I was listening to a young friend talk to his peers. It was about their plan to get famous as a band. He was a decent singer and guitar player. The rest of the so-called band was mediocre at best. They needed some musicians that could actually read music. I thought that maybe he might make it if he keeps the drive, but he needed to get a foundation in singing. On the other hand, I know a guy who does solo work who is a real professional, and he is a guy who will buy cheap SoundCloud plays for his tracks he has on the site.
What is the difference between the two? The young friend has an idea he wants to be a singer. The other guy is actually a professional plying his trade. He is using social media to get his music heard. He is using the system of how social media works to maximize the amount of times his music is heard now and will be heard. He is using the simple social media formula of popular stuff being made more popular against itself. If you go ahead and buy a bunch of cheap SoundCloud plays, you are basically telling the website your stuff is getting popular. When the site sees a track as being popular, it plasters it all over the place.
The popular stuff attracts more site visitors. More unique visitors equates to higher ad revenue. That is why the most popular stuff gets on the site’s home pages for all of these social media machines. If you boost the popularity of something you have uploaded, then you are much more likely to have it end up going viral for real. The whole reason is that more visitors get to see it. The young friend is hampered by stars in his eyes not understanding the real work that goes into being a musician. The other guy is a professional using tools of the trade to get noticed.