What is the SoundCloud Fans tool, and how does it help artists connect with fans?
SoundCloud artists can now find and DM their biggest fans
Credit:
SoundCloud
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Since its launch in 2022, SoundCloud For Artists has helped independent creators monitor their performance metrics, connect with fans, and monetize their content. A Next Pro subscription provides premium features like First Fans, which analyzes an artist’s sound and, through the autoplay and recommendation algorithms, shows tracks to users with profile activities that “match.” Thus, the potential for people to say, “I listened to them before they were famous” or “their older stuff is, like, way better” increases exponentially.
The Fans tool kicks SoundCloud’s artist-centric initiatives up a notch, using data drawn from listener engagement, artist influence, and Fan-Powered Royalties (FPR). Let us give you the rundown.
Discover SoundCloud's best plan for artists.
What are Fan-Powered Royalties?
The FPR model is a unique approach to streaming royalties. It ensures that smaller artists receive a fairer share of streaming revenue. Under this system, the royalties generated by each listener's play are distributed only to the artists they have streamed—rather than being pooled and divided among all the artists on the platform, as is the case with traditional royalty distribution models that only benefit big stars.
This means that if a listener streams only one artist on SoundCloud, that artist will receive the entirety of the royalties generated by that stream. The idea is to give more power to the fans and encourage them to support their favorite independent artists while also providing those artists with a more sustainable revenue stream.
What is the Fans tool?
Launched in May 2023, Fans analyzes proprietary data to determine which fans engage the most with an artist’s content. It tracks factors such as likes, comments, shares, and listening habits, then provides artists with a list of superfans they can correspond with the first week of every month.
Who has access to it?
This tool isn’t one you can personally use. It’s still in beta and only available to some 50,000 NextPro subscribers who monetize their content through SoundCloud. SoundCloud has new features in the works but no projected release dates yet.
How does it help artists connect with their fanbase?
While First Fans functions to build a fanbase, Fans takes a more personal approach by facilitating direct contact between artists and individual fans. Direct messaging helps them foster genuine, meaningful relationships with their listeners—and perhaps even discover future collaborators.
How does it help fans?
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the potential for misuse of the tool. Fortunately, Fans has a 50-message limit that resets every 24 hours. It also allows fans to turn off one-to-one messaging, report harassment or abusive messages, and block users.