As an artist, you are responsible for promoting your music. So how do you market yourself to get more plays on SoundCloud?
Here are 03 solid and relevant SoundCloud promotion strategies for the music industry in 2024. Here’s a taste of what you’ll learn:
l The truth about SoundCloud and advertising
l There is one thing you need to do before you start promoting yourself
l How to leverage an existing audience to maximize the reading experience
By following these strategies, you can increase your plays, and boost your SoundCloud followers, and likes. Let’s go!
A final note
In the past few years, SoundCloud has made changes where the homepage is no longer your feed. This means that people who follow you won’t always find your music when it’s published.
Activating key services like Spotify and Apple Music by 2024 is crucial to unlocking the full potential of advertising and marketing.
Also, here are 03 strategies to get more plays on Soundcloud:
1. Make good music first
2. Leverage the existing audience on the platform
3. Use email to socialize and advertise
Strategy 1: Make good music (actually)
No matter how much crappy music is promoted, it will never pass the final test: public opinion.
No matter how much PR and marketing effort you put into a song, if it’s truly mediocre, no one will want to hear it and you won’t be heard.
Never forget the golden rule of music promotion: your music is marketing. You don’t just sell music, it is also inextricably linked to the promotional process.
People don’t buy a vacuum cleaner if they don’t want one, and people don’t listen to music if they don’t like it. This is especially true on Soundcloud, where the barrier to entry is so low that a lot of terrible music is uploaded, meaning listeners have a lot more to discover.
Over time, I’ve discovered that artists and producers (especially those looking to advance their careers) tend to overestimate the quality of their music. I did this early on and you can listen to my old music and hear the improvements over time.
Do you have to send everything…?
But that begs the question: should I upload my music if it’s not 100% available yet? That’s debatable, but on a platform like SoundCloud the stakes are much lower, and deleting songs is just a click away.
And if you ask, you’ll likely get valuable feedback from the audience so you can assess what works and what doesn’t.
So while it’s important to promote your music online, getting feedback and taking it to the studio will prove to be a much more valuable time.
So how can I make my music “better”? It is a completely different subject and that is why we offer courses such as ‘Basics of EDM’ and ‘Songwriting for Producers’.
But some advice:
l Make sure your basic musical ideas are solid, otherwise, production, mixing, and mastering won’t matter
l Receive feedback from listeners, tasters, and other artists
l Be patient and keep making a lot of music
Strategy 2: Leverage your existing audience to get more Soundcloud plays
This may be confusing, but it’s true.
Some people can always promote music better than you. ·Other artists with more fans
l Advertising channels
l Labels/Assemblies
l Playlists
Don’t ignore the external audience either. Just because you don’t have a larger audience on SoundCloud doesn’t mean your blog or YouTube channel can’t get a lot of views.
Make sure you use:
l Blogging
l Sound Machine
l YouTube channels
l Spotify playlists
l Influencers (e.g. vloggers, Instagram accounts)
l Radio stations (some broadcast directly via SoundCloud!)
The key here is to find channels that go well with your music. Don’t message someone just because he or she has a lot of followers. They are already looking for very specific types of music that suit their tastes.
So play through some of your previous uploads/shares and make a decision. Don’t be afraid if your music doesn’t exactly match what’s already out there, but if it’s too different it will probably be approved.
Once you know who to send your music to, you need to figure out how to do it.
Strategy 3: Email is still king
Send a message:
l that you know the recipient will receive it
l who very often goes to a controlled place
l is simple and clear
l use something that everyone has
l is not based on a platform that could disappear soon
Reply email. It’s old, but it’s still the best. What does this have to do with SoundCloud, you ask?
Email for the Internet
Everyone has an email. Artist. Labels. Advertising channels. Republish channels. Music lovers. You can communicate with them through this channel whether they have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or not.
My biggest hits have been recreated through the messaging network, including a #1 spot on one of Majestic Casual’s weekly playlists on Soundcloud. In this case, it is a form that sends them an email, but the principle remains the same.
Real case studies on how to get more plays on Soundcloud
Here’s an example where I email my track to someone to upload to YouTube and see the difference in response times.
I received the reply within 24 hours! Of course, that’s not usually the case with big names in the industry, but messaging networks work.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These channels are great but always try email first. To make it easier, create a mailing list of interested people to whom you can send your music. Just use Google Sheets or Excel.
Some tips and tricks for sending emails:
l Be concise: the recipient is probably short on time, so get to the point.
l Send them a link to SoundCloud – it’s easiest to listen and download.
l Have a conversation: don’t just send a link, treat the person on the other end of the line like a human being and you will be treated like a human being too.
Personalize messages: Copying a long list never works and often irritates people, especially if you choose Reply All. Send one message at a time and treat them like humans again.