I was playing left-handed guitar and going through the hassle of reversing all my pictures. But for four months before I thought, I better look into that. Yeah. And the other thing was just, just evolving, just the emojis, just involving emojis. It's actually a language. It's a language in and of itself. Utilize it. So if I sing sweet Caroline, well, I say to everyone, right, I want you to get your hands ready, type it, get your, you know, in the comments, just type in the word hand and you'll see a hand as many as you can. And when we get to that part of the song, press the comment, put the comment up. So you can sing along through the comments. I can see all the comments coming up as I'm singing, as well as the emojis as well. And so if you put emojis in your comments, what you then see is a succession of comments. And if you ask for one specific emoji, then say hands touching hands, reaching out. And when you get to that part of the song, all you see is comment after comment of just hands. And what happens is everyone else who's watching, they can see that as well. And then they feel, oh, we're all doing this together. So we're apart, but we're connected through this interactive experience. So that was something that I evolved for. I had no idea about I'd be able to see emojis or comments. And when I realized that, I thought, no, we can build a real live experience. So, so yeah, the emojis utilize the emojis as well. That is a way for people to communicate with you very quickly and very easily. And just talk to people. If you see someone, you know, or someone's logged in, you can see that so-and-so is watching. That's what comes up. And you say, yeah, John, John Simmons or whoever you go, hey, John, how are you doing? Where are we from? You know, what are you drinking tonight? All of these things and people won't see you. You know, it makes it, it makes it real. And I think that's be authentic. So and this is your Facebook Live page here. We've got it on screen now. You've looked into moving over to YouTube. What has been the biggest culture shock? What's the biggest hurdle, do you think, for moving over from Facebook Live to YouTube Live? You think something's like, so like Facebook Live, I'll just go live. And that's it. And YouTube, I'll just go live. You realize quite how Facebook have developed their live system for interaction with things. It's all about the emojis, actually, and the ease at which you can just log on and join in. And even if so, if you set up an event in Facebook, it will tell you if the event's happening and stuff like that. So as I said with YouTube, it does seem to be consumed a bit more passively. And I haven't been able to explore it because I haven't been able to get enough subscribers to start exploring. Understood on YouTube. Well, maybe this would be a cue. I should have put your YouTube address up on screen. But how would we find your YouTube address? And I'll ask you for some more advice in a moment. Right, Mark A Wright official music channel. My goodness, you've got 310 subscribers in pretty much what, a month? That's incredible. Well, it is incredible. It would be even more incredible if all the people who had subscribed had stayed subscribed. So, okay, you know, I mean, it's incredible, but it's not a thousand, you know. Okay, well, I feel your pain. And that is pretty much why I started this podcast, the Great British YouTubers podcast is, you know, basically everyone is just trying to get over the first hurdle of those 1000 subscribers. What advice would you give for choosing something other than Facebook Live? Because off the top of my head, I can think of what switch as an alternative or mixed cloud that you have not even heard of. IGTV Live and Twitter Live. Had you considered or looked into any of those? Even though I've got about a thousand Instagram followers, I haven't really got basically anything on Instagram I've already put on Facebook. So my reach on Instagram is woeful. I mean, I'm lucky to get 30 likes for anything on Instagram. It doesn't mean say you can't follow me on Instagram folks, Mark Wright Elvis. The two sheriffs in town are Facebook and YouTube. People are very loyal to a brand. And they're very loyal to the, you know, the recognition factor of YouTube and Facebook, they feel comfortable with it. The only option was let's, let's expand YouTube. What it has done is it's made me think about how I should present myself cross platform and not put all my eggs in one basket and create an experience on YouTube that is perhaps different. It feels more formal to me. So what I would do if there's a particular rendition of a song that I like, I will Facebook enables you once you finish a live broadcast to save that broadcast. And then with an app, I've got called perfect video, perfect video folks, by the way, if you want a great app to use to edit and just change the aspect ratio of your picture, perfect video. It's an awesome, awesome app. And then if you just want to say a three minute clip of a song, then YouTube is the place for that. So I'm using it to build up my music library because here's something that's YouTube does, I think, better than Facebook. Let's just say a venue or someone is interested in you and they want to hear more of you, be it a venue or a person or whoever. Facebook is a little bit more difficult to navigate if you just want to get to the music, I would say, even on a music page. There's lots of different options like the home screen, the events page. It performs many different functions. YouTube, it's about the video. It's about what you put on there. So it's good for me to be able to say, Hey, check out my YouTube channel. You've got everything you need. You've got clips of me as Elvis. You've got clips of me as Neil Diamond. You've got some of my own songs. And then you can put them in individual folders as well, which is good. So I've done that. You know, I've got like a playlist of just my own material. You can collate your material in a different way on YouTube. And there we go. Yeah. And so it's very easy to navigate. Mark, hey, right. Musical performer, do you have any advice, any technical advice that has stood you in good stead for broadcasting or streaming live on Facebook or YouTube live? Yeah, turn your speakers up. If you're going through your PA, some people go through a proper mixer to have that clarity, like that professional sound. I consciously made the decision not to do that slightly through laziness, but also it's about the authenticity as well. I think it almost sounds real. If it is from your lounge, let it sound as if it's from your lounge. So if you're just putting your speaker off camera, the sound can be quite thin if you don't have it at a real solid volume. So blast it out as if you're at an actual gig. Don't go, I'm in my lounge, so you know, I'd better not have it too loud. I'm very lucky that I live next door to a pub that obviously was shut throughout lockdown. And there's just a row of three cottages and my neighbour Rachel, bless her. I mean, I would say, I'm going to be Elvis on Saturday. And she would sit out at my window. Actually, I'll show you. There you go. That's just my window from my cottage. Oh, sorry, I should go live on your your shot. Hang on. Right, so you are in basically the middle of nowhere. It's your piece of advice that you see, you can go loud. So acoustically, it sounds, this sounds better, right, rather than... If you're using, yeah, if you're using... Trying to moderate yourself. If you're using backing tracks, make your PA, you know, turn it up as loud as you would, pretty much as you would if you're in a pub, because it still gives it that oomph. And also as a performer, you need that oomph behind you. If you've turned it down to like the level you'd have, say, your favourite CD, if you turn it up a little bit, you have it on that level, it doesn't, it sounds very thin when it comes out live. So, yeah, so that's what I'd suggest. Just don't be afraid to turn it up loud, but do ask your neighbours. Now that it sounds as if Facebook might be relenting a little bit and not giving you a copyright strike for using backing tracks. Yeah. But have you thought of streaming two more than one place at once? If I get to the point where I can have a thousand subscribers, then I would, because interestingly at the beginning, in fact, YouTube have missed the trick here. At the beginning, I had several people say, oh, I don't really do Facebook, I only do YouTube, because the YouTube app is obviously built into so many, I mean it's built into, is it still on Firesticks now? I don't know. It is. So it's on a Firestick, it's built into your flat screen telly YouTube. So if a lot of people, they were more familiar with watching stuff over YouTube than they were Facebook. So, yeah, it's definitely something I would do. I'd realise through this situation, you need to have a presence across more than one platform. And all it takes is one little update, and suddenly everything can be, the rock can be pulled from underneath you. I can probably cut to my other camera and give you a tour, and this might segue us into the options for streaming. If I change camera, I get a little YouTube studio setup tool. See, it's hard enough just to talk into a microphone live. So it sounds like you have a really good idea of just using a phone and keeping it super simple. I know some people that have done like shows, Facebook live shows, are using StreamYard, aren't you, I think? That's right. Yeah, which is the branding in the corner, and I'll walk you through that in a moment. Right. Yeah, I know someone else that's used StreamYard to do a kind of weekly show. I'm just a big fan of the authenticity of it. I think anything that looks too produced, I think it can turn people off. I've had people come up to me because I started performing live again, and I've spoken to them afterwards, and they've only been introduced to me as a performer and a singer through Facebook Live, right? So they didn't, I've built a new audience through Facebook Live. Mark, this is a beautiful segue into the Great British YouTubers podcast, Drink Break. And I'm thinking of getting some branded mugs. I don't know if you know anything about how to get branded mugs. That's what I'm looking into next. Oh, well, I did do some Mark Wright mugs for a laugh, and I use VistaPrint. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I'm thinking of VistaPrint, VistaPrint Red Bobble or Teespring. Yeah, quite expensive, but they're very easy to use. And you two at home, why don't you have a drink as well? What's great with YouTube is that you can upload a video and see if you will get demonetised or a copyright strike before you make it live. All you need to do is just leave it up for a couple of hours. What I would do is here's another top tip. I don't know whether all I know is I haven't yet had a strike. I would waffle between every line of the song when I'd start singing, you know, in between a line. I'd sort of go, hey, how are you doing, you know, John? Having told us to not do that. You do it in the song. You just told us not to do that as a presentation technique, but you're saying do it in the song. Oh, don't say hello you out there, but you can see the comments coming up on Facebook. So you interact with them and go, oh, Karen, how are you doing, Karen? Thanks for joining us. Don't leave any more than, say, five seconds of instrumental in there, because I figure that the algorithm will pick that up if there's nothing else over it. And the other thing I did as well, now I usually pride myself when I do an 80s tribute and hitting the notes like bang on the original. But with this, I don't want to sound exactly like the original. So I find myself hanging onto a note a bit longer or starting it just a bit sooner. When I sing rap pack music, a sonata would dance around the melody anyway, so it's very easy to do. So I strove not to be 100% accurate in my renditions. I did my 80s live stream because don't think that the Facebook algorithm is going to go, oh, you know, he is singing you spin me around, but he's just come in on the chorus just about half a beat earlier than normal. It's just an algorithm. It's just mathematics. And if the mathematics of your rendition does not match the mathematics of the original, I figure it's more difficult for them to figure out what you're doing. Absolutely. We're joined by Marquet Wright, live music performer, right here on the Great British YouTubers podcast live episode, Going Out Live, talking about Going Live on YouTube. Mark, do you have any golden advice or tips that you have gathered through the years of performing live online? Do you have any other tips that might help someone thinking of performing live musically on YouTube or Facebook Live? Here's a tip. And I've just thought of it now, because as you're watching this, you can probably see that I keep looking to my left. And what I'm doing there is looking at the split screen of me and Neil. I don't need to look at that. And it's a distraction. It's probably a slight distraction for you watching as well. What a lot of performers do, and it's very difficult not to do this, at the top right of a Facebook live stream, it shows the amount of devices logged in, not people, but devices. So it could be however many people watching that device. That number goes up and down all the time. And it is very, very hard when you're singing not to keep looking at that number. And when you see it drop by 20, it can be a little bit demoralising. When you see it rise, it feels great. You keep on checking it. And what you're doing, I'm going to do it now. I'm just going to replicate it. There's no number, but this is what I keep doing or what I used to do. And you notice singers doing it all the time. They keep doing this. And they're looking at those numbers. Ignore the numbers. Do what you do. Do it as well as you can. Realise that it's a person watching you, and they don't want to feel that you're constantly looking over their shoulder at something else that's more important, nothing more important than the person who's taken their time to share and enjoy your live stream. And so resist the urge. And it's so difficult not to keep checking those numbers. And sometimes singers even reference their numbers as well. And they go, oh, I've lost numbers. I'm losing numbers. It's like people aren't fodder, or they don't want to feel like they're fodder for your ego. I used to go busking when I was in my twenties. And I loved it. It's where I learned to sing. And it's really weird when you first start busking because you're just in your own little world. Everyone's walking past. Occasionally, someone might stop, but mainly people walk past. And a few people put money in, which is great. So you learn just to get into your own little world, your own little bubble of singing. You know when you're singing well. It's the same thing. You're busking. And don't worry about how many people are or are not watching you. Just do it because you love it. And if you love it, people will react to that and respond. So that's what I would say, actually. That's what I've learned in the last, I've really doubled down on YouTube in the last three months, probably six months, actually, just before the pandemic happened. And it's difficult. Like you say, you can feel metaphorically your eye drifting towards the metric of subscribers and views. And they will go up and down. You have no control over that. But the one metric we do have control over is the number of uploads. And that's the one metric that I've tried to stick with is just make the number of uploads go up and just use a volume thing of putting more content out. I hate using that word, putting more videos out there. When you finish a performance and you upload it, you can save it to your phone first. It's always worth doing that. So here's the process that I do when I finish a live performance. So I will save the entire thing to my phone. Facebook gives you that option. And then I will upload it to the actual just what I've just done. You can just post that on your Facebook page. And then you can see how many people have how many views you've had and how many comments as well. And then you can play back your performance and you can go through your comments and you can answer many of them if you like as well. That happens a lot. Then getting editing app like perfect video and go through highlights of what you did. Yeah, most people are not going to watch the whole thing again. Some people do. Some people like to say, I missed it. I'm going to catch up watching it tomorrow. But most people, they don't really want to hear more than 30, 40 seconds of any song. So go through maybe three or four or five songs that you think are the absolute highlights of your performance and just get the best bits of those songs, probably the chorus maybe, and then just put them up on your Facebook stories. So they're not there forever, but it's just for people just to see what they would have missed. For YouTube, I tend to put the entire clip on there rather than just 30 seconds. I think that's too, that's not long enough for YouTube. Yeah, and you probably know this already, Mark, but watch time is super important on YouTube. So it's great that we're having this chat and we're up to 55 minutes, but the YouTube algorithm measures how much you watch. Literally, the more watch time, the better. So if you put up a three minute video or a 30 minute video, the chances are the 30 minute video will do better because you have more chance of getting your average watch time up. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but that's a pretty good point. That's interesting. I mean, Facebook actively encouraged you to post shorter clips in Facebook stories. If you post a video clip, it can't go on for any longer, I think, than, I think it's like 24 seconds. That's it. That's it. So that's enough for a good chorus of a song. It's enough to give you a flavor. I line up two different devices. I've got an iPad and this phone, but I stream simultaneously with them next to each other. Right. So here we've got it here, yeah. Yeah. So you're seeing my Elvis page. You'll see a stream that I've posted after it's finished. If you were to go onto my personal page, if you scroll down quite away, you'll see that post on last Friday. You'll see the same, but it's actually a different performance. It's from a different device. There's a different number of people that have watched it or devices that have watched it and a different amount of comments. Oh, so you stream from two different devices? Two different devices. Yeah. This is a tip that I wish I wish I'd have realized this. Facebook started having the option to live stream from within the event. So what that means is whereas before on Facebook, you would go live on your page, but if you did an event for a live stream, then you'd just be live on your page and anyone on your page would see it. They then started whereby you could go live just in the event itself. Now, what's the difference to that you might think? Well, quite a big difference really. And this is what I'm kicking myself now. There was one Elvis stream on July the 4th, Independence Day. For some reason, it took off and it had over 3,000 people who had expressed an interest or going to that online event. Right? So, wow, my page only has 2,000 people on it. So clearly it was reaching people way beyond my page. I didn't realize about going live in the event. If you've just shown an interest in the event, you haven't shown an interest in the page itself. So you did not get a notification that I was going live. If I'd have gone live within my Elvis event itself as opposed to just my page, all 3,000 people would have received a notification when I went live. Hundreds and hundreds of whom were not actually members of my Elvis page. And once I realized this, a few weeks later I kicked myself because I thought, oh no, there were hundreds of people that would never have been informed. And I didn't realize this until every so often I get a message going over the previous weeks going, oh, where were you? I hope you're going live this time. You didn't go live last time. I was like, yeah, I did. I was live on my page. And then I realized the difference between going live within the event and just going live on your page in general. So the rule I follow is if there's more people on my page and I've shown interest in the event, then I'll go live on my page because then everyone will see it. But if the event has got interest, it supersedes my page, I'll go live within the event. So I think that's for the future, it's probably better to go live within your event than it is on the page itself. This is a good segue into how StreamYard works because I'm using StreamYard for the first time ever. And it seems to be going very well. There's a downside which I haven't quite got onto yet. What I haven't managed to do is promote this live stream at all. And I think if I were to do this from within YouTube, I would have a link that I could then put out on my socials to say join. I'm more than happy it not being publicized on my first time, but it's fine. Okay, right? We are joined. Yeah, go on. A bit of music. It'd be great. Thanks, Mark. We are joined on the Great British YouTubers podcast with Mark A Wright. So I'm even pointing the right way with my mirrored camera and I'll show you how that works in a minute. Mark, how are you? I'm very well, Mr. Mossy. Thank you for joining me on this. Honestly, it seems like it was only, you know, seconds ago that we were lucky. This is an experiment to talk about going live on YouTube while going live on YouTube. And it's part of a bigger live video that's going out right now, but you're probably watching the recording and you might even be listening to this on the audio podcast. It's available everywhere. There's podcasting software. And Mark, we've been talking a lot more for about an hour about the options open to you as a musician for streaming live. And I'm doing it on StreamYard, which is why I've got a logo scorched into the corner of the screen. Is StreamYard something that you've looked into just before I show you around how it's working for me? I have. And the reason why I haven't pursued it is because it tends to distort audio if you're playing guitar. So I don't know whether this is going to do it to you now. So that'd be interesting. But when I did a StreamYard link with someone before and it was basically I was there as a guest for 20 minutes and like a two hour stream. I did some rock and roll and it sounded awful. So I think for speech it's great for music. I think that's something about how it processes the audio. But if you are interested in looking into StreamYard, let's go live on my second camera. Hello, this is the happy hut. This is where the magic happens. And I've got the live link to mark a right down in the corner there. So if you can see this mark, but this is the dashboard. This is the StreamYard dashboard. I found it really easy to to set up. You just get a StreamYard login at StreamYard.com. Once you've logged in, you can basically title your live broadcast. So I've put in a description and a title. And hopefully that's the one that you can see when if you're watching live right now. And wow, it's a bit of a sort of Bohemian rhapsody. Can you look there isn't it? This is the dashboard in front of you. And Mark, you've been talking us through how easy it is to look just like the off camera just to see how things are going. But everything is laid out so clearly. So I've got my options here for the layout. I can split the screen. So I'm doing it on the screen there. So that's a split screen there, or we can go box in box and I could go big and small and we can screen share and can screen share with both of us. I'm just working along the the line here. So isolate that again, or I could punch up the screen share completely and you can choose which chrome tab or which window or which monitor even which display to switch live. The other really nice thing with it is that on the right hand side you have banners. So if I turn that off, it names us. If I split the screen, you can see us. Sorry, Phil, I'm ignoring you. I'm here. And you can switch up any banner you like. So I can put up this banner. You can get as many as you like. You can even change the color of them. With the pro version, you get the banner is taken off. This StreamYard logo is scorched in live. You can take that off if you pay for the paid version. I'm thinking of doing it. It feels so much more natural to do this as a live than a recording. So Mark, we've had two comments come in. Shall we see them? Yes. Basically, all you do is click on the comments button and it lays them out. It's Noble Newby. Let's switch this out straight to air. So I'll split the screen by clicking the split screen button. It would help if I switch to decaf. I think my camera operating would definitely improve. So we have a selection of comments. We've read two out already. Let's switch Noble Newby up live. Hi, Neil. I'm taking a quick break from working on your live stream. I think it's going well. I think it's going okay. No more Newby. And No More Newby has just got 1,000 subscribers. So round of applause. I've been working on their mobile device. Totally. Totally. And I think No More Newby is all about the gaming streaming as well. He has left a second comment. Right. I've been looking into StreamYards. They're really interesting to see behind the scenes of it being used. Thank you. Well, that's really kind of you. I hope this encourages you to dip your toe in because I was terrified of doing it. Mark, very kindly offered to be on a live stream. So to talk about live streaming on YouTube as a live YouTube stream is a very exciting moment for me, I think. That is the perfect way of doing it, actually. Which is why we're here. I've screwed the camera to the wall on a monitor holder. This is a tip from the SLR Shooter YouTube channel. He showed how to do this but put this onto a pole that you can move around. I screwed it to a wall and it's just saved everything because the hardest part of making a YouTube video was to just get the camera out and mount it on a tripod. Right. And psychologically, because if you're performing live, I guess, you've got a date and a location. You've just got to do it. But if you're making videos ad hoc, just getting the equipment out is hard enough. Right. So that's just permanently set to go. And so, you know, all you need to do is pull out that camera stand and then you know it's already set for the angle that you want it to be. That's great. Totally. I mean, obviously, I strike all of this at night because the happy heart is a safe heart in case you're thinking anything. But it's really easy to set up. Yeah. And you're just good to go. And I've got an old monitor out of the loft because you can get monitors in charity shops in the UK for like 10 quid, 20 quid at the moment. So I've got your Facebook page here so we can cut to that line. Here's a question for you then. So you've got your equipment that's set up to go so you fire it up anytime. Do you find that has led to you being more creative because you're able to be more spontaneous in making your YouTube clips because you haven't got to think about setting up? Totally 100%. It's a good question. What I've been able to do is to just make tiny little improvements each time. As I say that, I can see that I've left the box up in the background. But generally, it just means I can make little incremental improvements. So with the lighting, I've not shown this actually. I've got this from Liddle from the supermarket. It's just a lighting panel. Right. If you were to get this as like pro-photographic gear, it would probably cost over $100. This cost me about 30 quid, $30. Is that something that you plug in or is it? Yeah, it's a plug-in light and it even comes with remote controls. You can change the colour, you can change the intensity and the heat setting, you know, the warmth of the, I think lighting is so important actually with live broadcasts. So, I mean, for instance, if you go, if you can pull up my Facebook page or my YouTube page and bring up a clip of me performing as Elvis, you'll see how I've lit my room, which is basically it's the same position. So where I am now, I'm just in the corner of my room, you can see, it's there. Right. Now, you can see, there we go. Now, you can see what's going on in the background. Now, there's a big Elvis sign. That's my flat screen television. That is not actually a static sign. That is a two hour long video of just that sign. I just press play on that before I start my live stream. And if you look at the background to that performance, you'll see that this whole, I mean, it's a cream wall. It's like a Magnolia wall. And so it lends itself to being lit. And so on the floor, I have a couple of lights shooting up. One of them has, you can see that effect going on, but the other is a broader set of four spotlights. And, and that just changes color gradually throughout each performance, each song. And then there's a spotlight that I put on my couch that I put towards me. As you, if you look at that clip, you can see my face is lit. And I also put on my lamp as well. So there's a bit of overhead light, a room I often find needs to be a bit more brightly lit than you would think, but it's about creating the atmosphere while still keeping the authenticity of where you are. When I do my Friday night acoustic thing, I don't have any of those lights on. It's literally me and my guitar, because I'm sitting on a chair. It's very intimate. And I just have a list of songs and I pick whatever ones as I go along. But when it's a performance, I think you need to show it's a bit more. And it's so little things about the presentation. It's not just me dressing up as Elvis, putting my phone on the tripod, pressing go, you know, there's lots of other things that I've done before. So like, for instance, make sure that the picture is not mirrored. It's not a mirror image, which is by default on Facebook, make sure you go into it and check that it's not what's going on behind you. The amount of people that stream live and they do it in a kitchen and they put their angle. I mean, you must have seen this where so and they do it. And it's like the phones like that. They're like, yeah, yeah. So what I'm doing is and I'm looking at the screen like, yeah, so what I reckon you seem like they're plates and like washing up. Why would you show us that? Think about where you are. I consider this my studio. This is it. Everything I do is in this position. So even your thing, oh, it's just kneel in his shed, but it's not just kneel in his shed. It's not just cobbled together. You are lit. Yeah, because you're a little bit of a cable issue there. Your YouTube clips always look really good as you then lost picture. Well, thanks. I mean, it's just tiny, tiny notches. So down here, that's a rootmaster bus fabric cushion. I've got an up lighter here. I've got my homemade YouTube play button for when I got 1000 subscribers that my son made out of hammer beads. These folders are actually they're real. I've got stuff in them. You can't do it on the mirror image. You know, you've realized that that area, your working area is in effect your set. That's what you welcome people into. It's what you use for work, but you're also conscious of the fact that, you know what, there's some files in the background. You've got, you know, the lovely picture of the YouTube 1000 subscribers. None of this would really be noticeable to anyone watching, but what it does do it invites you in. But your fireplace, that looks like somewhere. And I love how it's, you've kind of got some sort of soft, there's like a soft focus there. Well, the stars thing over it. Yeah, that's so if you look at it, you can put on a filter via Facebook. Yeah, just a little stars thing over it. Yeah. So that's how StreamYard works. And Mark A Wright, thank you so much for helping me to overcome my fear of going live on YouTube, by going live on YouTube. I really appreciate it. This very first Great British YouTubers live podcast. We've got your Instagram account up here, but how can we follow you? We'll put all the links in the description if you're looking at this on the replay, but where can we find you? Instagram, Mark Wright, Elvis, Facebook, just look up Mark A Wright. You'll find my personal page. You can frame request me or send me abusive messages, whatever you want to do. And YouTube, Mark A Wright official music page, as if there's an unofficial one. Of course, there isn't. So that will my music as well. And yeah, that's if you want to find me great. Say hi, say hello. And if you like any music, let me know. And before we go, is there any other tip or piece of advice that you would, you know, just a quick leave behind for someone who is a live music performer who might be somewhere else in the world right now and who hasn't gone live on Facebook or YouTube? The advice I would give anyone who has not yet streamed live is the same advice I would give to anybody that's thinking about just doing a gig who's not yet gigged. Just do it. The first time I ever went live was the night before my Elbish show that I did. And I had my camera vertical. So it's just resting on the stand vertically. Obviously, I was back to front because I hadn't yet figured out how not to do that. And it was fine. And it just gave me an idea of what it's like. You're not on national or international television. It doesn't matter. If it doesn't come out as you like, no one really cares. Just go live. Just give it a try. Save it afterwards and look back and just think, maybe that could have been better. Maybe I could have set my chair in a different place. Maybe it was a bit too dark. Maybe a bit too bright. But just do it. It's the only way. All the stuff that I picked up, you know, like reversing the picture so I'm not mirror image, making sure that the room is lit, a little filter over the screen if I'm doing a show like an Elbish shows that sell its little stars on the screen, learning about how to use emojis during a performance and realizing that's a really good way to interact with your audience. And you none of that before it was a leap into the unknown. But I've got so much out of it. And I built up such a nice community around what I've done. And really, all we are as performers, we're just a conduit for everybody else to get together. And it's a privilege when people could watch anything. They put it on their big screens. I didn't realize that was going to happen. I thought they'd be looking on their phones. They could watch anything. They could watch Sky movies. They could put Netflix on, Amazon Prime. And yet they're choosing on a Saturday night to watch me on their big 65 inch television, you know, you're competing with all these other things. So you need to present something that's a bit different, that's different to that. So you can't compete with a multimillion dollar presentation or you've got his you. So just do that. Just be you. And if people like you, they'll spend time in your company. Yeah, don't try and be something you're not. And it's most performers, it's hard to do. Just let people into your life a little bit. Let them into your home. And if something goes wrong, just say it's gone wrong. It doesn't matter. No one cares. They're not judging you. At the end, he's going to go, oh, that was it. And some people might, but we don't care about that. Mark, thank you so much for talking us through what it's like performing on Facebook Live and moving that Facebook Live fan base over to here on YouTube and going YouTube Live. So you're about 300 subscribers. Hopefully when you're watching this video, you might have hit the 1000. So thanks so much for all the tips. You know how even though this is a live episode of Great British YouTubers podcast, I think you know how we end each episode. Pose for a thumbnail for the final version. So we'll have a little bed of music here on the recorded version. I've got to look that way. So we look like Facebook has just completely struck the channel. So it's the thing I hate most about having a YouTube channel is having to pose for the thumbnail. No one is going to click onto something where we're doing that. That's a brilliant sound bite to end on. What I'm going to do is hit the end broadcast. Shall I hit the button? Hit the button. And please hit the subscribe button below. If you want to see more Great British YouTubers, there's a playlist and a podcast. All the links are in the description below. I'm Neil Mossy and I'll see you on the very next Great British YouTubers.