Music Promotion Advice for DJs and Producers: 10 SoundCloud Tips to Optimize Your Profile

In this article, we will be discussing some tips about how to optimize your SoundCloud account and profile to get the most out of the service. As a general rule, for any type of social media, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out, and SoundCloud is no different. Making a name for yourself on SoundCloud is time consuming and takes work, but it’s also a great way for musicians to get exposure through sharing, collaboration and the community. Also in a recent round of funding, SoundCloud raised $60 million in investments, so don’t expect the service to go away any time soon.

1. First Impressions – Your personal profile image is the first impression viewers get of you and your work. The bigger the image, the better but images of at least 500 x 500 pixels should do the trick. Use interesting images for each track. Try incorporating some visual art either your own or someone you’re in contact with from other social media network (Tumblr is great for this) but make sure to get permission first. Who knows, the artist may blast your work out on their social networks as well. Including a bio or artist statement is always a good idea as well.

2. Spotlight - The spotlight function allows you to pin up to 5 tracks at the top of your SoundCloud profile. Highlight your best work, released or otherwise, to get the most out of this function.

Community

3. Tag Away – Be sure to make use of SoundCloud’s tags so people can find your tracks. Be as descriptive as possible when applying tags. Make them genre-specific and try to anticipate what people will search for on SoundCloud. What would you search for on SoundCloud?

Take note and try to emulate other successful producers on Soundcloud. What do they do well?

4. Don’t Spam – Always keep your comments on others’ tracks constructive and non-spammy. Resist the urge to plug your SoundCloud in timed comments on other people’s tracks. It may get you one or two additional plays but it’s sure to make you look bad. Remember when interacting on SoundCloud, the people who get the most out of the community are those who are genuinely interested in the music, not just trying to push their own agenda.

Also, on a related note, don’t send unsolicited huge promotional blasts. There’s no quicker way to get your message dismissed by a label or someone you admire than to have an email that sounds “canned.” If you are trying to contact people, a short, personal message goes a lot further to get your message across.

5. Keep Your Feed Lively - SoundCloud is finding more and more of a non-musician user-base who use the service to listen to and discover new music. Your feed can be a good representation of your musical taste as well as an outlet for your original tracks. If you re-post tracks instead of simply liking them, it’s a good way to keep your feed interesting and other producers may return the favour.

6. Use Comments to Your Advantage – Consider leaving a call to action in your track description. If you’re looking for comments or constructive criticism, simply ask for that in the description. This not only helps you to get better but also encourages others to interact with your track, which will make a bigger impression on them. Remember that any comments you receive, it’s always a good idea reply to them. They could help you build relationships and develop further collaborations.

7. Use Groups – Groups are a good way to meet like-minded producers. They’re also good for discovering new tracks to play out or to use for inspiration. If you post a track to a group, consider making it a free download, it will make more of an impression that way.
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An example of a Soundcloud group – Chicago House

8. Get Creative with Promotions – Try to think of creative ways to allocate your music to reach more fans. Dubspot DJ instructor Codes had success with a creative promotion, suggested by his management: “For the last 5 weeks of summer I gave away a track every week. I called it Heatwave. They were tracks using samples that I couldn’t release anyway so I gave out a bunch of stuff. I was working with a new management company and they suggest I do that to boost all my social media. It ended up boosting all my social media, not just SoundCloud. Usually every time I put something out, I give away some stuff for free, usually bootlegs or things with a ton of samples.” - Codes

9. Keep your Audience Updated – If you’re consistently gigging, then a service like Gigatools may be worth looking into. Gigatools helps you out by automatically updating all of your social media pages, including SoundCloud, with your updated live show information. Using their one interface, it can help you keep things consistent and organized. Keep your audience informed of your live shows.


10. Spread the Word - Share your tracks and the tracks of others on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, message boards, and your blog as well. If you share a peer’s track outside of SoundCloud, it will leave a big impression and perhaps they will return the favor. SoundCloud has a lot of embedding options found by clicking “Share” below the track’s waveform.

Source ::::::::::: DubSpot