Youtube, Spotify or Soundcloud: Which Platform is Ideal for New Music Artists?

 It is no news that the music industry has been changed by artists streaming their music on different online platforms. You can promote your Soundcloud channel for flawless streaming service. As users move towards streaming their music instead of buying it, it is only natural for artists to capitalize on the trend.

Musicians; professional and amateur alike; benefit greatly by sharing their creations on the top three platforms users go to for music: Youtube, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Although each has its own pros and cons, musicians use them all and boost their marketing using jaynike to better make use of the platforms.

Youtube – Best Platform for Music Artist

Since its launch in 2006, Youtube was always used by users to share music – sometimes illegally. Of course, the site has developed methods to screen and takedown illegally shared music. Being one of the most visited sites online, it gave musicians the opportunity to share their own music with a large audience on the platform. Some channels are dedicated specifically to sharing music – such as the popular video hosting service Vevo.com. Although they have their own webpage, they pay artists royalties for spreading their music on Youtube, and surely they gain revenue through ad streams on Youtube. 

Many amateur artists record their music in home studios and have a dedicated Youtube channel made to share their songs. In fact, some famous artists such as Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran were ‘discovered’ by record labels directly off Youtube.

Of course, they owe their success to the platform’s huge user base. So many users were listening to music on the platform, that in 2015 they developed a music streaming service – Youtube Music. Users can choose music based on genre, or recommendations. Of course, there is also an option to create playlists. Youtube also sells premium subscriptions to Youtube Music, which allows for no ads or offline mode.

Spotify – An Ideal Platform Music Artist

The Swedish music and audio streaming platform offers more than just music. Users are able to listen to podcasts, music, as well as audiobooks. Streaming digital copyright restricted music, with fewer ads than any other platform, it is no wonder the app is a popular choice among listeners.

To completely get rid of ads, users have the option to pay a minimal monthly subscription. The service is available on various devices and allows premium users to download music through the app for offline listening.

Spotify is popular among artists because the platform pays them in royalties per audio stream. This means that instead of getting a one-time payout for selling a song to Spotify, artists are paid more each time a user plays their music. In the past, artists could only include their music on Spotify through a distributor or record label. Since 2018, they have introduced ‘upload beta’ allowing users to directly upload their music to the platform. Of course, this made them more popular among amateur artists than previously. 

SoundCloud –  Best Platform for Music Artist

Another market leader in music and audio streaming, open audio platform SoundCloud had 162 million user visits in January 2021. Originally, it was developed for artists to collaborate and share music. Since then it has moved on to the distribution aspect of the music industry. Owing to its large user base and high traffic, amateur artists opt to distribute their music through their platform.

A feature that is unique to SoundCloud is the ability to embed URLs on Twitter, Facebook, and other websites. This further increases the marketing potential of using their services. Also, they give artists the potential to earn money through pre-roll audio ads through their ‘On SoundCloud’ program. Much of the music available on SoundCloud is by amateur artists and cover artists.

A major reason for their popularity is that users are able to listen to an unlimited amount of music. Another unique feature is their ‘timed comments’ whereby listeners can comment on an audio track at a specific time. This gives musicians more comprehensive feedback on their songs and helps the users engage better with them. 

There are two types of subscription services that SoundCloud offers:

• SoundCloud Go: This option is geared towards listeners, offering them ad-free listening with no previews, and offline playback. 
• SoundCloud Pro: As free accounts are only allowed to upload 180 minutes of audio per month, there is a separate option for professions – which allows up to 6 hours of audio uploads per month. 
• SoundCloud Pro Unlimited: This option allows unlimited uploads, mostly suitable for podcast creators. 

Regardless of which platform you choose to distribute your music through, audio streaming is a great tool for musicians all over the world. The process of uploading music on these platforms is relatively simple, and gives you complete creative control, unlike record labels that can interfere with your style or creative process. Subscription services are relatively cheap, and there is a huge marketing potential through these apps and websites due to their large audience and high traffic.