Like you, I’m an artist who wants to get my music out there and get it heard by some people who might enjoy it. That is easier said than done on SoundCloud. In my personal quest to get noticed, I’ve tried everything that SoundCloud recommended to grow my audience but nothing has worked. The recommendations are either not possible or too slow for one lifetime.
I set out on my quest to get heard with Organic SoundCloud Promotion.
I started looking at alternative ways to promote my music through 3rd party services. As you have probably noticed, there are a bunch out there and most of them are notoriously sketchy. I learned the hard way, the sketchy services don’t work. My conclusion was this, no matter what they promised they were all pretty much full of shit and just out to make a buck on my dream of getting my music heard.
While exploring SoundCloud, I couldn’t help but notice there is a group of successful electronic music and rap OGs that seemed to show up all over the place. And, they all seemed to know each other. Furthermore, they all seemed to be helping each other by reposting each other’s songs in a joint effort for organic promotion. I figured out that these guys were the biggest because of a secret network, almost a brotherhood, that they used to promote each other through trading SoundCloud reposts for quality promotion. It was like a circle or insiders that no one else could access. A circle that is completely built on relationships, and respect for each other’s music.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that the circle was huge, with a reach covering almost all of SoundCloud’s user base. Furthermore, there didn’t seem to be any money-changing hands between these guys. The money that these artists make comes from selling access to outsiders. They are what Wall Street calls the “smart money.” A click that is not easy to join.
In fact, artists like Little Peep and Post Malone used this organic SoundCloud promotion circle to get famous. Check out the famous Lil Peep documentary for supporting evidence.
I wanted in.
I decided I wanted in. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the players are. I just had to search SoundCloud for “repost network” or “SoundCloud promotion” and look at the channels with legitimate followers. They usually have a link in their description to what they offer in terms of trades. (Don’t get these channels confused with the channels that offer sales of bot services. Those are the ones that rip people off.) All of the good trading channels I found had good music, a real following, and were owned by artists with the same goals as me.
Remember the golden rule. NO CRAPPY MUSIC.
There is a golden rule when working with good trading channels that you are not allowed to repost music that is not high quality. Each post reflects on the channel’s reputation as a source for good music. Because of this, these channels have high engagement rates with a good ratio of plays to likes to comments to followers. It’s pretty easy to tell which are legit artists and which are fakes: Read the comments. If they are subjective, they are probably legit.
To reach out to these owners, I decided it would be best to avoid the SoundCloud messaging system and reach out through their websites and email addresses. (These guys get hundreds of requests for reposts.)
Once I found some people I wanted to trade SoundCloud reposts with, I just needed something to trade. I needed to build the followers on my account up enough to be able entice a trade of my followers for theirs. They had to be real followers with real stats. (Not bots follows. These guys know what they are doing and they will recognize you as a fake immediately.) Trades can be as simple as getting on messenger and saying, “Can you trade 10k on a song?” There are also tools offered at scplanner.
The solution to this for me was to gain organic followers through the use of fangates. These are portals that allow you to trade valuable downloads of sample packs for a like or follow on a specified track. Finding a person with the level of fangate traffic to generate 1000 followers in a short period of time was not easy but I managed to do it. I paid him a fee and he built my following with real music fans from his fangate. Once I had 1,000 followers, I used them to trade 1 to 1 with smaller channels until I built up a chain or network that I could use for trading organic SoundCloud promotion reposts with the bigger channels. After a year, I worked myself into a network that can repost to pretty much all SoundCloud users. At that point, I decided to offer my experience to others who may be getting ripped off by fakes. That is when I started The Supreme Team. We used the same circle of artists and follower fangates that I discovered in my quest. We require that the music be good to avoid rejection from the circle and to maintain our good standing. Here is how you can do it for yourself…
How to Trade SoundCloud Reposts for Money
- Research legitimate artists that do repost trades.
- Reach out to them via email or their websites to build a relationship.
- Build up your profile up to 1000 good followers. (NOT SHIT ACCOUNTS)
- Contact the artists you met in step 2 for trades.
- Build your chain, by trading with more and more artists.
- Add a message in your profile that you are willing to trade with other channels and offer the total number of followers you have in your chain. (This is how you grow exponentially.)
- Once your chain is up to 1 Million followers, start selling the service to outsiders.
If you follow these steps, at the very least you can promote your music to an ever-growing audience, ongoing, for free. And at best you can grow a chain that will allow you to make anywhere from $15 to $35 per repost on your chain. At 10 reposts per week that can be up to $1400 per month.
SoundCloud discourages this type of commerce because they want your money. But, there is nothing inherently wrong with the activity, just don’t offer the service for sale on your profile. Only offer trades.
It’s now a few years since I started trading organic SoundCloud promotion via reposts. I have my own flagship channel with over 700k followers (success breeds success) and a legitimate promotion business that provides insider access to an exclusive circle of artists. I’m not getting rich off of it, but I am definitely paying rent while promoting my music to millions and millions and millions…