Tweaks and Tips for Your SoundCloud Account

So you bought SoundCloud plays – now what?

Most people might assume that buying SoundCloud plays is enough for their music career to start gaining massive recognition. While it can definitely give you the head start you need to get things moving, it’s only the beginning of your journey to fame.

After purchasing plays you have to make sure your SoundCloud account is optimized to its fullest potential. From the way you organize your tracks to the way you respond to your fans and promote yourself, these little things have a huge impact on your account and overall appeal.

This is a big topic, so we’ll be tackling it in two parts. In this Part 1, we’ll look at what you can do to your SoundCloud account. In our next post, in Part 2, we’ll see how you can promote your profile and market yourself.

Are you ready to watch your tracks skyrocket to the top of the charts? The journey begins here.

Give your Account a Good Hard Look

A neglected profile may be the very reason your tracks aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Just because you’ve been on the platform for a while now doesn’t mean you’ve fully optimized your account to its fullest potential. A SoundCloud account has a number of nooks and crannies a content creator can personalize and optimize – from the type of account you use to the way you organize your tracks.

Your profile is a direct representation of you as an artist. In a highly immersive platform such as SoundCloud, you want to provide your listeners with an unforgettable experience they can associate with your music.

Many artists on SoundCloud treat album art like an afterthought, and fail to make very good use of it. Yes, SoundCloud listeners are on the platform to listen to music, but giving them something nice to look at helps provide an all-around aesthetic experience and more firmly imprints your brand.

Image credit: Mashable

Creating eye-catching album art doesn’t need to be expensive – you just have to be creative with it. There are also a variety of online marketplaces where you can buy the services of freelance artists, who can create compelling album art for cheap:

• DesignCrowd
• 99Designs
• Upwork
• Hatchwise

Listeners can even download your album art if they so choose. Some people are really into this, so it’s best that you give them something worth looking at.

Label Your Tracks Correctly

Labeling your tracks properly may sound like an obvious, simple task but we can’t stress enough how important this is. Coming up with a naming scheme for all of your tracks will help listeners find what they’re looking for a lot faster.

A well-organized track list also makes for a better listening experience, because SoundCloud requires artists to create playlists of their songs for their listeners.

Be sure to label your tracks and playlists properly to sort albums together. Keep everything simple and avoid using unnecessary characters, as this can just make your playlist appear more confusing for listeners.

SoundCloud suggests that you keep your track names clean and simple. Include the name of the artist only if necessary (like if you’re a record label uploading your artist’s track on your profile). If you must include the artist name, be sure to separate it with a hyphen (-).

Keeping your name simple will make your track more memorable to listeners – consider this a branding technique for your music.

Another thing worth to consider are the meta tags you use for your tracks. Meta tags, or just tags, determine how your track is categorized on the platform.

When people search for those terms, they’ll find your music (hopefully). It’s important that you only use relevant tags on your tracks – overstuffing them with irrelevant keywords can be deemed as a cheap ploy to gain attention.

Use established genres and subgenres when tagging your track, because that’s what people tend to search for. Your job is to make your music as easy to find as possible – in some sense, you have to wait for everyone else to do the rest.

Consider Going Pro

If you’re serious about building a career on SoundCloud, you might want to consider going pro – subscribing to SoundCloud Pro, that is.

By signing up to SoundCloud Pro, you gain access to extra tools that can help you measure your success on the platform, giving you an edge over all those musicians who don’t go that extra mile.

There are two different types of pro accounts on SoundCloud: SoundCloud Pro and SoundCloud Pro Unlimited. Each offers helpful services that can help you come to better understand your audience.

Below are the plans and pricing for each:

SoundCloud Pro

• Double the upload time
• Provides additional stats such as who is listening and plays per country
• Pin tracks to the top of your profile through Spotlight
• $7 per month or $63 per year

SoundCloud Pro Unlimited

• Unlimited upload time
• See which cities listeners are coming from
• See you which website and application tracks are played from
• $15 per month or $135 per year

There’s nothing wrong with keeping a basic profile, but signing up for a Pro account can kick things up a notch. These deeper insights are valuable for anyone who is serious about marketing and establishing their tracks on the platform.

Image credit: SoundCloud

If you want to know more about SoundCloud Pro, you should check out a previous post where we examine the subscription service down to every last detail to help you make the most informed choice.

Make Sure your Names and URLs Align

When it comes to branding yourself on social networking sites like SoundCloud, it’s crucial that you keep your profile names and URLs consistent and recognizable. People will have an easier time finding you if you use the same name on every site.

Take a look at the URLs and profile data on all your social media accounts, and make sure they align with each other as much as possible.

Buy Engagement Signals Too

Purchasing plays alone is never enough. Having a ton of plays but not very much engagement on your tracks can look a bit strange to many listeners.

After investing in plays, or at the same time, consider buying all the other social signals as well, such as likes, comments, and reposts, to further strengthen your social proof. You can also buy followers to grow your audience quickly.

Getting those initial likes and reposts can help you move things along, as far as engagement goes. Once your bought social signals come in, you can focus more of your energy on acquiring organic listeners.

We can’t stress enough the importance of choosing your provider wisely. You can usually go with the same company you bought the plays from, if you’re satisfied with the service.

Comment on Your Own Track

One of SoundCloud’s most endearing traits is the ability to comment on a specific time within a track.

This is a great opportunity to provide your listeners with insider information about your music making process. You can also answer any questions they might have about specific parts of your songs:

Image credit: StatsAndEngagement

Tell them what inspired a specific section on the track, or let them in on some interesting info about the production process – your listeners love peeking behind the scenes, so why not give them what they want?

This feature can be a powerful storytelling tool you can use to connect with your listeners on a whole new level.

(Un)Man your Post: Don’t Upload Everything You Have

Now that you’ve managed to get the ball rolling, it might be tempting to stuff your profile with every single track you have – don’t.

Uploading all of your music might create an initial hype but once that dies down, you no longer have anything new to offer your listeners.

This can pressure you to hastily come up with new tracks, which can compromise the quality of the music you produce. Figure out a schedule that lets you drip your tracks out on a consistent basis. You want to have time to make new music, while still giving your listeners something new to listen to on a reliable basis.

Keep in mind that SoundCloud listeners can turn into gig-goers, and will potentially spend money buying your tracks, so it’s important that you keep them hooked as long as possible.

Engage and Remain Human

You should seem alive and personable at all times. Even though you may have some success on the platform, you should never stop talking to your fans and listeners.

This is a great way to establish a strong, long-term relationship that will keep people enthusiastic about not only your music, but your personality as well.

Respond to as many comments as you can, and always thank people for listening. When people see that you’ll actually respond to what they say, they’ll comment again – and other people will see this happening too, creating an inviting atmosphere.

This can also be a way to gain more insight into your fans, something that can be very valuable to your creative process.

Develop a Habit for Success

Purchasing SoundCloud plays alone will not make you or your track famous on SoundCloud. You have to have a solid follow-up strategy in place if you want to get to the top.

There’s no way to guarantee that you’ll become a big shot, but setting up your account and tracks properly is the place to start. This will get you suited up for success. There are a number of ways you can optimize your account – and every tweak you make brings you one step closer to SoundCloud stardom.

It may get overwhelming as you start to gain more attention from listeners – that’s great! Just remember to never drop the ball when it comes to engagement. The bigger your audience grows, the more of an effort you’ll need to make to stay connected.

This was the first half of our guide to SoundCloud success after buying plays. Now check out Part 2, on Promoting Your SoundCloud Account !

Date: December 20, 2016 / Categories: Getting Discovered, SoundCloud Plays, Tips, / Author: Mariko