SoundCloud’s new secret for blowing up small artists
Up-and-coming music is finding a brand new level of reach on SoundCloud thanks to these nifty new tools reaching loads more listeners!
SoundCloud want no artist to get left behind. This year they’ve dropped a number of new tools to help all artists get discovered and gain momentum with new listeners, to kickstart their journey to stardom. Now, they’re revealing just how successful they are.
SoundCloud’s new Buzzing playlists are the place for rising stars to reach the new listeners who will become lifelong fans. They are a set of fan-powered, genre-specific playlists that features songs based on engagement that focus on giving smaller artists more exposure if they’re picking up traction.
SoundCloud now reveal that almost 20% of the tracks added to Buzzing playlists are getting added to Trending playlists. Trending playlists are SoundCloud’s other genre-specific spot for songs, aimed at including tracks that have seen a huge increase in streams in a short amount of time. With three times the reach of Buzzing playlists, this evolution from Buzzing to Trending represents a huge leap for an artists’ discovery.
SoundCloud have found particular success with Hip-Hop artists. They’ve seen nearly half of all the tracks that entered Buzzing Hip Hop & Rap go on to find a place in Trending Hip Hop & Rap. A testament both to Hip Hop’s dedicated underground fanbase and the success of Buzzing playlists
Thanks to the success of their existing playlists, SoundCloud are now adding three new genres to Buzzing: Metal, Rock, and Indie. SoundCloud say: “With the introduction of these new genre-specific playlists, even more artists across even more genres get the chance to get heard!”
Buzzing playlist features are available to artists on SoundCloud’s Next Pro platform. They must be opted it to First Fans, their recommendation algorithm that uses AI to detect a song’s characteristics and promote it to the right new listeners.
SoundCloud have introduced a focus on the “Zero-Plays Problem”, in which a huge number of songs uploaded go unplayed. Their First Fans program intends to solve that. Next Pro artists will have their uploads pushed to listeners to ensure they don’t go undiscovered and have the potential to gain traction.
SoundCloud’s Global Head of Music, Emmy Lovell explains the First Fans system: “Based on understanding the track, [the algorithm] would give the opportunity for it to have 100 listeners – real listeners. Not all of them would listen, but it would be given to 100 listeners for them to listen to. If that did well, it would then go to 1,000 people to broaden it out.”