Buy soundcloud plays to increase your clout….they said. In today’s age of digital music marketing, its no surprise that there are countless companies offering to boost your plays, reposts and comments on your Soundcloud track. Why do artists and musicians get hooked onto buying these types of Soundcloud promotion services? Because at a glance, they improve the ‘look’ of the track’s success on Soundcloud. What the artist overlooks is the fact that the rest of the world is catching on to this type of ‘promotion.’ The fact is, with these services becoming so popular…it’s quite easy to spot when someone has purchased plays for their Soundcloud upload. When your song is racking up 10’s of thousands of plays, likes and reposts, yet your profile has under 500 followers and dismal plays on the rest of your songs…you are not fooling anyone.
Originally, artists would purchase plays, likes and reposts on Soundcloud to give the appearance to record labels that they are developed artists and worthy of the label’s time. However, those label executives are much smarter than these artists seem to think they are. The label can sniff out the truth with one simple search of the artist across other social platforms and digital store outlets like Spotify and Apple Music. Because, what labels really care about, are sales. Soundcloud doesn’t directly bring in money for the label, nor the artist for that matter. Yes, Soundcloud Go is now a thing…but let’s be real…Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer are leading the way and Soundcloud is years behind.
Sure, you can go ahead and put together a decent plan to boost your following and play count on your Soundcloud profile with a relatively small budget…but why? What sort of Return On Investment do you think you’re going to get? Why not spend that money on REAL promotion and target REAL people that you can turn into fans. The boost on your tracks plays may look nice, but none of those listeners are real fans. It’s true that some companies now offer ‘Real Plays’ from ‘Real People’, but still, these people are paid to listen to your song and almost always move on immediately after the task is done. You aren’t retaining any new fans, or customers.
Try these alternatives before you go spending money on fake plays from fake accounts.
1. Contact Blogs
No, don’t go blasting your ‘sick new track’ to 300 blogs with mass emailer. Chances are you aren’t going to get 1 response, unless you have ALREADY established a relationship with some of these blogs.
Take the time to manually fish out a contact at a blog. Find out their name. Follow them on Social Media. Make note of the kind of music they share and articles they write. In your email to them, address them personally, compliment them and share your track humbly. DO NOT let them know your track is the next best thing.
Parkbench13 has already done the groundwork for you. We deliver results and actual responses from blogs when we pitch your music to them. You can give it a try here.
2. Create Playlists on Streaming Services
Just like you should be doing with social media, share other artists content that you admire. Build playlists on streaming services and include songs of other artists. Throw one of your tracks in the playlist if it fits, but don’t flood the playlist with your own music. Give your playlist a mood, make it for a reason, not just to promote your music. For example, 2 AM Sunday Morning Tracks, or Friday Night Bangers. Share your playlist on social media. You could even spend that money you were going to spend on buying Soundcloud plays on promoting your playlist with Facebook Ads.
Having trouble getting your music placed in playlists? We can help!
3. Reach Out to Influencers
Influencer marketing is becoming ever more popular, especially in the world of E-Commerce and business. Why not take a page out of their book and apply this to Music Promotion? Reach out to profiles you admire on social media and ask them to share your music, or vouch for you. Start small. It doesn’t matter how small. The point is to get your music on as many channels as possible. Don’t go after the big guns just yet. Build up some buzz and then you can attack the bigger accounts.
(Try placing your music with Influencers here)
4. Engage Your Audience
The hard truth is, the best way to grow your following, is by posting consistent, engaging content on your social media. Posting selfies everyday is not engaging. Unless of course you are a supermodel and that’s the reason people follow you. However, if you’re not a supermodel, you need to give people a closer look into your life. Don’t just post your song, post a video of how you made the song. You could share a picture of the lyric sheet. Do you produce your own music? Post of video of a solo’d element of the track. More importantly, you should be engaging WITH your audience. That is, replying to every comment and speaking with your fans. Your music important audience is the audience that is already invested in you. Invest in THEM by giving them your time and watch how far it goes when they start to recommend you to their friends. Because, for centuries, the best form of marketing is Word of Mouth.
5. Sell Merchandise
This one is obvious but too many indie artists brush this off because they think it’s too much of an up front investment and no one is going to buy their merchandise. However, with today’s E-Commerce options (Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce) and the tools available such as Printful, you can produce merchandise for very cheap, make it available to purchase and turn a profit! Think outside the box when it comes to merchandise. Before you create a product, put yourself in the shoes of a potential fan/consumer and ask yourself “would I want to buy this?” Does it serve a purpose? That’s not to say you shouldn’t sell simple items like T-Shirts, but you should put the effort in to make them attractive. Don’t just stick your logo on the chest of a plain white T and be done with it.
In order to truly be successful in the music business you have to be consistent and involved. Don’t just throw a few dollars into Soundcloud Promotion and sit back. Connect all the dots. If youre buying Soundcloud promotion…do you have links in place to send potential fans to your website where you sell merchandise or your Spotify page? Think of every move as a business move and an investment and you will truly see your following start to grow.
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