SoundCloud Non-Followers

[Hilyard]

I'm sure most of you deal with this same issue. I will get around 15 followers a week, (example), and being the nice guy I am, I tend to always follow back. I have noticed that my number of followers seems to get smaller and smaller compared to the number of people that I follow. So, I figured out through just a little bit of research that there is a growing trend within the EDM and Hip Hop genres where an artist/producer will follow as many people as possible everyday, and as they get "follow-backs" they systematically un-follow those same people in order to make their fan base seem huge.

I would like to state that this is a ridiculous idea because a large number of sound cloud followers means absolutely nothing unless you are engaged with the community and reciprocating comments and favorites. Also, just having numbers does not equate to success.

Maybe this is petty, but I find it extremely annoying and offensive since I put so much work into my music. I am not a hobbyist, music is my profession, though in my spare time when I'm not making music I tend to enjoy making music lol. And maybe I have some room to grow spiritually as this really shouldn't bother me at all. I just hate to see genuinely kind people like the members of this forum working so hard only to get taken advantage of.

My proposition is that we all stop following back anyone from these genres unless of course you really dig the music or the person is actually interested in yours and comments or favorites. If all of the "followers" i've ever received were legitimately interested in my music and not scamming/spamming I would have an estimated 2000 followers, and I would definitely be following and engaged with that same amount! (As of right now I have 331, just yesterday I had 338!)

I have no problem with these genres of music and even compose within them, but unfortunately it seems like a great majority of people who create it and are huge fans are very narcissistic and have an elitist/entitled attitude towards everything. A massive DIY movement is in effect; if we as independent artists act like the corporate elite and major labels then the movement will be worthless and there will just be a bunch of whiney smaller entities running around acting as if they are the next big thing, without giving a second thought to those around them who actually work hard for what little success they may see in their lifetime.

Hope this thread doesn't seem too petty or immature, however, I feel it is a relevant and warranted complaint. Sorry for being negative, I felt this had to be said! :cantlook:

[Nemo]

It's the same thing that ruined MySpace... people just "playing the game". Nothing new. I don't "follow" anyone unless I'm genuinely interested in what they're up to and when I say I like something I honestly like it. Guess I'm not following protocol.

[Frozen Lonesome]

I have a few followers (34 as of now) but have only chosen to follow back the artists whose music I like. This may be music outside of my normal types that I enjoy but I feel no requirement to follow everybody. Today, I made a pledge to myself to spend more time listening to the folks who have taken the time to comment on my tracks to become more familiar with their work and I usually will leave a comment, but not always. It is the community part of Soundcloud that has excited me the most and why I joined AmbientOnline even though some of of tracks are hardly ambient at all.

And yes, there does seem some soundclouders who follow as many artists as they can just to build their own followers and that I find annoying, so I ignore them.

[Hilyard]

It's the same thing that ruined MySpace... people just "playing the game". Nothing new. I don't "follow" anyone unless I'm genuinely interested in what they're up to and when I say I like something I honestly like it. Guess I'm not following protocol.

I believe you are correct, Nemo, and I guess this really isn't a new thing. it might be a good idea for me to start doing something similar, maybe instead of following everyone who follows me I can simply leave them a comment on one of their tracks if they've commented on mine. If its something that I don't exactly care for , I can pick out some aspect that I do like, pay a compliment to that and then maybe leave some advice if they are just starting out. I also realized after you said this that my activity feed gets kinda clogged by people I've just automatically followed back and their music that I don't exactly care for too much. (no disrespect to their art) I kinda like ​your​ "protocol".

I have a few followers (34 as of now) but have only chosen to follow back the artists whose music I like. This may be music outside of my normal types that I enjoy but I feel no requirement to follow everybody. Today, I made a pledge to myself to spend more time listening to the folks who have taken the time to comment on my tracks to become more familiar with their work and I usually will leave a comment, but not always. It is the community part of Soundcloud that has excited me the most and why I joined AmbientOnline even though some of of tracks are hardly ambient at all.

And yes, there does seem some soundclouders who follow as many artists as they can just to build their own followers and that I find annoying, so I ignore them.

Thanks for your input Slatemass, and what an awesome pledge to make! I have been trying recently to spend a bit more time doing the same thing. I think it's important to have a strong fan-base rather than a huge weak one.

[seismic1]

You are probably aware of this, but I think it is actually worse than that. About a year ago I tracked the "commenting" behaviour of an individual on SoundCloud. I think he had posted comments on five or six hundred different tracks over a period of about 15 minutes. There were about 5 different comments that were evenly distributed over the tracks being commented upon. This smelt like a script. I think the same trick is also possible with "following" as well. Following only artists whose music you actually like is essential imho. I think you are only permitted to follow 2000 people. That would equate to approx. 80 tracks per day appearing on your dashboard.

[Red Fog]

I don't think it's immature at all...

Since I use SoundCloud, I have always carefully filtered & listened to people I choose to follow... The number of followers doesn’t matter to me at all, they virtually don’t mean anything... The good thing about carefully choosing the artists you really like is that when you get dashboard & email updates, you know it’s music you gonna like & enjoy... You don’t have to listen to a bunch of tracks you’re not even interested into just in case of finding one gem... And it’s nothing personal at all against artists, it’s just that I’m not interested enough, that’s it... I'm picky simply because I love music and I don't have time to lose with music I don't care...

Here for me it’s really a matter of quality over quantity...

[Phase47]

You are probably aware of this, but I think it is actually worse than that. About a year ago I tracked the "commenting" behaviour of an individual on SoundCloud. I think he had posted comments on five or six hundred different tracks over a period of about 15 minutes. There were about 5 different comments that were evenly distributed over the tracks being commented upon. This smelt like a script. I think the same trick is also possible with "following" as well. Following only artists whose music you actually like is essential imho. I think you are only permitted to follow 2000 people. That would equate to approx. 80 tracks per day appearing on your dashboard.

There are definitely "services" that people pay for. I had one person I was following who was a friend of a friend. His tracks were _always_ at the top of my stream "as new" and he had about a billion comments on each track. I stopped following him and and he sent me note - offended - that I'd stopped following him. There isn't enough time in the day...

[Red Fog]

There are definitely "services" that people pay for. I had one person I was following who was a friend of a friend. His tracks were _always_ at the top of my stream "as new" and he had about a billion comments on each track. I stopped following him and and he sent me note - offended - that I'd stopped following him. There isn't enough time in the day...

That is interesting! Cause that happened to me as well, exactly the same thing: someone I won't mention here literally having like 40 new comments on a track that has been uploaded 1 hour before... Always on top, and uploading about 3 tracks a day LOL... I stopped following him cause I just couldn't follow the pace of all the stuff he was uploading and he sent me a private message, all offend like a little girl who doesn't have her barbie doll... Weird. What is that ''service'' ??

[Nemo]

There were services like that on MySpace, so I imagine there are similar services for Soundcloud and Facebook. There are also special groups (or at least there used to be) whose business was working the ratings on iTunes. I knew someone who was an expert on all these things.

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

I think it's important to have a strong fan-base rather than a huge weak one.

Ain't that the truth!!! I figure it's time for me to chime in here...but nothing that I'm about to say hasn't been said already. First of all, I feel your pain Hilyard. There's nothing worse than seeing people whore out any service for their own fame and popularity. This is nothing new though...and I've seen it on just about every social network/free service I've ever been a part of.

Twitter is most notorious.

People follow 10,000 people hoping to get 5000 followers in return. But what does that do for them exactly? Not much I can tell you that! I have a twitter account for my business that I've had for 5 years and it's accrued almost 1500 followers. However, how many of those followers actually read my tweets? Not many...if any at all. The same could be said with someone who does this on SoundCloud. It's the ol' bait and switch only to get dropped within a few days from their following list. I've been very careful on SoundCloud since I started and have tried very hard to "stay focused" on true musicians and the ambient community. They are easy to spot out. I ALWAYS listen to songs from people who follow me. If I like it AND feel their account is legit, I will follow them back without hesitation. The "Stream" has been streamlined (no pun intended) to ONLY show off music now. Gone are the likes you give out and the people you follow. Now it's only for one thing and that's listening to new music from the people you follow and reposts (which I don't really think is a good idea, period) and that's it!

So for me, I like to just hit play a couple times a day on the top song in my stream and see what comes up. It's fun. That's why I only follow people whose music I actually enjoy. Sounds like you are going to do the same from here on out!!! And Red Fog is right quality over quantity and eventually, the true artists and fans will find you.

[aoVI]

On my aoVI Soundcloud I noticed some people who followed me had an inordinate percentage of follows for artists beginning with A and B...maybe even into the C's, then it would drop off precipitously after that.


ZZ Top wouldn't have to worry as much about that I suppose.

[Trinxat]

Hey all! I've thought about that a lot too and I just arrived at the conclusion that soundcloud it is not a fan thing page for me, and even to follow people I appreciate it just doesn't works for me. At the end I really don't care if the new follower is legit because to be fair I really don't have the time to the listen to that so many music that I'm interested to listen... That would take me so many time... For me it happens the same with the forums, there's so much of interesting stuff every day... and despite of that I've got so many things to do outside that when I get some free time to go to internet I have to choose... so I can't take my soundcloud seriously. I think I follow all of you but that doesn't mean that I will listen to your new tracks... That's why I appreciate comments over numbers, because I comment on everything I listen on those 30 minutes I've got free somedays and I think that people that comment on my songs is because they listened to them too, and you can see if a comment is legit or not very fast. And if someone comment I'll give a reply and that's how I built my own community inside the mess my soundcloud is. I think that for real fans is more important to have a web with a mailing list that a soundcloud with a lot of followers that doesn't mean anything.

I would really like to have everything tidy and neat as you propose but I really failed on it... Hehehe, so I decided to don't give it that importance and follow you all here on AO when I can.

[phoenstorm]

So far I've not been bothered by this phenomenon, but some other things are just too weird. It's obvious these social networks can easily be gamed and followers bought, etc. I am wary about new followers that do have disproportionate numbers in the following/followers category. I stumbled about someone who started following me without listening to any music - she had 8 followers and followed roughly 350 people. I checked a few hours later, by then she had 28 followers - and was following 500 others :-) it'll be interesting to see where this goes, my guess it's exactly what it looks like & what Hilyard complained about.

[mariosprt]

I noticed this a few weeks ago. I had 30 something followers, a few days later 18
Then as I added more it went to the 30s again. On a particular day I had 3 new followers, but 0 plays on my tracks :D hmmm... I only have 3 tracks so it's easy to spot this.
And the following/followers ratio became disproportionate. I always listen to the music of whoever follows me, it takes time, but if their music is not relevant to me, I can't stop following and make my stream shorter, so I can have time to listen to what really matters.
I totally agree to what you guys say about small and strong fan base. It's better to really know 2 dozen people than to have 2000 fans and not really knowing them.

[V0RT3X]

I see whats happening.

Basically..

People randomly follow you, then naturally you feel compelled to follow them back.

a few days later...

POOF

they unfollow you, and keep on doing this to other randoms.

Hmm seems like a good way to market their crap music.

I personally would like to see an option to know who unfollows you. Do you get this with their premium? If not I think we should petition this..