Ableton Forum

hey guys, just wondering how you guys have managed to get a following? im focusing more on sound cloud. my mates are just dj's and they have hundreds of followers in somewhat little time yet im a producer getting remixed by some pretty cool people. i just signed to a label too yet i only have like 30 people following me. How do you do it?

Isn't the point of getting signed to the label to have them work on getting you more followers? That's why they charge exorbitant amounts of money to the artist...What does your contract say and what type of contract is it?

Well... not to be too blunt. But if your making good stuff people will come.

Well scratch that, thats half of it.


The other half is finding out who your target audience is and where they are online. Which artists (And labels) they follow and look for some support from them if you can. Just figure out how to get the music to their ears. Then its up to them.

ah sweet, well my EP isn't out yet so the label is yet to do their work, i've got the music side of things covered and people are coming just very slowly. its a regular 50/50 contract not a 360 and i sign to other labels etc, pretty standard. ill research my target audience more i guess, cheers for the tips guys, keep em coming

Honestly, people are doing the social media thing more and more these days...when I play out, I (almost exclusively) use Facebook to keep track of people attending/ not attending. It is by far the easiest and cheapest way to reach out to say 1000 people in a matter of minutes. Try to maintain as many of these social networking sites as you can. Don't spread yourself too thin though. People that 'follow' you will want to see regular updates/ blogs/ tracks/ videos. You have to give them a reason to visit your site say, once a week. Otherwise it will be a waste of time. Other than that, find out from the label what they are doing for you PR wise.

Here are some sites to check out:

Facebook (duh)
Twitter (duh)
Youtube (posting updates in video format tends to engage people more, plus you can easily embed videos from other sites)
Tumblr or Wordpress (both blog type sites, figure out your needs and go with one or the other)
Bandcamp (haven't checked this out really, but I know a lot of people who swear by it)
Soundcloud (you are already on this)

Good luck!

From what I have seen on Soundcloud...follow as many people as you can and hound every single track uploaded with warm fuzzy comments and then people will return the favor and start following you.

evaodland wrote:From what I have seen on Soundcloud...follow as many people as you can and hound every single track uploaded with warm fuzzy comments and then people will return the favor and start following you.

Thats a pretty bad approach. Those followers tend to only boost your numbers... and really nothing else. People tend to forget that social media marketing is not to "Just have a large # of followers" but to gain as many true fans as possible. Its kindof the pitfall of myspace musicians.

1000 real fans trumps 10000 myspace friends anyday.

Mint Invader wrote:1000 real fans trumps 10000 myspace friends anyday.

+1

I would totally agree with this statement. Simply friending 10000 people will not mean that they will actually be fans of yours (I usually deny random requests from musicians when it comes to that lol). I am more likely to actually listen and follow someone if I can see a sincere and professional approach to their marketing approach. Not just some rando Joe Schmo sending me an ALL CAPS EMAIL TELLING ME TO COME CHECK OUT THE BEST DJ IN THE WORLD THIS WEEKEND BUY MY FREE MP3S AND BRAND NEW RING TONEZ FROM YOURS TRULY YO FRIEND ME ON MYSPACE.

Lol.

Even if you friend request random people, you should keep them up to date with fresh videos and downloads/ blogs. That tends to 'weed out' the non fans for sure.

What he said.

people still use myspace?

one thing that works well on soundcloud is posting your tracks to groups. that way, you get people that are already interested in your particular style or genre. great way to put your tracks in front of people without annoying them.

I want to know how people manage the time to do all this social marketing and still write music. Since I've started really ramping up the social side of things, there's no doubt it's gotten me more customers and more listeners. The downside I find is that it takes so much time to manage and keep up with facebook, twitter, and my blog (and making youtube videos), that I have much less time for focusing on real work or music making. Like others have said, it's not just about having a lot of followers (I certainly don't have tons), but about how well you interact with the followers you do have.

I used to always dream of the day I could be successful enough to hire a full time assistant to prep all my music files for me, or to handle things like tedious back ups and media burning. Nowadays I just want to be successful enough to hire a social media manager to let me have more time to prep music files and do edious back ups and media burning.

i work in front of computer for 9 hours a day. my work is feast or famine- during famine times, thats when i get shit done that i otherwise wouldn't do (i.e. social networking, etc.). i doubt i would do any of that stuff if i were able to make music instead.

Yeah, I can definitely understand that, I was the same way when I was doing the corporate thing. I had LOTS more time to be online then for sure.

If you use Friendfeed, it will put your posts on a huge number of social network sites for you, so all you'd have to do is be signed up to those sites. Then just post on Friendfeed. It works, but I'm not currently use it until I'm finished with my stuff.

shadx312 wrote:If you use Friendfeed, it will put your posts on a huge number of social network sites for you, so all you'd have to do is be signed up to those sites. Then just post on Friendfeed. It works, but I'm not currently use it until I'm finished with my stuff.

Good call. I think there are a couple more types of services that post to multiple sites. I'm pretty sure that Tumblr has that built in so it will automatically post to twitter and FB. Certainly saves some time. Again, find out what your need are and choose which main site you use.

Funny, I find that electronic music/ DJ's tend to use Soundcloud WAY more than FB or Bandcamp. "bands" seem to use FB more for advertising. Maybe that is a totally false perception though, what do you guys think?

OMG tho, totally cool convo! Def friend me on FB