BandPage have revealed a new tool coming to YouTube; Artist Profiles, allowing artists to manage their music, image and links throughout all of YouTube.

Since YouTube bought BandPage back in February the artist profiling service seemed to start fading away, losing their partnership with Spotify. It turns out that BandPage hadn’t disappeared of the face of the earth but was in fact secretly developing some exciting new tools for artists on YouTube.

BandPage have been hard at work with YouTube to create a bunch of new improvements to help artists connect with their fans better than ever before. Bandpage say that: “Throughout 2017, YouTube is ramping up their support of artists by releasing new features that will help them grow their fan bases, improve music discovery, and better connect with their fans.”

These new features will culminate in ‘Artist Profiles’ next year, creating a one-stop shop to manage yourself as an artist on YouTube. BandPage recommend that you set up your artist profile on YouTube before March 2017 when BandPage will be making a lot of changes to their service. Bandpage say to:

  • Make sure all of the BandPage profiles you manage are eligible to move to YouTube: To be eligible, you must: 1) have at least a profile photo or bio on the BandPage you wish to move, AND 2) have “Admin” access to the BandPage profile. Learn more about eligibility for the move to YouTube here.
  • Transfer your photo and bio to YouTube: It’s easy for you to create an artist profile by transferring your BandPage photos and bio to a new or existing YouTube channel. Please note that doing this removes your profile from BandPage. To learn more about creating an artist profile on YouTube, how it will affect your BandPage profiles, and how your assets may be displayed across YouTube, Google sites and the BandPage network, please visit our help center.

Giving more control to artists is a great move for YouTube as the video hosting service has faced scrutiny for the past year in it’s treatment of music on their service. Despite claiming that they have paid out over $1 billion in music royalties earlier this year the music industry still claim that YouTube’s royalty rates are unfairly low.

Whilst BandPage have been working on new features they’re also getting rid of quite a few old features come March 2017. The following features will be discontinued:

  • Bandpage.com public-facing profiles
  • The BandPage Facebook applications
  • BandPage store and event features
  • Facebook and Twitter integrations
  • Website widgets
  • Custom website

To protect your BandPage profile they request that you do the following:

  • Backup your content and data. We want to make sure you don’t lose access to any of your available assets or data, such as your photos, mailing list, offers, and events data.
  • Explore and set up alternative services for discontinued features. If you are interested in replacing discontinued features, you can find alternative third-party services by March 1, 2017.
  • Update BandPage network syndication settings. Until you hear from us, we will continue to syndicate your artist profile photo and bio to our network partners as per your syndication settings on March 1, 2017.

BandPage closed off their release statement, saying: “From the whole BandPage team, thank you for partnering with us over the last seven years. We couldn’t have built BandPage and the BandPage network without you, and we’re excited for what lies ahead as we continue our work at YouTube. Stay tuned for more news on new features!”