All music artists put their hearts and souls into the songs they create. The amount of effort they put into their crafts is awe-inspiring, and you can just hear this in their songs.

For indie artists, the amount of effort is doubled. Aside from creating awesome music, they also need to do all the leg work of promoting their music and making sure that it reaches the ears of the right people. The Internet plays a great role in making this job relatively easier but not necessarily uncomplicated.

SoundCloud, a major platform for music artists, allows indie artists to reach almost 80 million monthly users, which is lucrative at first glance. However, there are also ten million music artists on SoundCloud vying for the attention and loyalty of the same audience.

The challenge, therefore, is how to stand out and encourage people to play your music. Here are a few suggestions.

Develop a bold attitude

There’s no room for timidity if you’re an indie artist. If you are not going to promote your music, nobody else will do it for you. Even your parents won’t be able to do it if you’re too shy to ask. So drop the timidity and be assertive.

Dude in the stall next to me just pulled his phone out and started playing his own SoundCloud music. Weird spot to promote your music, but I appreciate the hustle

— Corey (@RaymondRuef) November 17, 2018

Do not be embarrassed by self-promotion because you don’t have a record label who will assign a team of experts to do it for you. You are your music’s only chance to be heard, no matter how melodramatic that may sound.

Share the track with your friends, and better yet, make new friends. The only way to get plays on SoundCloud is when other people follow your profile, like your tracks and share them with their network.

You won’t go wrong with other social media platforms too. Go on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube so you can reach more people. Some artists even put aside some budget for promoting their SoundCloud music through ads and other social media marketing providers.

Polish your track

We know you’re excited to put your song out there, but trust us when we say wait and polish the external factors first. Do the following things first before uploading your song:

• Look for and correct any typos on your track name and description.
• Double-check for technical errors.
• Put some thought, effort, and money (if you must) in the cover art.

No matter how awesome your song is, people may not be attracted to it if your track is full of errors. Tracks with cover art also tend to stand out more among other titles with blank covers. These external factors affect a user’s decision to play or not play your track, so do not skip them.

Tag your tracks

Metadata makes your tracks more discoverable, so make sure that you use the right tags for your music.

So good to see our Search improve on #SoundCloud. Not an easy feat to take the largest UGC music catalogue in the world (and all the wild metadata oscillations that come with it) and effectively rank results. Our teams are knee deep into Learning To Rank and we're learning a lot.

— Artem Fishman (@artemf) July 6, 2018

Here are some ways you can tag your tracks:

• Genre
• Sub-genre
• The mood it generates
• Instruments
• Original artist if it’s a cover

The secret is to think like your target listeners. What will they be looking for? What keywords are they likely to type in the search box? If you know these things, you can effectively tag your tracks so they’ll appear in the right search results.

Research successful musicians and see what tags they’re using for a shortcut.

Use the right tools

Since digital marketing is indispensable, several tools have been developed to make it more organized. If there are tasks related to your SoundCloud promotion that you’re not familiar with, chances are that there are tools you can use.

SoundCloud analytics

Analytics might be a foreign word for some, but it is a necessary tool for your music. It lets you know who is listening to your songs and if your marketing tactics are effective. Analytics helps you decide which way to go in terms of promoting your music. It can even help you reach out to your listeners and engage with them.

The biggest trip ever is checking my Soundcloud analytics and seeing individual people have listened to my tracks 90 + times! Totally going to reach out and thank them! Blows my mind!

— Electro's Dad (@KedzieMusic) August 13, 2018

SoundCloud has its own analytics feature, but it’s available only with their Pro plan, which costs $6 per month. The feature is very useful in shaping your SoundCloud promotional strategy.

The easiest way to get more plays on SoundCloud

Promoting your SoundCloud music starts with reaching out to your friends and connecting with your target listeners. From there, these people will promote your music to their networks too.

It’s also important not to neglect the technical aspects of your tracks. Make use of metadata and tag your tracks correctly. Create cover art since it is the first thing that people will see when searching.

The results of all these efforts will reflect in your analytics. Pay close attention to them for both your digital and real-world success.

Date: August 1, 2019 / Categories: SoundCloud Plays, / Author: solmae