It’s no question – getting real SoundCloud followers in 2015 is tough. If you do a Google search, 99% of the services that come up are selling you crap – usually follows from spammy-looking bot accounts. And the customer service on these sites is god awful – I tried a bunch of them out a year or two back and couldn’t believe how badly I was treated as a customer. Every service was over-promised and under-delivered. “100% satisfaction guarantees” weren’t honored, refunds weren’t granted. But most importantly, they did dick-all for my actual user engagement. Finally, I figured “hey, if these a$$holes are making money delivering an awful product with awful customer service, surely a great product with great customer service will do even better!” And thus, SC SuperFans was born 🙂 but I digress.
I get why people buy fake followers – social proof and all – but pumping up your stats only does you any good if it helps convert actual human listeners into followers. So you’ve still gotta find a way to drive real users to your page – and that’s what this article will be focusing on.
First Things First
Before we start breaking it down, the first thing you’ve gotta do is set your SoundCloud page up for success. Do you have sleek, professional-looking graphics for your avatar and header image? If not, get some – you don’t have to break the bank to get good graphics. Use Fiverr. Are all your URLs and social media links posted and up-to-date? Is your contact information readily available? First impressions are everything when trying to get new followers. When a new user hits your page, the way it’s presented graphically will either convey “professional artist” or “hobbyist / amateur” to them. You want the former.
Fangating: You NEED To Be Doing This!
The next step is you need to get Hypeddit. Their “fangate” system is the perfect way to grow your fanbase – if a user wants to download your song, they have to follow you with their SoundCloud account. As you can probably imagine, this service can REALLY pump your stats if you’ve got a hot music worth downloading. It’s only $5.00 per month – practically nothing considering how freaking awesome of a service it is!
So our page is looking good, our fangates are in place – what’s next? The hard part – getting traffic.
Social Media – duh!
Social media is the obvious starting point here – it’s free, and there’s a TON of traffic. The point here is to share as much content as possible that’s related to your music. Doesn’t matter if it’s jokes, memes, news articles, or music from other artists. Search Reddit and Tumblr religiously – new content gets churned out from these sites every day, stuff you can easily share to your other social media pages. And you can automate all this by using scheduling programs like Picloadr.
Get SoundCloud Followers By Being A Good SoundCloud User!
Being active on SoundCloud is another obvious but often overlooked method. Most artists just post their own music without giving anything back to the community. Go out and Like, Comment & Follow other SoundCloud users who might reciprocate. Search for music posted in the last day (or hour!) and start engaging with the user(s) who posted it. I don’t get why people are frugal with their Likes & Comments on SoundCloud – it’s not like there’s a limit to how many you can send out! (there’s probably a daily limit, so don’t go nuts and spam people) Each one is a link back to your account, which is exactly what we want – more potential paths for traffic to flow to your page. Leaving friendly, personalized comments is the best way to get follow-backs that I’ve found. It may seem tedious, but if you commit to writing just 5-10 a day, after a week or two you’ll see results.
Advertising Networks
If you’ve got money to spend on advertising, there are many options for your to choose from online to promote your music. Lots of people use Google ads & Facebook ads, which I used to use myself very happily, but recently they have gotten to be too pricey in my opinion. People have said good things about Bing ads – being that they’re a bit cheaper than Google & FB – but I personally haven’t used them.
These days, my preference has switched to CPV advertising; it’s the cheapest and decently targeted. The only drawback with CPV advertising networks is they all require a high minimum deposit – usually in the range of $500-1000 USD. For many up-and-coming artists, paying that kind of money out-of-pocket to possibly grow your fanbase is a risky proposition.
The Bottom Line
Getting more SoundCloud followers and growing your fanbase isn’t an “over-night” thing. Having good music is only one piece of the puzzle – the rest takes time and/or money. It’s that simple.
Many artists buy a promo package or two, do a little online grinding, then give up when they don’t see instant results. Sound familiar? This time around, don’t let that be you. Commit to doing several small tasks every day, and do it for a long time – I’m talking 6 months to a year or more. If you want to build a solid fanbase, you’ve gotta be in it for the long haul. And if you’re going to spend money on promotion / advertising, do your research – there are too many shady providers and crooked “promo” operations that will all-too-gladly take your money in exchange for a nefarious, do-nothing service.
