General Tips on SoundCloud Promotion

1. Tagging For Success

How can new fans find your music? Well one of the best ways is to tag your music.

Tagging makes you discoverable when a listener is searching SoundCloud.

The better your tags, the easier you are to find.

The best way to tag is to be honest. If you made a drum & bass track, then set the main genre to Drum & Bass. Add moods and a location to your tags as well. It all helps.
Stick to one main genre to keep things clear. Adding a bunch of genres won’t make your track any more findable.

The more concise and accurate your tags are, the more easily your music will get discovered by the listeners that wanna hear it most.

Hot Tip: Tag and link to your collaborators SoundCloud in the track description. It’s great for cross-promotion and telling the story of your process.

 

2. Add A Buy Link

Getting listens and likes is nice. But likes and listens won’t buy you that new mic you’ve been eyeing.

Luckily SoundCloud lets you add a Buy link to your track upload. Just click on the Metadata tab when youíre uploading.

Add a link to your iTunes, Bandcamp or whatever else you use to sell your music.

Hot Tip: If you have a pro account you can change the button text to anything you want.

Change it to Donate and link to a Patreon or a PayPal. You’ll be surprised how many super-fans out there will support your music.

 

3. Tell A Story With Your Waveform

SoundCloud allows fans to comment on your waveform. But you know who else should be commenting on the waveform?

YOU!

Use the waveform comments to tell your fans and community about your process. Be transparent about how you made your track. Ask for feedback and mention specific sections.
For example, if you’re not sure about a section of your track comment on the waveform where the part starts.

Something like: not sure about the bass here. Let me know what you think is the perfect play for getting feedback from your community.

You don’t have to be completely done a track to publish it. Publish drafts, get feedback, and make your music better.

 

4. Buy SoundCloud Plays

Buying SoundCloud Plays isn’t just about showing off, it’s about getting your music listened to, building a fan-base, becoming more popular, and gaining the attention of big record companies. Nowadays, the music industry is over-crowded, and standing out is becoming more and more difficult. Unless you have incredible luck, marketing your music is your best bet. Buying SoundCloud plays can be an important step in your online music marketing strategy. Get listened to, boost your popularity, gain fans and attract the attention of the agents and record companies that look around SoundCloud.

 

5. Art Matters

Album art matters. Especially on SoundCloud.

Your album art or track artwork represents your music no matter where it goes.

If your track gets embedded on a blog your artwork will be there. If you share your track to Facebook your album art goes there too. So it’s mega important.

Before anyone hits play the artwork attached to your track has to stand out. So make it count and choose something that represents your music and you.

For best results always use a JPG or a PNG that’s at least 800 x 800 pixels.

Album art is a perfect reason to invest a bit of money into your project. If you canít make the image you want yourself, then hire a designer or photographer that fits your budget.

 

6. Private Means Pro

SoundCloud lets you share private links to your tracks.

Itís great for sharing unfinished tracks with collaborators, sending demos to labels or blogs, or contacting other outlets like radio stations with exclusives.

Sharing a private link gives your music the personal touch and a sense of exclusivity that is great for reaching out to tastemakers.

Itís super easy to do. Just upload a track and set it to private. Save it and go to your profile. Click the track you want to share privately and hit the Share button below the waveform.

You’ll see a private share URL that is unique to your track! You can even make a whole playlist private if you wanna share your entire new album.

Plus, you can reset the the private link at any time to make your private links time sensitive.

 

7. Publishing Is Just The First Step

Your track is finally done. You worked long and hard on it. Youíre finally happy with how it sounds and you think itís ready for the world.

So you click share and sit back waiting for those plays. Itís a hit! The track gets some nice buzz and people seem to be liking it!

But a couple days later you realize that your song needs a minor tweak.

Maybe someone you admire commented and told you a hot tip on how to boost the bass.

Or maybe you mastered it and you want the better version on your SoundCloud. But if you take it down, you’ll lose all those plays, likes and important feedback.

 

8. Change The Audio Without Losing Comments, Likes And Plays

Don’t fret. With a Pro subscription on SoundCloud you can swap out the audio on any SoundCloud upload at any time.

And the best part? You don’t lose all those plays, likes and comments from your fans.

It’s perfect for sharing unfinished songs to get feedback. Tweak your track based on the critiques and re-upload any time.

Hitting share doesn’t have to be final. Swap the audio and make sharing part of your production process.

 

9. Sharing Means Caring

Don’t just post your own music. Re-post artists that youíre excited about or songs and mixes that you can’t stop listening to.

Sharing other artists and helping your audience discover new music builds trust and authority and is a really humble move.

If you hear something, say something!

You SoundCloud is a community. So support it by sharing other artists in your feed. If you share other artists’ music there’s a better chance they’ll share yours!

Reposting another artist’s music is a great first step to starting a relationship as well. Relationships that lead to gigs, collaborations and helpful partnerships. All that good community stuff.

 

10. Across The Universe

Sharing your new tracks to your SoundCloud community is great. But why stop there?

Put your tracks out into the world!

Share them to all your promotion platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Once you upload a track share it to all your platforms under the Share tab.

You can also auto-post your tracks to all your social platforms automatically by linking your accounts. Just head over to your Account Settings to manage your Connections.

Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are all connectable for auto-posting. Connect your accounts and get your tracks into all those ears!

 

11. Maintain Your Motion

SoundCloud is a tool. You have to use it right to make it work.

These tips will help you get the most out of your SoundCloud and make it work for you wherever you’re sharing your music.

So share lots, share often and share smart.