1. Comment on related SoundCloud tracks
Connecting
with other SoundCloud artists within your niche is an effective way to
build a network for attracting more followers. Commenting on their
tracks is one of the easiest ways to do this. It also makes you more
visible to other artists’ listeners, drawing them to your tracks.
The
key to making this strategy effective is leaving high-quality comments
that would lead to a conversation between you and the track’s owner and
fans. Feel free to comment about their track’s technical aspects or
other topics that would be of interest to them. Do it in a constructive
manner to leave a positive impression and encourage them to respond.
2. Connect with bloggers
Reaching
out to music bloggers can increase the visibility of your music outside
of SoundCloud and attract new followers. There are
plenty of blogs
out there that cater to your specific genre. These blogs are often on
the lookout for new acts to feature, giving you a good opportunity to
catch their attention. Talking to vloggers is just as important:
When
submitting your music to blogs, prepare a good pitch for it. Talk about
any interesting stories behind your tracks or aspects of your music in
general. This will make you stand out from other submissions that the
blogger is reviewing.
3. Post on music forums and Subreddits
While
social media is the dominant online promotional channel for musicians
nowadays, forums are still invaluable for drawing new SoundCloud
followers. Reddit, in particular, remains a popular place for people to
find new artists to follow. The site has dozens of active music
subreddits, including one dedicated to SoundCloud.
Before
submitting your tracks to any forum, familiarize yourself with their
posting rules. You also don’t want your link posts to look spammy.
Instead of just dropping your SoundCloud link, provide some context
around it. You can talk about the inspirations behind the track or its
technical aspects. This serves to pique readers’ interest and get them
to click the link.
4. Share Your Music Publicly
SoundCloud
was designed to be the simplest way to store your tracks in one place
and “push them out” to social networks, blogs, etc. You can easily share
single tracks or “sets” (a playlist of songs that all appear in one
waveform player) to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more– or embed the
SoundCloud player manually! Just click the “share” button on the player
to get started sharing your music with the world.
When it comes to
fan engagement, there are dozens of possibilities for sharing tracks
and sets on SoundCloud: ask for feedback on alternate mixes, encourage
your fans to create their own “perfect setlists,” post an untitled track
and ask for fans to comment with their suggestions for the song name,
etc.
5. Make it Easy for Bloggers to Access Your Tunes
SoundCloud
makes it easier for you to do your own digital PR. Send your tracks to
bloggers and journalists; you control whether they can download the
tracks or simply stream them.
6. Share Your Works-in-progress Privately
Got
some new material that you’d like to share with select fans? Are you
collaborating with an artist across the country? The same private
sharing feature that helps you manage your digital PR enables you to
offer exclusive content and to solicit feedback from your producer,
label, friends, or bandmates without having to “release” the tune to the
world.
7. Create a Marketing Plan
In business, it’s
common practice to start by stating your goal, identifying a target
market, and then developing a product that fills the needs of that
market to reach the goal. As a musician, this strategy is just as
important for you as for any CEO.
Understand your ideal fans’
personalities as well as their
habits.
Do they go to clubs or music festivals? Are they more low-key and
prefer to hang out at a rooftop bar, or enjoy listening to music with a
few friends on a couch in the back room? Do they listen to music while
working, working out, relaxing, or hanging out with friends? As a
musician, chances are that how you consume your music is similar to how
your potential fans like theirs. The important thing is to have these
questions asked and answered, so you know how to best target people when
you put your music out there.
There are lots of ways to get to know your potential fans:
- Attend shows by similar local artists, or look at the profiles of followers for those artists online.
- If you already have a small fan base, survey your listeners to find out more about them, and ask them how they found you.
- Look around on forums for people who like music like yours, and join the conversation.
- Explore YouTube videos of bands in your genre, and see what people
say in the comments. Take a look at what other bands are associated with
you, and then see if any of them are playing in your area anytime soon.
Go mingle with their fans!
Ultimately, you should be able to create what is known as a
marketing persona.
This is simply a template which sums up the profile of your average
listener. You always want to be as detailed as possible – to the point
where if you can use your research to build yourself a fictional
“average fan,” and give him or her a name, you’re golden.
8. Know Where Your Target Market Is
This leads to the next point:
Where is your target market,
both online and offline? Once you know more about who your potential
listeners are and their habits and demographics, you can figure out
where they are looking for music.
There are tons of places to find potential fans online. For example:
- SoundCloud (obviously)
- Mixcloud
- YouTube
- 8tracks
- Reddit
The best part about looking online is that platforms are often
social
so you can not only see what your potential fans like, but also where
they live, what activities they do, and how they interact with the web.
Dig around for data, because the more you have, the better you can
target.
9. Give Your Post a Paid Boost.
Although
getting your post featured on a Channel is awesome, it isn’t enough. You
need to help your post go red hot. After your content gets attached to
the channel, you need to quickly drive lots of traffic to it. This will
help push your post to the top of the channel, as opposed to being just
listed on the channel in fifth position (or wherever it ends up being
shown). You have to get to the top spot. How? Spend a few bucks on
SOUNDCLOUD Channel. This will help quickly drive lots of traffic to your
SOUNDCLOUD Songs. Or Visit
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