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Introduction

• So, you’ve created a KILLER new track, hit the upload button, and then waited for the followers to start pouring in to hear your brilliant new musical masterpiece.

• Unfortunately, all you heard were crickets. Of course your cousin visited the site and said it was AWESOME. He’s your #1 fan

• But he’s also your ONLY supporter…• Because you’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle.• It doesn’t matter how great your music is. Without actively

promoting your music, your SoundCloud page is STILL going to be a ghost town.

1. Make EPIC music regularly• if you never finish any of your loops and WiPs, or if you’re too

scared of criticism, then you’re not going to get far. You have to force yourself to COMPLETE your tracks, and spend time to make them sound awesome – they should not be too repetitive, they should not be overly complicated and difficult to listen to, they should make people feel something, whether it’s excitement or despair – whatever your intention is with the track. But that’s a story for another post. You get the idea – make the best music you can, and make loads of it.

• A lot of you might say that you don’t have the time, but it’s all about your priorities. Did you need to go out and sink 8 pints of beer last night, and be hungover all day today? Probably not. Could you have used that time and all of today to make some epic music instead?

2. Build your network of friends & connections

• How will this help you? Once you have real friends with other sound cloud users, they’ll help you promote your music in lots of different ways (that I’ll get into in a minute).

• The key to developing real relationships is to show genuine interest and offer real value to others, instead of always thinking about what’s in it for you.

• We’ve all seen those people who follow 2000 people (the maximum number) and like everything in their dashboard, without properly engaging with you. DON’T be another one of those guys – it’s obvious that you’re spam-liking and spam-following and that’s not a good look.

Here’s how to do it:

• 1. Find people whose music you like.2. Like, repost, comment on their songs.3. Find them on Facebook and like their Facebook page, then comment on their Facebook page4. After a couple of weeks of steps 1, 2 and 3, send them a message on SoundCloud – ask them how they made this sound or that snare, and let them know that you’ve shared their music with your followers on SoundCloud, Facebook etc.

• Basically, get a conversation going and show them that you’re willing to help them out.

• If you do this with 10 people, you’ll be able to reap a lot of benefits including growing your audience.

3. Google Plus Communities

• Now when it comes to other social media sites, there are two that I highly recommend: Facebook and Google Plus. Yes, it’s true. Google Plus is here to stay, and it’s a great told for getting hundreds of people to hear your new musical creation, regardless of how many followers you have.

• First, you’ll need to set up a decent Google Plus profile, and then the real fun starts: Google Plus Communities. These are the secret weapon inside G+. They are basically large groups of people based around common interests. There are communities for almost every genre of music imaginable – house, dubstep, electro, drum and bass – you name it!

Here’s what to do:

• A. Start engaging with between 5 and 10 related communities. What does this mean?- voting up other people’s posts- responding to other people’s posts- adding VALUE to the conversation

• B. AFTER you’ve engaged with people, whenever you have a great new piece of music to share, just post a link to your sound cloud in your top 5 – 10 communities and ask people to share it and follow you on SoundCloud.

4. Facebook Groups• If you’re already an avid Facebook fan, you’re probably already a member of

some of the groups on there. And there are many more on Facebook than there are on G+ (I still prefer G+ because it’s less crowded and there seem to be less braindead people on there compared with Facebook).

• Here’s what you’ll do:• A. Search for your genre(s) of music and narrow your search to groups

B. Join 10 to 20 Facebook groups related to your kind of musicC. Search for groups related to equipment like Ableton, Logic Pro, Native Instruments and join some of those groups tooD. Engage in the conversation (just like I told you to do with G+E. Once you have a musical masterpiece you want to share, drop a link in each of these groups

• Once you start making use of Facebook groups and Google Plus communities, you’ll see a real surge in the number of people listening to your music.

Some Statistics

• As an example, I recently released a new drum and bass track on SoundCloud. I usually get around 50 listens to my music each day, but by promoting my song on other social media platforms, I got close to 400 listens in one day:

5. Tagging

• Make your music is searchable and easily findable for people searching for music in SoundCloud. The more tags, the easier to find and the more plays you will get. Here are some ideas for tags to give your new track:

• - genre tags (and related genres)- similar style record label names- similar artist names- adjectives that describe the mood of your song- other similar songs by other well known artists

5. Leave comments, and respond to comments on your music.

• And make sure that the comments you leave are useful, meaningful, and not just ‘rad’ or ‘sick’… When you show that you’ve put some thought into your comment, it gets noticed, not just by the person whose song you are making a comment on, but by other people who listen to his or her song. If people notice a pattern of you writing great comments, some of them will come and check your music out.

• Also, the people who get your useful comments will appreciate it and will be more likely to check your profile out and follow you.

6. Collaborate with your new connections

• Here’s the beauty of doing a collaboration: You do half the work and get extra exposure to all of their fan base as well as your own. You also help your friend by letting him or her get exposure to all of your fan base!

• Collabing also helps you to discover new techniques and approaches to making music by seeing in depth how another person does it. This will help you grow your skills.

7. Get on the remix tip

• Remix a popular song that is current and will be searched for by millions of people. This can bring a ton of new listeners to your page, and if your remix is decent, you’ll convert a ton of those visitors into followers. You can remix music of a similar genre to your own, or you can experiment and remix something completely different – see whether this gets better results or not.

8. Forums – the unsung hero.

• There is just about a forum for every type of music online, and millions of conversations are happening every day in forums.

• You get laser targeted ears on your music, and it is completely free. There is no other strategy that works as well as marketing your music in forums.

• The approach here is just like with G+ Communities and Facebook Groups.

• But remember – no one is gonna listen if you just post links to your own music without engaging with other people first and adding some value. Contribute to conversations first, post links later. Trust me, you’ll get a lot more exposure and you’ll also get to know a lot of cool peeps along the way!

9. Get a great logo to use everywhere online

• A big part of getting recognition for your music is in your branding. Think about it – if you have a consistent logo image that people see around the web in forums, social media sites (including SoundCloud), over time they will become more familiar with you.

• You have two options here:A. Get good at using Photoshop orB. Get a graphic designer to make it for you

• Now, if you don’t have any graphic design friends who can make it for free, you can pay as little as $5 to get your logo made on Fiverr.com

10. Start publishing DJ mixes on SoundCloud

• How can mixing songs together help you grow your SoundCloud following? Simple – by getting all the people whose music you feature in your mix to share the link on their SoundCloud profile (by reposting) and their Facebook fan page and G+ profiles, bringing in a ton of listeners and new followers in the process!

• And guess what! You don’t need turntables to create a mix – you can do it in your DAW. And many people do!

• Find about 20 songs that you want to include in your mix. A good chunk of them should be your friends’ mixes – friends you’ve made on SoundCloud. In the description, link out to all of the artists whose tracks you used and include a track list. Ask them to repost it on SoundCloud (even if it is just for a week).

• Next, send a SoundCloud/Facebook message all of the people whose music you used and tell them you included their song in your mix, and ask them to share it on Facebook and G+.

11. Start DJing around town

• Even if you don’t get paid at first (which you more than likely will not), get your music out there by getting it heard in clubs and bars around town.

• Playing out in bars and clubs will help you to make connections, see how people react to your music, build your fan base and have a blast while doing it! The connections you make from DJing will include many other DJs, who will play your music in their DJ sets (especially if you ask them to!)

• In an interview I did with Papa Skunk, he explains how DJing has helped him grow his fan base much bigger, and how it has helped him earn some extra money and make great connections along the way!

12. Think about what to write in your new song’s SoundCloud description

• One thing that The EDM Network’s SoundCloud promotion channels do to get more ears on the music they post is this:

• Tell people to click the repost button if they like the song! Here’s an example of what they did with my track ‘Android Love’ on Glitchhop – The EDM Network (near the bottom of the picture):

13. Join SoundCloud groups

• Just like using G+ and Facebook communities, another thing you can do is use SoundCloud groups to share your music and get more ears on it.

• Just search for groups by genre and other related keywords, join them and start sharing your music in them. I recommend you to join around 100 groups. Why? Because you are able to share each song with up to 75 groups, even with a free SoundCloud account!

• Focus on groups that have a large number of members and are closely related to your styles of music. The bigger the group, the more people will hear your music.

14. Consider going pro

• So far, all of the points I have explained require no money (except if you decide to get a logo done on Fiverr.com)

• However, you may want to think about upgrading your plan to make use of longer upload time. This can be very useful if you start posting DJ mixes. The other advantages of going pro are the spotlight feature and statistics (which I don’t think will help you grow your audience, so I’m not recommending it).

15. Offer your own tracks for remixing

• By making it obvious in the title of your track that you are offering the track for remixing, you might get some unexpected and pleasing results. If people are remixing your tracks and sharing their remixes with their fans, that will in turn help to get your name out there.

16. Never fake it

• Perhaps you’ve heard of the amount of people who spend money to buy fake likes and followers on SoundCloud, Facebook and other social sites these days. In fact, according to Aaron Simpson of Simplify Recordings, the problem has become an epidemic in the music industry.

• At the end of the day, it is blatantly obvious when you are taking shortcuts to appear to be more popular than you actually are, and when people smell a rat, it’s not a god look.

• Sure, everyone wants recognition for what they do, but people respect recognition that’s earned, not bought.

• Check out this article on 5Chicago.com about it.

Conclusion

• In conclusion, you’ll hopefully see that the benefits you’ll get out of SoundCloud are directly related to how much effort you put into it (in much the same way as the rest of life!)

• If reaching your first 1000 followers is your ultimate goal at the moment, hopefully these tips will help you. Stay positive and happy producing and promoting!

• Thanks for reading this far! Leave a comment in the box below and let me know any other ideas you have to grow your fan base online!

• Additional Resources• beantownboogiedown.com – seven tips for more listeners

soundcloud.com – building your community

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