Things to keep in mind when considering pitching for a repost trade:

Do they report at all? This one is a big one for artists. Some artists do not report at all on their SoundCloud pages; others only say for friends signed to the same record label or collective.

Labels often restrict reposts to their label artists, and both tend to be pickier about what they support than the average promotional channel.

Are they genre specific? The fastest way to dilute an audience is to confront them with music they are not predisposed to liking. Before you pitch, check whether the artist or channel is curating a specific sound or is more lenient. How often do they report? Most networks and labels stick to regimented schedules, and a part of basic research is finding out what times a day they say it and with what frequency. Paid Promotion If you haven’t had any luck finding a robust promotional channel to upload your release, or have opted to release it on your account, you may want to increase your exposure by reaching for the wallet.

Paid SoundCloud promotion usually happens in the following forms: The first way would be direct to pay large SoundCloud channels directly to repost your track. Pricing varies across channels. You could bundle reposts of individual channels at $20 a pop or spend a more significant channel to say $100 for promotion across their total network.

Alternatively, you could hire a publicist or promotional network to run a SoundCloud repost PR campaign for you. They then utilise their channels to report, but also use those for trading, to get your asset exposure. Pricing varies on the reach of the reposts so that they might charge you for cumulative exposure to 500.000 followers. Because the promo channels cannot guarantee that their reposts will bring in a fixed number of plays, they are incentivised to focus the pricing on the volume of exposure, rather than the actual sports received. It’s tricky because it means you’re paying for the process rather than for the result.

We have yet to experiment with paid SoundCloud promotion but have heard mixed stories. This is an area that we’re curious about – curious enough to bring in an outside statistician to crunch some numbers on SoundCloud reposts, read about what we found here.

With regards to paid promotion, it’s risky to become reliant on others to help get you exposure and may be considered unethical, but can also contribute to getting your music to traction earlier.

What’s next? For most artists, operating within the SoundCloud realm will come more naturally than in the blogosphere or Spotify game. We hope that this guide will help you maximise SoundCloud marketing efforts on the platform and if you’re interested more in the Spotify game check out our guide to that here.

For more strategies like these, stay tuned for the Third Edition of the SoundCloud Bible, which will be coming ours shortly. Be sure to also check out our free list of 10 SoundCloud promotional networks below and good luck!