Opening Music

Opening music is a very important aspect of your video content: It sets the tone and invites your viewers into your world. If you don’t know how to choose the best opening music for your content, take a closer look at our detailed guide.

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Snapmuse Published: Feb 27, 2023 Updated: Jul 17, 2023 9 min read
Regardless of where we are, social media platforms bring us together: YouTube has 2.2 billion, Instagram has 2 billion, Facebook has 1.3 billion and TikTok has 1.2 billion active monthly users. In other words, a significant portion of the world population is active on at least one social media platform. As a result, online content creation has become a massive industry that offers significant revenue to influencers, online personalities, brands, and small businesses. 

With the unstoppable rise of TikTok, other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter have shifted their focus towards video content as well. In addition, Google has started to prioritise video content on search engine results page (SERP): If your search query matches with a video, it is shown on the top of the page. 

As a result, both brands and individual content creators opt for creating impressive and engaging videos using everything they have in their toolbox: High definition footage, interesting images, catchy and popular songs, funny sound effects, meme formats and sounds, visual effects, intro and outro music and a lot more! 

Regardless of whether you are running a business account or a personal account, being able to compete with other content creators has become more and more important. Especially if you want to monetize your content, you must be able to grab the attention of your viewers and keep them entertained throughout your video. Otherwise, you lose followers, your content gets low engagement rates and as a result, you can lose your monetization privileges. 

According to new research, social media users determine whether they will watch a video to completion in the first 3 to 5 seconds. If they don’t see or hear anything worth their attention in this time frame, they skip the content. That is why being able to hook your viewers in immediately is very, very important. 

In order to keep their audience interested and entertained throughout their content, most professional YouTubers and influencers tap into the power of music: They use open source music to make their videos more alluring. 

All social media platforms have very strict and thorough rules regarding the use of music. Copyrighted songs are absolutely forbidden. In fact, there are explicit guidelines like Twitch music rules to let the social media users know about the restrictions. 

If any content creator uses copyrighted songs, advanced detection algorithms of social media platforms notice the user. In such instances, the user has two choices: Either removing music and leaving their content dull, or removing the video altogether. After three strikes, social media platforms ban the user either temporarily or permanently. Moreover, copyright violations can lead you to lose your monetization privileges and result in serious legal trouble which can drain you financially. That is why most content creators use non copyright music.

If you want to grab the attention of your audience in the very first seconds of your video and keep them entertained throughout your content without facing any legal trouble, you must use non copyrighted short intro music

Intro music welcomes your viewers into your video, sets a certain tone for the rest of the content, and ensures that your viewers are entertained. Moreover, music allows you to evoke very strong emotions in your audience and create a strong bond with them. Once your viewers are emotionally invested in your content, they keep coming to your channel to watch more videos and leave comments. This way you can grow your channel, gain new followers, reach your target audience more easily, and solidify your online presence.

If you want to know more about the importance of intro music and how you can find the best high quality intro music online for your content, see our detailed guide below.

What is Good Intro Music?

Intro music is like the identity of a video. It sets a certain tone and informs your viewers about the content they are about to experience. That is why you must always use high quality intro music in your YouTube videos, podcasts, Twitch streams and various other social media platforms.

A good intro music is the one that fits your content and highlights the best features of you as a content creator. Moreover, it must be interesting enough so that your viewers can actually watch the entirety of your video or listen to the entire podcast episode of yours. 

Another important point to look out for in intro music is the quality: No one enjoys glitch, low quality music! You must use high definition audio clips as your intro music to keep your viewers engaged.

And finally, you must pay attention to the music licensing while choosing the best intro music for your video or podcasts. No social media platform allows the use of copyrighted content. Moreover, all popular platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and Instagram have state of the art algorithms that detect the use of copyrighted songs. Even only 3 or 4 seconds of a copyrighted song can get you in serious trouble if you use it in your content. That is why you must always use non copyrighted, royalty free intro music in your personal and commercial projects.

You can use a popular song or even an SFX as your intro music. If you want to learn more about SFXs and how they can transform your content, see our What are SFX? article to learn more.

You can find thousands of high quality intro music and SFX clips in our royalty free music library. You can browse by mood, artist, or genre to find what your are looking for in only a few seconds.

Opening Music

What are Good Intro Songs?

A good intro song is the one that makes your viewers hungry for more content! You can use popular songs, interesting sound effects, or less known music clips to ensure that your content stands out amongst its competition.

There are certain things that you need to pay utmost attention to while choosing an intro song for your content:

  • An intro song must be interesting! It must hook your viewers in immediately so that they can stay long enough to see what your video has to offer.
  • It must be appropriate to your content. Using an upbeat intro song for a sombre video is a terrible idea. That is why you must consider the message you want to convey with your intro music. It must set the right tone for your video.
  • It must be royalty free. Using copyrighted songs as intro music can get you in serious legal trouble. Moreover, you can lose your monetization privileges due to copyright violations. That is why you should only use royalty free, non copyrighted intro music.
  • It must align with your brand. Consider what makes your brand unique and who your target audience is. Your intro song must complement the unique characteristics of your brand and cater to the taste of your audience. For instance, you cannot attract classic art enthusiasts with dubstep intro music.

If you are looking for some high quality intro music for your YouTube videos or podcasts, see our shortlist below to discover the most popular intro songs.

How Long Should Podcast Intro Music Be?

Podcasts rely heavily on sound design to entertain their audience. That is why using good intro music and appropriate sound effects play a significant role in the success of your podcast.

Since you cannot have impressive opening credits or engaging visual effects in your podcasts, your intros should be brief. Otherwise you lose the interest of your listeners. 

An ideal podcast intro music should not be longer than 15 seconds.

How to Make Podcast Intro Music?

Your podcast intro music must convey some essential information:

  • The name of your podcast. 
  • The overall tone of your podcast.
  • The unique qualities of your brand as a business or as a content creator.

That is why you must use high quality intro sounds that align well with your podcast content. You can trim, adjust and modify royalty free intro songs you can find on Snapmuse to your liking. Moreover, you can add announcements or a brief introduction to your podcast intro using audio editing software.

How to Add Music to YouTube Intro?

You can use video editing software to add music to your YouTube intro. Most YouTubers use advanced video editing software like Adobe Elements, Adobe After Effects, or Final Cut Pro.

If you are intimidated by the interface or price tag of such software, you can use more beginner friendly and free video editing tools to add music to your YouTube intro. 

If you are an Apple user, you can use iMovie. It is free and offers very advanced editing tools that you can use with ease. In addition, you can take a closer look at tools like ShotCut to add music to your YouTube videos.

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