Gaining Traction On Soundcloud And Other Social Media Platforms
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  1. #1
    Tech Guru Kwal's Avatar
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    Default Gaining Traction On Soundcloud And Other Social Media Platforms



    I want to give you a simple, but informative guide on how to increase traffic on Soundcloud, and other aspects of social media regarding your brand. First of all, you need to understand one thing, and that is that this is a frustrating, and painfully slow process. One thing you need to understand is that in order to build yourself up, you need to be broken down... I’ll do that for you now.

    - You are doing something that thousands of others are currently doing.
    - A good chunk of those people do it a lot better than you do.
    - You are not going to post a few mixes and get thousands of plays. People love music, but let’s be real here.
    - You are never going to master this art, you will only continue to learn.
    - If you think people, even your friends are going to care that you are starting to DJ, you are truly mistaken.

    [SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS]

    With those couple of points out of the way, we can start to get into the juicy stuff. Before throwing yourself out into the market, you need to get a few things in order. I would say the mandatory social media platforms to start off with are Soundcloud(obviously), Facebook, and Twitter. You want to make sure the web addresses are as similar as possible. I’ll give you an example. If your name is “DJ Blue” then you should aim for something like this:

    -www.soundcloud.com/djbluemusic
    -www.facebook.com/djbluemusic
    -www.twitter.com/djbluemusic

    Follow my drift so far? Cool. It doesn’t do you any justice if you make it hard for consumers to find your pages. To me that is a major issue to address. Got that down? Good. Let’s move on.

    [IMAGE]

    Getting a professional image for your brand right away is a must. I suggest investing some cash into getting a logo package done by a professional graphic designer. Key word in that last sentence was “professional.” People can pinpoint your plastic $5 logo from a mile away. It looks like crap, I’m sorry. A professional logo pack will include 3-4 different versions of your logo, and by versions I mean color schemes. Red text with white background, white text with black background, etc. Also included should be your logo scaled to fit into Soundcloud’s imager, which is usually somewhere between 800x800 – 1000x1000. Some designers will even include logos sized to fit into Facebook’s cover photo section. You in the DJ booth giving the middle finger is cool and all, but let’s not travel down that path until you establish yourself. Having a professional logo draws people in, they want to see what it is and how it looks, and most importantly they may be curious enough to give you a listen. That’s what we want, we want people to be sucked in from the start. I would suggest setting up a artist page, or a “Like” page to gain traction. Use your logo somewhere in there, whether it be the cover photo, or the profile photo. Maybe have a pic of you DJing as well. One last piece of advice, don’t post one of those pictures of you holding your CDJ2000 in the middle of a park, people do not take those seriously.

    [Soundcloud]

    Ok, so you’ve recorded a hot mix and you want to post it, sweet deal. That’s always a good feeling. When recording your mix, make sure to keep a tracklist. You are not some exclusive DJ, you probably do not have tracks that the rest of the DJ population doesn’t have unless you get promos then it shouldn't really matter anyways. Please post your tracklist. If you can’t get over that little phase right from the beginning, then you’re already off to a shaky start. Listeners will want to engage in your mix if they know that they’ll enjoy it. If they like Maceo Plex, and they see Maceo Plex in the mix, they’ll listen. Simple as that. If you plan on doing a mix series, then get separate artwork made for those posts. Post the mix with the artwork, tracklist in the description and available for free download. Tags matter as well, I would add the genre, even some popular artists named as tags. Once you have those four down, let’s move to groups.
    As you may or may not know, Soundcloud allows you to join up to 75 groups I believe. Join groups that are of a similar genre that you are mixing in. Add your mix to those groups, and remove them after about 3 hours. Repeat this process. You won’t get hundreds of hits, but you will get more likes, follows, and plays than you would if you just posted the mix and let it go freely. Another trick is to wait a day or two, and make your mix private, wait a few minutes and make it public again. It will appear at the top of everyone’s feed again as if it was a fresh post. Do not make a habit out of this, I would do this once, maybe twice. You don’t want to annoy the people who are following you. Got your mix up with the specifics I mentioned? Did you add it to groups? Good. Let’s proceed.
    [Facebook & Twitter]
    Now, that we have our ends covered on Soundcloud we can move on to our Facebook and Twitter pages. Get on your artist page, and use your Soundcloud link to the mix to start the post so that way it’ll load up your mix’s cover image and the link to Soundcloud. Leave them short but sweet message about your mix, something that’ll make them want to click it like “The perfect music for your ride into work today” or something similar. After doing that, one thing I like to do it go back onto my personal Facebook account and share my Artist accounts post so that way you allow your post to engage with more people. Facebook’s reach sucks now, like really really bad. You want to share your post rather than constantly make new ones. That way your one post will look like multiple posts, but take in all of the reach. Like I said, Facebook’s reach is pitiful and every post you’ll make individually will reach like, 7 people. That’s not very effective.
    Let’s move to Twitter. What I do is I go to the share icon underneath my mix, click the Twitter icon and a share screen pops up. Obviously keep your message short and sweet since Twitter has a character restriction. Keep room for hashtags. If you have a deep house mix, after your text do the following:

    #deephouse #techhouse #housemusic

    Hashtags work on Twitter, surprisingly well at that. People search for that stuff and they’ll likely see your post. It’s a quick way to get some traffic and even followers.

    [General Image]

    This kind of stuff probably can go unsaid, but be professional. At least on your artist accounts. You should probably hold back on the political and religious topics seeing as those can pretty much ruin you within a few minutes. Don’t bash other artists, we get that you don’t like David Guetta, but the world does NOT need to know that. Maintain a positive image and show others respect. There will be people who criticize you or your music at some point or another, and how you react is what matters most. Be professional, be smart, and most of all keep on hustling.

    [Soundcloud into further detail]

    Being active on Soundcloud can also really open up some doors for you as well. Remember, as you sit there refreshing your page feeling sorry for yourself, there are countless others doing the same thing. One thing I’ve noticed about today’s artists is that they just worry about themselves. You go to their page, and all you see is 2 mixes from them, no reposts, 9 likes, 2 comments, etc. What the hell do you think you’re doing? To me, it looks like nothing. You want the community to pay attention to you without having to do anything. This kind of mentality is garbage, and is a cancer. You are NOT some exclusive, cool ass DJ that does things in a unique way. Get out there, listen to others mixes and productions, and leave some feedback. How good does it feel when someone comments on your tracks and gives you a legitimate comment? It’s rewarding, so pass that on to others. These are the types of artists that will return the favor! Yes, we love Oliver Heldens and Afrojack, but these guys have a massive following and as much as you may like them, they don’t need your reposts when they have thousands from strictly listeners. Share the work of others and your karma will come full swing.

    [Music Production}

    Mixing is a lot of fun, any of us will admit that. But let’s face it, growing rapidly isn’t possible if you post a mix here and there. You’ll really gain traction if you learn to produce quality music. One tip I can’t stress enough is to only release quality tunes. I know it’s exciting to finish your first few tunes, your friends think they’re cool and that’s all pretty peachy… But don’t get ahead of yourself. Your music is probably very mediocre, and mixed like crap. Take the time to practice, and keep learning. Work on something until you truly feel comfortable with it. There is so much crap music out there right now, it’s starting to dilute the scene. Make a good name for yourself right from the start. Watch tutorials, take classes, or whatever it may be. Productions are what really drive you forward as a brand. Once you get some traction, you can always use tools to boost your numbers like ToneDen, Hypeddit, etc. These will not work for you right away, seeing as nobody will want to go through such a hassle for a mix from someone who they don’t know.

    [Conclusion]

    This is a very painful process, and as an artist you need to beat that into your head right away. We need to remember that we are all in this because we love the craft, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters. Have fun, share good music, and give good vibes. Be humble, get involved in your local scene, and let your music do the talking. I hope this can help artists, seeing as this was all stuff I had to figure out on my own.

    Cheers!
    Last edited by Kwal; 10-13-2015 at 07:54 AM.

  2. #2

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    tell it like it is...
    Traktor/Ableton /Komplete /MBP OSX el capitan

    http://www.soundcloud.com/deejaesnafu

  3. #3
    Tech Guru Kwal's Avatar
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    So many errors and I can't fix them. Oh well.

  4. #4
    Schalenberg
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    Really good stuff here.

  5. #5
    Tech Guru jprime's Avatar
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    Make sure you decide what metrics you want to track so you can actually measure your success as well.

  6. #6
    Tech Guru ImNotDedYet's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jprime View Post
    Make sure you decide what metrics you want to track so you can actually measure your success as well.
    Didn't someone just post something about measuring success through happiness?

    Just giving you hell man.
    2 x Technics 1210 MKII, Pioneer-DJM 900 Nexus, Traktor Scratch Pro, NI F1,
    Ableton Live 9.6 Suite, Ableton Push, Studio One 3, Moog Sub37, Roland Alpha Juno 2, Korg MS-20 Mini, Yamaha TG-77, TR-8, Rhodes MKI Stage, Wurlitzer 200a, couple pedals, couple amps, lots of software and a freakin iPad

  7. #7
    Tech Guru Kwal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ImNotDedYet View Post
    Didn't someone just post something about measuring success through happiness?

    Just giving you hell man.
    Haha well played.

  8. #8
    Tech Guru jprime's Avatar
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    lulz all good

  9. #9
    Tech Guru 031999's Avatar
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    dude fantastic write up!

  10. #10
    Tech Guru Kwal's Avatar
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    I get PMs and I see people asking about this all the time it should be stickied somewhere

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