3 Tips to Protect Your Music if SoundCloud Goes Bust

You may have heard the news concerning SoundCloud’s future. No one can see into the future, but what if SoundCloud does go away? What will happen to your music? How about your fans? Where will they go? IS IT TIME TO FREAK OUT YET?!!!!! Well, no. But, also, kind of yes.

Regardless of what actually happens to SoundCloud, this should be a moment of awakening for artists of all types. There are a few actions you can take – right…dang….now – to protect your music and your digital relationships with fans in uncertain times like these. And yes, before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room:

Is ReverbNation a good replacement for SoundCloud?

That all depends on what your individual needs are. We’d be willing to put our song player up against anything you can find out there in the online music stratosphere. It’s easy to setup, easy to use, and easy to share. You can customize the colors and size, as well as upload and share individual songs or playlists and albums. It works on mobile phones and tablets, and can be embedded on social media, your own website, or pretty much anywhere you want it to live online.

There’s another “secret weapon” of sorts hiding in the ReverbNation song player. When you share it anywhere online, we automatically track fans who play your tracks. Later on, when you have a new song or show you want them to know about, you can alert them using Promote It. This is all done for you, so you don’t have to worry about becoming a professional marketer all on your own.

Okay, let’s talk about what else you can do to protect your music and prepare yourself for a site like SoundCloud peacing out of existence.

Back up your music

If you aren’t already backing up your music, go do that right now. Song uploader sites should not be used as a method to backing up.

We recommend implementing two methods: 1) cloud storage and 2) an external hard drive or flash drive. You can use cloud storage software like Dropbox or Box to easily save your music files. Then, you can access them anywhere you have an internet connection.

It’s also a great way to share your music files with artists or remixers you might collaborate with, as well as managers, bloggers, or labels.

Dropbox is free up to 2GB of storage. Box allows up to 10GB of storage with a limit of 250MB file upload.

Once you’ve backed up using a cloud storage website, you should also buy an external hard drive or flash drive. Then, you can manually back up all of your song files or you can set it to automatically backup at whatever frequency you choose.

If you have a Mac, you can perform backups with Time Machine, which comes with your operating system. On a PC, you can use a free backup software like EaseUS Todo or Comodo BackUp.

Be on all platforms

Having your music on all of the song uploader websites ensures that if one of the sites goes down, whether that’s temporarily or permanently, your music is still online somewhere else where it’s easily accessible to fans. There’s no reason not to be everywhere fans are.

ReverbNation is a great option for music uploading. We offer unlimited song uploads with our free account up to 8MB per song. We also have millions of fans engaging with artists on our site and the free Discover app.

ReverbNation song player

However, remember that these sites should only be used as a promotional tool to share your music and to get more fans. Do not use these websites as a place to permanently store your music.

Own the relationship with your fans

As new song uploader websites come and go, and technology changes, it’s important to have a channel that you own to maintain a relationship with your fans. The best way to do this is through an email list.

Unlike social media or third party websites where you keep your music, you have full control of your email list. It’s also a direct channel to your fans through which you can communicate new releases, tour dates and other news. So, if any of those sites go down or social media algorithms change, you still have a way to get in touch with your fans.

With ReverbNation’s Fan Reach tool, you can easily design, send, and track messages through email, Facebook, and Twitter. We also have a Fan Collector widget that allows you to collect fan emails anywhere online.

Whatever happens to SoundCloud or any other song uploader website, be smart and be prepared. Make sure your music is accessible everywhere, it’s backed up, and you have an email list to broadcast news to your fans.

All third party trademark is the property of SoundCloud Ltd. ReverbNation is not affiliated with the trademark owner.

Jay3 Tips to Protect Your Music if SoundCloud Goes Bust

6 comments

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  • Arsenio Oro - July 19, 2017 reply

    I love reverbnation. they do need to get better at sharing. some websites don’t take the codes to embed it my music. Also we have no way of writing blog anymore. Not to mention that it only accepts videos from YouTube and vimeo. But, what about vidme and other sites? should be an available option to upload HD video directly to reverbnation if I decide to pay for that feature.

  • Rory - July 20, 2017 reply

    Just wondering if anyone has an idea on the percentage of Reverbnation members are non musician fans. There is talk floating around on the interwebs that sites like that and Soundcloud are mainly populated by other musicians so they may be less likely to buy your recordings and go to your live shows. From my experience for every member that looks at my band’s Reverbnation page who isn’t a musician, about 8 to 10 are. I use it mainly to put up either demos or the finished recordings to get gigs and for our local followers (we don’t tour) on Facebook to keep up with our progress.

    KaiCarra - July 21, 2017 reply

    This is a good point. I find the same thing. RN is a great support for other musicians, but not as much as a tool to have your music discovered by fans, in general. -KaiCarra

  • Matt Allan - July 21, 2017 reply

    As the music and digital technology markets keep evolving, we will see apps come and go. I think ReverbNation can evolve to provide a unique relationship between musician and listener. This would be based upon the ability to share musical inspiration and ideas with the fan as a project is evolving. My music is written primarily for bikers so I also think about how ReverbNation could help musicians connect more directly with fan audiences and social groups. I know of several biker radio websites that would benefit from interacting more closely with ReverbNation but they don’t know about it.

  • anaya tikekar - July 26, 2017 reply

    This would be based upon the ability to share musical inspiration and ideas with the fan as a project is evolving….

  • Harry Music Lover - October 9, 2017 reply

    Thanks for making such a cool post which is really very well written. I will be referring a lot of friends about this. Keep blogging! https://harrypottermusicbox.com/

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