5 Ways To Greatly Increase Your SoundCloud Plays — As Recommended by SoundCloud

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Your music not only has to sound good.  It has to look good on SoundCloud, too. 

On SoundCloud, there are a plethora of ways for artists, labels, and curators to garner streams for their tracks.  A few of those methods include being added to a playlist, getting reposted, and even uploaded to another account with a large following.  But SoundCloud says there are a few other methods of growing your plays and taking full advantage of its algorithms. 

1. SoundCloud metadata has to be clean

Your track shouldn’t contain a handful of unreadable cryptic messages.  It should, however, contain pertinent information, such as the artist name, track title, and label.

In SoundCloud’s blog post, they provide a great example of a bad and good title.  A bad title would be “AllxxThexStars051418vfinal.”  A good title would be “All The Stars.”  Furthermore, “Avoid duplicating information that’s displayed elsewhere,” states SoundCloud. “There’s no need to add track numbers to your title when uploading an album.” 

Not everyone on SoundCloud is an artist.  Label accounts should provide the artist’s name and title so the artist and song can be recognizable.  Additionally, this information helps with discoverability on the platform. 

Podcasters and journalists should “include important information such as the names of guests and discussion topics in the title,” states the post. “This helps with searches and discoverability.”

+ The 13 Biggest Mistakes Artists Make on Soundcloud…

2. Images and descriptions are especially powerful on SoundCloud

Don’t push the cover art and description down to the bottom of the priority list.  You should use high resolution images and upload and resize them to fit within the confines.  In addition, the description is a clean slate that allows you to be as descriptive and creative as you want.  Tell your listeners the story of the audio you’ve uploaded.  In the description you can add the “backstory, credits, lyrics, gear lists, or guest lists,” adds the blog post. 

This is also the perfect place to give your collaborator(s) a shoutout by linking their profiles.  Remain consistent and professional in your writing on your tracks. 

3. Tag the mood and genre of your audio

Every piece of audio has a mood tied to it.  Be sure that you show it in the tags.  Furthermore, the algorithm that SoundCloud uses is very specific and prioritizes recommendations for its users.  If your tags are correct, you’ll be much more discoverable. 

Additionally, by choosing the main genre of your track, you should subsequently add a few relevant sub-genres and moods that describe your audio.  “It’s better to add a handful of relevant tags rather than go crazy and add as many as you can,” states the blog post.  Basically, quality over quantity. This proves true in more situations than just SoundCloud tags.  

Incidentally, Spotify uses a similar discoverability algorithm with moods, a feature they added back in 2013. 

4. Be an artist and curator for a comprehensive discography

Much like a website, making your music easy to find on your profile should be a top priority.  Are you releasing an album, EP, or compilation?  Create a playlist for it because it shows up under the “Albums” section of your profile.  SoundCloud orders them according to their release date, which makes it simple for fans.  Additionally, listeners will be able to add it to their collection. 

So, in addition to receiving reposts and uploads to successful profiles, you can do some basic metadata configuration on your tracks.  Fill in all of the information correctly, and ensure your tags are relevant, not spammy. 

5. Parting Pro Tip: How to Edit Multiple Tracks at Once

These updates can be time-consuming, though SoundCloud offers some ways to speed things up.  That includes the ability to update settings, tags, and artwork across multiple tracks, and even create a new playlist from a selection of uploads.

To update multiple tracks, start at: soundcloud.com/you/tracks.  From there, you simply pick the tracks you want to change, then select Edit or Add to playlist to make your changes.