How to Add Music to a Video

KC Kinniburgh
By KC Kinniburgh
November 15, 2021 · 15 min read

You spent a quick minute, if not more foraging through music libraries looking for that perfect music track and making decisions on genre, style, and tempo. Finally, you find it! Now what? Well, you need to add your music to your video, of course! Whether you want a specific song or you’re simply looking to add background music to videos, don’t worry; we are here to help you with a step-by-step guide for adding music to your videos!

After the step-by-step guide, be sure to continue reading to get some great insights to help with your future music foraging and adding music to video tips.

How to Add Music to a Video in Minutes with Promo.com

Sometimes it can be challenging to find that perfect track and even footage to represent what you want your video messaging to say. A great way to save time is by using a tool that has it all in one place.

Promo.com is a world-leading video editing tool that also offers users free access to over 1.5k royalty-free quality music tracks. Curated music categories include a variety of music styles and tempos, organized to optimize selections. You can also upload your own audio files to the video editor. They will be saved in your folder for all future use.

So, if you were wondering how to add music to a video online, we’ve made it super-simple, easy, and fun. 

Upload Your Video or Create a New One

In order to add music to your video, you must first upload your video to our online editor using the upload button. You can also create a new video from scratch in minutes by choosing photos and videos from our extensive video footage library, powered by Getty Images and iStock. You can also merge the two together if you like. Keep your video as-is or customize and style it using Promo.com’s premium design tools. Choose from our many features like adding and styling your text, using animated transitions for images, and even adding your brand in just a few clicks

Choose an Audio Track From Over 1.5k Royalty-Free Music Tracks

Promo’s music library offers a vast selection of audio files, all tailored to fit different video lengths. The best part – all Promo plans offer unlimited access and usage of the audio library so you can use as many music tracks as you like for your projects. Finding the perfect track on Promo.com is easy. Here’s how you do it:

1. Click on the Music Tab

Once your video is uploaded, or you have chosen video footage, you click on the “Music” tab in the editor. You will be taken to the “Music” window, where you can filter the music you want by Genre, Mood, Tempo, and Instrument!



2. Search for Your Music

In the search box, you can search for a specific tile by name or a specific artist. You can also filter your choices by “Best Match, Most Popular, or Newest” from the drop-down menu on the right. 

3. Add Your Chosen Track to the Video 

Once you find the music you want to use, simply scroll over the track with your mouse to reveal the “Use Track” button, and there you have it! The track will be added to your video. 

Or Upload Your Own Audio Files

1. Click on the Music Tab

Within Promo.com’s video editor, easily upload your own audio file by clicking on the ‘Music” tab to the left of the editor timeline, which reveals the Music window. 

2. Select Upload Music

Select the “Uploads” tab on the top of the Music window located between the “Library and Favorites” options. This will reveal the “Upload Music” box, where you can search your computer for the audio or music file you want to upload.  Your audio file will upload and be selected. 

3. Preview Your Video

After you have selected your audio track, go back to the timeline by clicking on the “Editor Tab.” Then click on the blue play arrow to preview your video with your audio track – if you’re happy, then that’s it! you’re done, and you can move on to the publish page by clicking on “Save and Preview.” 

Download & Share Your Video

Once you’re happy with the result, click on Preview & Save. The last step is to download and share your video through our editor to your preferred social media platform or with a download link. 

Recommended Music Tracks on Promo.com by Genre

Promo.com has thousands of royalty-free music tracks to choose from. Just in case you might get a little stuck for ideas or just want to know what is trending, here is a small taste of some top recommended choices of music tracks by our users.

Each track you hear here is available in full-length and can be easily added to any video you upload to our editor. 

At Promo it’s very easy to find any track you are looking for simply by using the search bar and entering the title or artist name and the track will pop up in seconds for your use. You can also filter your selections by Genre, Mood, Tempo, and Instrument with the drop-down menus. Check out the top recommended tracks by genre at Promo.com.

Indie Music Tracks

“First One” by Jaymes

“Traveler” by Traveler

Pop Music Tracks

“Aint No Place Like Home” by Katrina Stone

Shine, Shine, Shine” by Steve Collom

Children Themed Music Tracks

“Any Given Day” by Alex Kopp

Krazy 4 U” by Erika Davies

Corporate Themed Music Tracks

“Climbing High” by Dan Phillipson

“Feel So Happy Today” by The Vortex

Chill out Music Tracks

“Hope & Wonder” by Nick Petrov

“My Sky” by Pony Cop

Rock Music Tracks

“Renegade” by Rob Lyons

“Viva” by Evgeny Kiselevich

Music Copyright 

Generally speaking, it’s essential to understand whether any music you want to use is copyrighted. Artists invest a lot of capital to produce a song, not to mention the studios and others involved in creating a track. Consequently, there is often more than one person who might have rights to a song in legal terms. Getting permission to use a track or a license-for-use means reaching out to each copyright holder, and individually tracking them down is tedious at best.  

A great way to avoid anycopyright claims on your music is to use royalty-free music. Royalty-free is a term used to describe music or images that you’re allowed to use without paying royalties. Adding royalty-free music to your video takes care of the legal liability and ensures a worry-free creative process because you comply with all the copyright infringement laws. Promo.com is a great example of an extensive royalty-free music library that can empower any small business to find that perfect track. Promo.com offers over 1.5 thousand music tracks that have both lyrics and instrumentals of every variety. In addition, you can sort your selections through genre, tempo, and more.

Why Should I Add Music to Videos?

Why do you even want to add music anyway? It’s a  great question that comes with a clear answer – adding music drives emotional engagement. Your video needs to be tied all together and engage the viewer, and boy, can music drive your message home in a way that nothing else can.

In fact, as noted in The Science Of Sound: Data-Driven Music For Brands from Forbes.com, “…music and sound have the ability to reliably evoke specific emotions and ideas for people within the same culture (and even, to a large extent, across cultures”). Furthermore, music provides the context so when you add background music for videos, among other things, the music professionally polishes your video message. Let’s take a deeper look at the effect of music and how adding music to videos will help your message and your brand.

Magnifies Emotion

There is not any doubt that music harnesses our emotions more powerfully than even images. Just consider for a moment how music affects our moods and energies. When you add music to video clips, it serves several functions. Because music has the power to connect the listener, correctly choosing the right audio track can go a long way in quickly establishing positive vibes associated with your product or company. Even simple background music properly placed or adding a song to a video has the power to create a good mood, generate interest from the viewer, and communicate good feelings. 

Helps with Transitions

Some of the most engaging videos often contain more than a single stream of video footage. Often channel creators combine footage and images and use transitions to move from one shot to another. Frequently, utilizing animated transitions is an effective way to bring creativity to your video, and providing the right timing with tempo by a strategically placed song added to your video can have a powerful effect.  

Having a conscious idea of the effect of your transitions in combination with your messaging will not only help you find the right music track to add a song to your video but provide consistency. You don’t need to go over the top, but it’s essential to be intentional when creating transitions to promote your storyline or video messaging. You can make your transitions come to life by using music in the right place.

Provides Context 

Musicologists discovered that tempo, harmony, volume, and the choice of musical instruments play a key role in music in film, and the same goes for short videos. Rather than simply using music for entertainment value, the right selection of music helps viewers associate the song’s lyrics or feelings (if you choose one that contains vocals) with the brand and what is being promoted or advertised. However, even if the music is only there to provide a nice background without vocals, it still drives your video’s emotional context. Because of the power of music and how it engages a viewer’s emotions, it’s important to know how to add music to a video online when creating your video ad or promotion.

Music Stimulates the Right Mood

For most people, listening to music is not an isolated experience. Often people choose their music according to their current state of mind and mood. People also choose music based on their activity, like putting on a high-intensity workout track for a daily exercise routine. Music is a universal language and has the ability to set the emotional mood for the visual experience. This is vital for brands and marketers to understand the power of music and how to add music to your videos as it helps to reinforce the main message. 

Brings Familiarity

Easily recognizable music has been a part of television ads since TV began. Advertisers used the opportunity to use repetition and jingles to reinforce their products to their viewers. If you have ever heard Oscar Mayer’s jingle “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner” or the cereal Lucky Charms’s jingle “They’re Magically Delicious,” then you know and understand the power of jingles. However, that is just an example of the power of familiarity and how music drives a connection between a specific product and brand. Music drives significant positive relationships with products or brands through the power of recall. Using the same music in your promotional ads repetitively and strategically makes a lasting impression on viewers.

Can Represent Your Brand

Because music affects a broader audience than many other forms of artist expression, it can uniquely affect your target audience. Today, small businesses have a lot of competition for viewers’ attention and need to use every tool at their disposal. The dynamic power of music helps represent your brand in a different way than just visual or product-related. Knowing how to add music to your videos and using the brand’s images (like a logo or watermark) in your video footage in conjunction with the right music goes a long way in making a lasting impression on your viewer. Additionally, adding music to videos not only helps represent your brand but also adds a professional touch.

How to Choose the Right Music

Choosing the right track to add music to your video should be a top priority for video creators. Generally, small businesses put a lot of thought into promotions and ads, and adding music or audio is no different. Easily add audio or music to your video in just a few clicks, and it’s free.

Understand Your  Audience

Another very important element in adding music to videos is to understand your target audience. It’s not just providing content with your music but getting an idea of the customer persona you are marketing to help make decisions about music content. If your customer is in the age category of the elderly, for instance, it’s probably not a great use case to use music that is common among young adults, i.e., the top 10 in pop music culture. Of course, this is not always the case, but in general, it’s essential to understand who you are talking to. Another example is the use of lyrics in your video. Suppose you’re sharing your videos across international social media channels, and you are aware of a target audience in a foreign country that speaks a different language. In that case, you might choose songs internationally known (meaning even people of other languages can understand it) or stick to instrumentals for driving the context and emotion. 

Music & Content Should Intertwine

Video creation is about visual storytelling and setting the mood and context for your brand. When planning the video’s narrative, whether it’s an ad or a video, to connect and bring awareness, the music you choose will impact the feelings your video conveys. Finding music that matches your style is essential. Knowing how to add music to your videos and find that perfect track will make your video editing easier in the long run because it provides context and timing as well. Getting everything to work together will bring that professional touch. Does the music align with your message, brand, and visual elements? These are great questions to think about.

Keep it Simple

With all the music choices we have today, getting lost in all the selections available can be easy. This is another great reason to take a moment and reflect on the music that will best fit in with your messaging and the visual elements in your video. There are many different styles to choose from, and it’s essential to maintain a constant theme. You don’t want too many different styles combined so you can maintain consistency across your brand’s visual language.

What Else Can You Do With Promo.com

There are many fun and creative ways to use music and other design options to create that perfect video. Make every video express your brand’s voice with unique customizing features from animated text styles to customized logos and transitions, all in alignment with your music.

Promo offers a wide range of features like cutting and trimming your video, exporting your video as a GIF, compressing your video, and even creating a photo collage. Moreover, if you are looking to share your video on several social media platforms – you can easily resize your video’s aspect ratio to fit all three social media video sizes

Promo.com is a totally online video editor with professional design tools and features accessible anytime straight from your browser. At Promo.com, you have the flexibility to make videos from your browser anytime, anywhere without any software installation; you can keep all your designs in one place! All your videos are stored in your portfolio and are accessible anytime to re-design, edit or share on social media.

At Promo.com, you can find that perfect music track and bring any idea to life in minutes with an extensive choice of professionally designed video templates and video footage, as well as a massive footage library. Everything you need is all in one place to add music to your video and make your brand stand out online. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Make a Video with Music Online

The Promo Video Maker from Promo.com is the easiest way to make a promo video to promote your event, business, or company. Within minutes you can create original promotional videos for social media campaigns, websites, email campaigns and add the perfect music track to make your video stand out. To get started, simply follow these simple steps:

Choose a Template

Choose a beautiful promo video template from our extensive selection, or video footage and over 110M images from our Getty Images and iStock libraries.

Customize Your Video

Customize your promotional video with your text, colors, fonts, and more. Use Promo.com’s premium design tools to design your video to match your brand.

Search for Your Music

Add audio tracks to your video in just a few clicks using the search window under the “Music” tab in Promo.com’s online video editor. Choose from our extensive pre-approved music library of over 1.5 thousand royalty-free music tracks. You can also search and filter your music by Genre, Mood, Tempo, and Instrument to find that perfect track.

Add music now

Once you find the track you want to use, simply hove over the track with your mouse to reveal the “Use Track” button, and voila! – You’re finished.

Can I use Licensed Music on my Video?

At Promo.com, you can upload your own music or choose from our extensive royalty-free library. You can add music to your videos that are licensed as well, but make sure it’s really licensed so you don’t violate any copyright laws. Promo.com is a secured solution for a massive royalty-free music library, so you are guaranteed not to infringe on any music copyrights so that you can add music to your video carefree. 

Unlimited Licensed Music

One plan, a huge range on unlimited worry-free licensed tracks for any video project. Safe for use on YouTube and all other social media channels.

Join today

About the author

KC Kinniburgh

KC Kinniburgh is a content manager at Promo. Her writing genre includes almost all aspects of the digital online industry, emphasizing the hi-tech sector. When she is not obsessing about proper punctuation or capitalization, she is learning about the E8 lattice or working out.

Become a better marketer.
Grow your business.
Join over 250,000 businesses already seeing an impact
from using our tips and tools delivered directly to your inbox.
Thank you for subscribing
to the Promo Blog!
Your video marketing education
is on it's way to your inbox.
Become a better marketer.
Grow your business.
Join over 250,000 businesses already seeing an impact
from using our tips and tools delivered directly to your inbox.
Thank you for
subscribing!
Your video marketing education
is on it's way to your inbox.