Free Ways to Actually Get Heard On Sound Cloud

Tagging for success

How can new fans find your music? Well, one of the best ways is to tag your music.

Tagging makes you discoverable when a listener is searching Sound Cloud.

The better your tags, the easier you are to find.

The best way to tag is to be honest. If you made a drum & bass track, then set the main genre to Drum & Bass. Add moods and a location to your tags as well. It all helps.

Stick to one main genre to keep things clear. Adding a bunch of genres won’t make your track any more findable.

The more concise and accurate your tags are, the more easily your music will get discovered by the listeners that wanna hear it most.

Hot Tip: Tag and link to your collaborators SoundCloud in the track description. Use an ‘@’ before their SoundCloud name to link their profile. It’s great for cross-promotion and telling the story of your process.

Add a ‘Buy’ Link

Getting listens and likes is nice. But likes and listens won’t buy you that new mic you’ve been eyeing.

Luckily SoundCloud lets you add a ‘Buy’ link to your track upload. Just click on the ‘Metadata’ tab when you’re uploading.

Add the right  links: Buy on iTunes, Beatport, Juno, Bandcamp or whatever else you use to sell your music online.

Hot Tip: If you have a pro account you can change the button text to anything you want.

Change it to Stream on Spotify and link to get some extra streaming juice. Or write ‘Donate’ and link to a Patreon or a PayPal. You’ll be surprised how many super-fans out there will support your music.

Tell A Story With Your Waveform

SoundCloud allows fans to comment on your waveform. But y’know who else should be commenting on the waveform? YOU!

Use the waveform comments to tell your fans and community about your process. Be transparent about how you made your track. Ask for feedback and mention specific sections.

For example: If you’re not sure about a section of your track, comment on the waveform where the part starts.

Something like: “Not sure about the bass here. Let me know what you think” is the perfect play for getting feedback from your community.

You don’t have to be completely done a track to publish it either. Publish drafts, get feedback, and make your music better.

Art Matters

Album art matters. Especially on SoundCloud.

If your track gets embedded on a blog your artwork will be there. If you share your track to Facebook your album art goes there too.

Your album art or track artwork represents your music no matter where it goes. So it’s mega important.

Before anyone hits play the artwork attached to your track has to stand out. So make it count and choose something that represents your music and you.

Your album art or track artwork represents your music no matter where it goes.

Your album art or track artwork represents your music no matter where it goes.

For best results always use a JPG or a PNG that’s at least 800 x 800 pixels.

Private Means Pro

SoundCloud lets you share private links to your tracks.

It’s great for sharing unfinished tracks with collaborators, sending demos to labels or blogs, or contacting other outlets like radio stations with exclusives.

Sharing a private link gives your music the personal touch and a sense of exclusivity that is great for reaching out to tastemakers.

Sharing a private link gives your music the personal touch and a sense of exclusivity that is great for reaching out to tastemakers.

It’s super easy to do. Just upload a track and set it to private. Save it and go to your profile. Click the track you want to share privately and hit the ‘share’ button below the waveform.

you’ll see a private share URL that is unique to your track! You can even make a whole playlist private if you wanna share your entire new album.

Plus, you can reset the the private link at any time to make your private links time sensitive.