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How to promote your music on Soundcloud in 2024
Jaz from the RepostExchange Team
 

We know you want to get the most out of the SoundCloud experience, so we've put this article together to make sure you’re going to get the audience you deserve! We will focus on several key concepts that leverage both the platform's unique features and broader digital marketing trends as well as several shortcuts you can take to increase your exposure.

Optimise Your Profile

Let’s start with optimising the home of your music, your SoundCloud profile. Make sure your profile is completely filled out. Optimising your profile not only helps build your brand identity, it also directs traffic to your other platforms, like social media and your merch store. Let’s dive in!

It is important that you have a professional profile picture that shows who you are and what you do. A headshot may be okay but it can lack context for new potential fans. Therefore we recommend if you’re a rapper or singer to make sure you’ve got a microphone in the frame. If you’re a DJ, you can use a cropped picture of you performing in the club or at a festival. Your profile picture should be relatively close up as it’s going to be viewed in a small format. 

Next up is your banner. For the banner you can use performance pictures from a distance or a logo. Remember, this is free real estate. So why not add in some info like upcoming tour dates, new releases, upload schedule or short description of what you do (for example: “Skrillex Dubstep DJ/Producer new beat every other Friday”) can be a great addition to your banner.

Next, you should add an engaging bio. If you don’t have a bio yet, this is your sign to start writing one! Not only do you need one on SoundCloud, you’ll need one for all other opportunities that might come your way. So you better start writing one ASAP and add it to your DPK (Digital Press Kit, we’ll likely write an article on this later). Your bio should at least include who you are, what you do and why you do it. You can find more info on writing engaging bios online.

Lastly, you want to add links to your other social media platforms through the link section. It is important that you don’t put your links in your bio directly! Putting your links in the link section makes them clickable for your listeners, increasing the chance they’ll visit you on other platforms. What you’re linking to depends on what type of artist you are and where you are in your career. If you sell tickets to shows, link to the tickets store. If you’re selling merch, link to your merch shop. Are you posting engaging content on TikTok, Instagram and/or YouTube? Link to your socials!

Boost Your Uploads

Now that your profile is looking fresh, it’s time to make sure your uploads are matching the level of professionalism.

Ensure that the music you upload is of the highest quality in terms of sound. SoundCloud listeners often look for studio-quality sounds, even from new artists. If you’re not in the position to professionally record, produce, mix and master your music yourself you might want to hire a professional. If you prefer to learn how to do it all yourself you might like our articles on How To Mix Your Own Music and How To Master Your Own Music.

With the audio taken care of, it’s time to look at the visuals. Your cover art is the first thing potential listeners see when they stumble upon your track. It is therefore important that you make a great first impression with your visuals! Stay away from amateur-looking fonts, shadows and dated design choices. Ideally, you hire a professional for this as well but when your budget is tight, you can use pictures or AI-generated images as cover art. When you do this though, make sure you own the rights!

Now your assets are on point, it is time to publish. We recommend you upload your tracks as SoundCloud Exclusives, at least for the first couple of weeks. This can make your SoundCloud account a special destination for your fans and helps you drive engagement to your track on SoundCloud from other places online. 

Releasing music as SoundCloud Exclusives can also be a great way to build a relationship with the staff at SoundCloud and show them you take their platform seriously. In a recent interview with Burstimo, SoundCloud A&R Hope Hale mentioned that SoundCloud rewards SoundCloud exclusives with more exposure. Take advantage of that opportunity!

Engage with the Community

SoundCloud is particularly community-oriented compared to other streaming platforms. Therefore, it is important to regularly engage with other users by listening to their tracks, commenting genuine thoughts and appreciations, and reposting tracks you like. This can encourage others to check out your music. 

However, don’t ask creators to check out your music in the comments you send them. It will make you look desperate and disingenuous. They should check out your music at their own discretion. That said, we will now go into ways to ask people to interact with your music that are culturally accepted and actually effective.

If you’d like to discover new music in your genre to interact with and be discovered by like-minded listeners for free, you should check out RepostExchange. By engaging with other creators via RepostExchange, you will see an increase in genuine activity on your music on SoundCloud uploads. 

To get started simply connect to RepostExchange with your SoundCloud account. Then check out the Browse Campaigns page and repost a few tracks you like until you have reached 50 credits. From there you can start a campaign with one of your own tracks OR Browse Members and make some direct repost requests. The more you interact with other members of our community and share music you like, the more you will see your engagement grow.

Alongside reposting, collaborating with other artists on SoundCloud can be highly effective to tap into each other's audiences. It's a great way to gain exposure to potential fans who already listen to music in your genre. To find similar artists in your genre and career level you can once again utilise RepostExchange by using the Members tab and filter by genre. From there you can identify people with a similar follower count and check out their SoundCloud profiles and the music they’ve uploaded. If you think you found a match, you can contact them through DMs and see if they are down to collab with you.

Endless Growth

By employing these strategies, you can maximise your impact on SoundCloud and grow your listener base effectively. If you haven’t already, this is your reminder to sign up for a free account on RepostExchange and start promoting your music on SoundCloud effectively. Good luck with your music journey!