Promote Soundcloud Song
Promote on SoundCloud
Use the self-serve tool Promote on SoundCloud to surface your music to new fans and drive up your plays at a budget that works for you.
Promote a track
Reach exactly who you want
Choose targeting options (age, gender, location, device or genre) to get your music in front of the audience you want on their Stream and mobile homepage.
Get more plays that count
With the power of promotion in your hands, you can build buzz around new releases for fans of your genre, or market your music to the places you want to tour.
See long-term success
More fans engaging with your tracks means your music is more likely to be picked up by industry tastemakers or labels.
Promote unlimited tracks
With SoundCloud Pro Unlimited, you get unlimited uploads, access to full stats and more tools to grow your career. At no additional cost, you can also sign up for our distribution and marketing engine Repost by SoundCloud to send your music to Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram and more while keeping 80% of your revenue.
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How to Promote Your Music on SoundCloud (For Free) – OpenMic
Posted on 10/09/2020
Musicians have one priority on streaming platforms: to promote, promote, promote. It’s great to have your tracks on a huge platform like SoundCloud, but promotion is what will make the difference between remaining undiscovered and becoming a SoundCloud hit.
SoundCloud is an invaluable tool for music promotion, especially for indie artists. The streaming platform has an abundance of promotional opportunities open to all artists, including Repost by SoundCloud, SoundCloud Premier, and Viral SoundCloud Promotion.
If you’ve got your music on SoundCloud, it’s time to start promoting. A good marketing campaign will boost your rankings and earn you extra money. You just need to find the SoundCloud strategy that suits you – and this article is here to help you do that.
How to discover music on SoundCloud
Before you start putting together a promotional campaign for SoundCloud, it’s worth starting with the basics and understanding how the platform works.
SoundCloud users typically discover music through the site’s universal search bar, the charts (which show the top 50 played tracks of the week), and through SoundCloud’s “recommended” section.
Knowing how users find music on SoundCloud can help you tap into SoundCloud’s discovery algorithm and get your tracks topping the search results.
SoundCloud music discovery
SoundCloud also categorises its music into communities. These communities usually centre around a certain theme or genre of music and contain lots of recommended playlists connected to that type of music. Some of the biggest SoundCloud communities are:
Chill
Study
Party
Workout
Relax
Sleep
Communities are really popular on SoundCloud. They help users find what they’re looking for based on their mood or music taste.
This makes them a great resource for artists trying to promote on SoundCloud – if you find your niche and have a clear, distinct genre as an artist, you’re more likely to fit into a community and have your tracks posted there. Fans can then stumble across your music on a trending playlist and head to your profile to hear more.
How to promote your music on SoundCloud
To get your music discovered on SoundCloud, be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into promotion. You can use paid promotion services (read on for more information) to promote on SoundCloud, or you can try out your own promotional techniques.
Here are some ideas for how you can run your own, free SoundCloud promotion:
Run free give-away periods on your tracks to encourage downloads
Use the private sharing feature to share your tracks with select fans as part of an exclusive giveaway
Send your SoundCloud tracks to bloggers, journalists, and press outlets and ask for them to write a review
Use Buy-Links to direct fans to your online store
Share your music publicly and across all your social media profile
Does SoundCloud Pro promote your music?
You can run your own independent promotional campaigns, or you can recruit the help of SoundCloud to help promote your music. Artists who are signed up for SoundCloud Pro Unlimited are offered lots of assistance with music promotion.
Repost by SoundCloud, SoundCloud Premier, and Promote on SoundCloud, are all promotional services available on the streaming platform to help artists promote their music.
SoundCloud Repost
Repost by SoundCloud is an exclusive marketing feature that helps you “get heard, get paid, and take your career to the next level. ”
By using Repost, you can get your music heard by audiences worldwide, as well as get your tracks on huge streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify, and Tik Tok. Your tracks will also automatically be considered for upstream opportunities – all of which is amazing exposure.
Joining Repost is a clever move when it comes to promoting your music. You’ll be able to use premium services and pitch for playlists and pay collaborators among lots of other exclusive perks. One of the best ways to promote yourself in the music industry is by looking like a credible, professional artist.
SoundCloud Premier
SoundCloud Premier is essentially an upgraded version of a basic SoundCloud account. But it’s definitely worth upgrading your account and paying the subscription fee to go Premier, as it comes with exclusive access to tools to grow your music career.
By signing up for SoundCloud Premier, you can monetise your tracks and get paid for your plays. You’ll also be able to access your stats and royalty reports, which can show you who’s listening to your music and where, so you can tailor your promotional efforts accordingly.
When you’re a Premier user, you can also gain access to the renowned Promote on SoundCloud tool. This can boost your exposure and SoundCloud following endlessly.
Promote on SoundCloud
Promote on SoundCloud is a self-serve tool available to SoundCloud Pro Unlimited and SoundCloud Premier users. The promotional tool helps you deliver your music to SoundCloud’s huge userbase and communities, gaining you more exposure and increasing your engagement with listeners.
Using Promote on SoundCloud will walk you through and simplify your promotional campaign, by providing you with access to lots of promotional tools like:
Boosted tracks that are highly visible at the top of the homepage
Access to unlimited uploads
Customised targeting options that let you choose what age, location, device, and genre you want to target
Targeted marketing for your music in the areas you’re about to tour in
Access to stats for how your music’s performing
Who can use Promote on SoundCloud?
If you want to use the Promote on SoundCloud self-serve tool, you have to be an artist who has tracks that are monetising on Soundcloud. All artists are eligible to monetise on the platform and can set up monetisation on their tracks quickly and easily. But there are a few eligibility rules that are worth checking out before you get started.
You can only promote your own tracks and monetising content on SoundCloud. Or, if you have a label, they can use Promote on SoundCloud on your behalf.
How to promote using Promote on SoundCloud
If you’re eligible to use Promote on SoundCloud, you’re ready to set up a SoundCloud promotion and get your content seen by thousands!
To set up a promotion using the Promote on SoundCloud tool, you’ll need to follow these steps:
Step 1
Go to Promote on SoundCloud and select “Promote a track. ” (You’ll then be asked to sign in to your SoundCloud account if you haven’t already. )
Step 2
Choose a name for your promotion and then select one of your current monetising public tracks.
Step 3
Now, you’ll have to option to choose between “Simple” or “Advanced” targeting. You’ll also have to set a budget for how much you’d like to spend to run your promotion.
Step 4
Select what you’d like the start and end date of your promotion to be and choose what audience you want your promotion to reach.
Step 5
You’ll then be able to check the availability of your chosen promotional campaign and proceed to checkout to pay for it. SoundCloud will then do the rest and get your promotion up and running.
Viral SoundCloud promotion
Promote on SoundCloud is just one option for promoting your music on SoundCloud. If you’re happy to pay to promote your tracks, Viral SoundCloud Promotion is another paid promotional package you could use.
The Viral SoundCloud Promotion service can be purchased through Artist Sounds and allows artists to choose the promotional goals they want to be met in a set time period (including how many plays you would like on SoundCloud by the end of the contract. )
The typical Viral SoundCloud package includes:
A 90-day guarantee to meet all goals
Guaranteed plays from real people (all based in the US)
Your songs featured on Juss Russ Radio
Your song ratings shared on social media
24/7 campaign support
Your songs featured on the Artist Sounds music blog
A progress report and final report
How much does Viral SoundCloud Promotion cost?
Prices for Viral SoundCloud Promotion services start at $249. 99, for a goal of 10, 000 SoundCloud plays on your track. The more plays you want on your track, the more expensive the packages become.
How do you make a song go viral on SoundCloud?
Every musician dreams of going viral – but the thought of having to pay to go viral might tarnish the idea a bit. You don’t have to buy a viral promotion package to make your tracks go viral on SoundCloud; lots of artists find overnight success using their own hacks.
Try your luck at going viral on SoundCloud using these five tips:
Post your best work –your track won’t get anywhere if it’s not high-quality and your best piece of work. The main trick to going viral is to create a catchy and memorable song.
Keep an eye on trends – look at what SoundCloud’s most-played tracks are recently. This will give you an idea of what genres of music are trending right now, and will help you tailor your song to be more popular.
Optimise the length of your songs – a hit song is usually around 3 minutes long. If you keep your tracks to this length, you won’t lose your listener’s attention.
Use popular trending tags– in your track description, tag your song with as many relevant, popular tags as possible. This will amplify the reach of your music.
Team up with popular musicians – collaborating with artists who have a bigger fanbase than you is a sure-fire way to boost your listeners and exposure.
How do you get more following on SoundCloud?
There’s no better way to boost your chances of going viral than having a big following on streaming platforms. A huge following will increase your shares, exposure, and sales. This is all great promotion for an artist.
If you’re looking to increase your SoundCloud following, give these tricks a go:
Use the Spotlight feature to list your five best tracks at the top of your profile
Post links to your website and social media accounts in your SoundCloud bio
Find channels on SoundCloud that can repost your music
Like, repost, and comment on other SoundCloud musician’s content
Tag your music and make it easily searchable
SoundCloud Groups
It’s one of the platform’s lesser-known features (and was disabled for a while in 2016), but SoundCloud Groups is something every artist can take advantage of to boost their following and promotion on SoundCloud.
SoundCloud Groups allow anyone to post their tracks to a ready-and-waiting audience who share similar music tastes and who are interested in your genre.
You can increase your exposure using the Groups feature and be part of a community that can help share and uplift your promotional campaigns.
SoundCloud marketing
To successfully promote on SoundCloud, you’ll need to have a marketing strategy. You can join Repost, SoundCloud Premier, and sign up for as many viral promotion services as you like…but without a strong marketing plan, your promotional content will only hit a limited, niche audience.
SoundCloud has 175 million monthly users, which is a huge potential audience. But it doesn’t compare to the size of the user base of social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube.
If you want the best marketing strategy possible, you should cross-promote your SoundCloud account across all your social media profiles to create one big marketing vehicle that draws fans back to your SoundCloud music.
Promote SoundCloud on Twitter
SoundCloud integrates perfectly with Twitter. Links from your SoundCloud account will embed directly into Twitter cards and your songs will start playing automatically when the card is clicked on. Your album artwork even carries across on all your Twitter uploads.
You can share your SoundCloud tracks to Twitter by using the “Share” button that appears underneath your track’s waveform, then selecting the Twitter icon.
Twitter’s one of the best platforms for fan engagement and is a brilliant place to promote your music on SoundCloud and allow fans to connect with you on a personal level.
Promote SoundCloud on Instagram
Instagram is your secret weapon when you’re promoting your music on SoundCloud. By connecting your Instagram profile up to your SoundCloud account, you can transfer your best pictures from Insta to SoundCloud and use them on your tracks, profile, and playlists.
Nothing will make your SoundCloud profile more promotable and attractive to potential fans than having eye-catching, high-quality pictures on your account.
Promote SoundCloud on Facebook
SoundCloud has the functionality to connect to all social media platforms, including Facebook. This means you can use the “Share” button to directly share your songs or playlists to your Facebook page.
Facebook’s a great platform to promote the content on your SoundCloud account. When you share your music on Facebook, your friends and followers can click on the link and they will then be taken directly to your SoundCloud profile to listen to your music.
Pairing your account with your Facebook profile will drive traffic to your SoundCloud account, drawing in a wider audience and creating extra exposure for your music.
Promote SoundCloud on YouTube
YouTube is considered a staple in every musician’s toolkit. If you already have a YouTube account dedicated to your music uploads, why not use it to promote your SoundCloud page?
SoundCloud doesn’t integrate quite as well with Youtube as it does with the other social media platforms as there is no direct “Share to Youtube” button on the site. You’ll, therefore, have to use some links to direct fans from your YouTube channel to your SoundCloud page.
You could embed links to your SoundCloud page into a video or paste the link in the video description when you upload your work to YouTube.
SoundCloud promotion
Whether you run your own independent promotional campaigns, use SoundCloud’s self-promotion tools, or pay for a viral promotion service; promoting your music on SoundCloud in any and every way you can is will incredibly worthwhile.
SoundCloud promotion leads to SoundCloud discovery, which will potentially lead to SoundCloud fame and a name for yourself in the music industry.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I make my SoundCloud profile more promotable?
If you make your SoundCloud profile look really professional, it can essentially promote itself. To do this, make sure you pick an original and memorable username and URL for your SoundCloud page. Then add a high-quality avatar that is relevant to your page (eg. you could use a picture of you, or your album artwork. )
Using a really eye-catching profile header and a bio that’s simple but engaging will make your SoundCloud page more attractive too.
How can I boost my SoundCloud for free?
While most do, not every SoundCloud promotion service charges a fee. SoundGrail offers a free SoundCloud Promotion package. Music Promotion Corp also offers a free SoundCloud promotional deal where, if you subscribe to their page on SoundCloud, you will get 500 free SoundCloud plays in return.
How To Get More Plays on SoundCloud: 5 Legit Strategies …
As an artist, you are responsible for promoting your own music. So how do you promote yourself to get more plays on SoundCloud?
Here are 5 rock-solid SoundCloud promotion strategies that are relevant for the music industry in 2021. Here’s a snapshot of what you’ll learn:
The truth about SoundCloud and promotionOne thing you need to get right before you start promoting yourselfHow to leverage existing audiences to maximize your plays
By following these strategies, you can increase the number of plays you’ll get on SoundCloud, as well as followers and likes. Let’s go!
Check out our FREE eBook – 10 Tips For Promoting Your Music on a Budget. Nail your social media strategy Give your music the best chance of success Find your ideal audience online
A Brief Note
SoundCloud has made changes within the last few years where the home page is no longer your stream. This means that people who follow you aren’t always going to be finding your music when it comes out.
Spotify is a much more popular option these days for listening to music, and it allows you to reach a wider audience.
Including key services like Spotify and Apple Music in 2021 is crucial in unlocking the full power of promotion and marketing.
Apart from that, here are 5 strategies that will get you more plays on Soundcloud:
Make great music firstLeverage existing audiences on the platformUse email for networking and promotionGet into repost chainsMake your music discoverable
Strategy 1: Make (Actually) Great Music
While it is possible to promote crap music, it never survives the ultimate test: the opinion of the audience.
No matter how much PR or marketing you give a track, if it’s really average, then nobody wants to listen, and you won’t get plays.
Never forget this golden rule of music promotion – your music is the marketing. You don’t just market music, it’s inherently linked to the promotion process.
One of my earlier tracks, ‘Carpark Anxiety’, has only gotten 900 plays in 3 years, even though I sent it to a lot of people. Why? Nobody wanted to share it, because it’s very average.
People don’t buy a vacuum cleaner if they don’t want one, so people won’t listen to music if they don’t like it. This is especially true on Soundcloud, where the barrier of entry is so low that a lot of horrible music gets uploaded, meaning listeners have more to sift through.
I’ve found over time that artists and producers (especially those who want a career) tend to overestimate the quality of their music. I did in the early days, and you can go and listen to my really old music and hear the improvement over time.
One of my newer drum & bass tracks, a bootleg of Porter Robinson’s Get Your Wish, got a lot of plays and was shared a lot more, because this track is much higher quality than my old stuff.
But this begs the question – should I upload my music if it’s not 100% there yet? This is arguable, but on a platform like SoundCloud, the stakes are much lower, with removing tracks being just a click away.
Plus, you’re likely to get valuable feedback from the public if you ask for it, allowing you to gauge what will and won’t work.
So while promoting music online is important, getting feedback and taking that into the studio will prove to be a much more valuable use of time.
So how do I make my music ‘better’? That’s another topic entirely, and that’s also why we have courses like EDM Foundations and Songwriting for Producers.
But a few pointers:
Make sure your core musical ideas are solid – production, mixing and mastering won’t matter otherwiseGet feedback from listeners, tastemakers and other artistsBe patient and keep making a large volume of music
Strategy 2: Leverage Existing Audiences
This might be confusing to say, but it’s true.
There are people who are always going to be better at marketing music than you. So don’t reinvent the wheel, use these people to your advantage.
People dedicate their lives to finding and sharing music to audiences that love it, so you.
Find channels on Soundcloud that can share your music to larger numbers of people than you ever could. This could come in the form of
Repost channelsOther artists with bigger followingsPromotional channelsLabels/collectivesPlaylisters
Don’t ignore offsite audiences as well. Just because they don’t have larger audiences on SoundCloud, doesn’t mean a blog or YouTube channel can’t send lots of plays your way.
Make sure to utilize:
BlogsHype MachineYouTube ChannelsSpotify PlaylistsInfluencers (e. g. vloggers, Instagram accounts)Radio stations (some play directly off SoundCloud! )
The key here is to find channels that are a good fit for your music. Don’t go messaging someone just because they have a lot of followers. They are already looking for very specific kinds of music for their tastes.
So play a few of their previous uploads/shares and make a decision. Don’t be too scared if your music isn’t exactly the same as what’s already there, but if it’s too different, it’ll likely get a pass.
Once you know who to send music to, then you need to figure out how.
Strategy 3: Email is still King
How do you send a message:
that you know the recipient will getthat goes to a place they check very oftenthat is simple and clearusing something everyone hasthat doesn’t rely on a platform that could be gone soon
The answer? Email. It’s old, but it’s still the best. How does this relate back to SoundCloud you might ask?
Email for Networking
Everyone has an email. Artists. Labels. Promo channels. Repost channels. Avid music fans. And you can communicate with them through this channel, no matter if they have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or not.
I got my biggest play numbers out of email networking, including a top placement on one of Majestic Casual’s weekly playlists on Soundcloud. In this case, it was a form that sends them an email, but the point still stands.
Here’s an example of me emailing my track to someone for a YouTube upload, and look at the difference in response time.
The first email I sent.
The response time.
I got a response in less than 24 hours!
Granted, this won’t usually be the case for huge names in the industry, but email networking works.
Not to say that you can’t use avenues like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Those channels are great but always try email first. And use the Hubspot extension to track email opens, you’ll thank me later.
To make this easier, you’ll want to be making a list of emails of relevant people you can send your music to. Just use Google Sheets or Excel.
I personally use a software called Notion (has database functionality) to track YouTube channels, Soundcloud pages, labels and more. I’ve blanked out the emails for privacy.
A few tips & tricks about sending emails:
Be concise – the recipient is likely already time-poor, so get to the them a SoundCloud link – it’s the easiest to listen to, and you can make it conversational – don’t just send a link, actually treat the person on the other end like a human, and you’ll get treated like one rsonalise messages – CC’ing a large list never works, and it often annoys people, especially if people ‘Reply All’. Send one message at a time and once again, treat them like a up – not everybody is in a position to do something the first time around. Follow up in a week or two (depending on the person) if they haven’t replied.
If you want more promo email etiquette tips, check out this list from an industry professional.
Building a List
With the decline of plays on SoundCloud (due to the lower visibility of the ‘Stream’), it’s important your core audience still gets to hear your music when it’s released, and what better way to this than email marketing?
ToneDen offers free download gates that you can use to gather emails.
If you’re familiar with download gates like ToneDen and The Artist Union, perhaps start using them to gather people’s email addresses. If you’re a Bandcamp user, you can grab email addresses on checkout too. That way, you can build a list to send your music to next time you have something to release!
Once you’ve got a list, you need to find a email marketing service. Symphonic Distribution compiled a list of the best email marketing platforms for musicians, so make sure to give that a read.
Strategy 4: Repost Chains
This is one of the most useful tools on SoundCloud and is an effective way to garner the force of multiple accounts in a simple, automated way.
You can tell when the repost chain kicked in on my latest track.
In essence, a repost chain is simply a group of people who automatically repost a track, each at a timed interval, to maximise exposure. A service like SCPlanner allows you to do this effortlessly.
Just get a few music buddies in a chain and one person submits new tracks to the chain. As each of you gains followers, you multiply the reach each time.
There are a few ways you can join or create a repost chain:
Producer friends – get your inner circle together and signup to a repost chain. That way you get a guaranteed baseline of exposure every time you upload a chains – a lot of people on Facebook groups etc. are looking for accounts to join repost chains, because the bigger it gets, the more valuable. The only caveat is usually you need at least a certain number of followers to join these (e. 5000+ followers only)Random chains – if you just need exposure, try Googling ‘repost chain’ and you’ll see a bunch of results for submissions to certain chains. Some of these require payment, be wary. Also, these aren’t necessarily an effective way to gain promotion, as you could get a lot of plays that don’t mean much. So be selective.
Sounds good, right? Hold up, there are a few things to consider before joining a chain.
Firstly, make sure you’re okay with reposting the music in that chain. Does it fit with your brand, or will it annoy your followers? Even though the numbers can be appealing, hold off if you think it’ll damage your brand.
Also, some people have a problem with repost chains because it ‘abuses the repost feature’, so have a think if this works for you or not. Personally, I think it’s fine as long as you repost music you like.
Strategy 5: Make Your Music Discoverable
Now that the ‘Discover’ tab exists on Soundcloud, the aim is to get your music featured on this new avenue of discovery.
The best way to do that is metadata. Tell Soundcloud what your music is, and give it the best chance on the platform.
There are a few key ways to do this:
Correct Genre tagsRelevant track tagsName your track appropriatelyUtilize the descriptionGet other engagement (likes, comments etc. )
You might be wondering why I’ve bolded ‘Correct Genre tags’, and that’s because it’s probably one of the most important factors in SoundCloud deciding where your music will be placed.
You can see one of San Holo’s latest tracks is tagged as ‘Electronic’, which is one of the default options when creating your track. Soundcloud likes this because it knows who to show the track to.
Beyond that, the more metadata SoundCloud has, the more opportunities it can give that track on the platform, not only with ‘Discover’ but also with the ‘Charts’ feature, especially when it gets more plays.
Relevant metadata goes beyond the platform into other services like Google, meaning your music will come up in search results too.
Why?
Because Google reads text, not your mind, and if it can see who you are and what your music’s called, it’ll help your chances of showing up. Pretty neat.
Bonus Tip: Don’t Buy Plays
Everyone wants to take the easy road, right? But oftentimes it’s simply not worth it.
For a few thousand extra plays in the short term, you can damage your career, risk your account getting shut down, or simply lose the trust of your true fans. Plus, it’s against SoundCloud’s Terms of Use.
I had to mention this here because it’s often something people consider when they’re looking to up their Soundcloud game. The same can be said for likes and followers, and other platforms too. These stats are fake and don’t provide organic growth.
The Bigger Picture
Like I already said, marketing and promoting your music should go beyond SoundCloud.
Plays aren’t the only thing to consider either.
Yet it’s hard to promote your music well without a lot of money.
That’s why we made our guide about promoting your music on a budget. You can grab it free below:
If you have questions about marketing and promoting your music, let me know at [email protected] – I’d be happy to answer.
Want more promotion and marketing tips? Check out 15 more here.
Frequently Asked Questions about promote soundcloud song
How do I promote my music on SoundCloud?
8 Tips for promoting music on SoundCloudSync up your social media. … Check out your demographics. … Collaborate. … Remix fellow artists. … Interact with others. … Fix your SoundCloud settings. … Fix your SoundCloud and Google SEO. … Go Pro.Oct 1, 2019
How can I promote my song on SoundCloud for free?
How to promote your music on SoundCloudRun free give-away periods on your tracks to encourage downloads.Use the private sharing feature to share your tracks with select fans as part of an exclusive giveaway.Send your SoundCloud tracks to bloggers, journalists, and press outlets and ask for them to write a review.More items…•Sep 10, 2020
How do I boost my SoundCloud plays?
Apart from that, here are 5 strategies that will get you more plays on Soundcloud:Make great music first.Leverage existing audiences on the platform.Use email for networking and promotion.Get into repost chains.Make your music discoverable.Sep 14, 2021
