IDEA: Which site will bring you the most plays?

  • Thread starter Thread starter homeuser
  • Start date Start date
H

homeuser

New member
Could someone please try this? Someone needs to post the same audio file on all of the most popular music sites (mp3, nowhere, etc) and NOT do any advertising for it. Just post the tune and sit back and see which site will drive the most traffic to it in a 30 day period (or less). This could be interesting data. I'm guessing mp3.com would win?
 
Hmmm, but if you don't do ANY advertising at all then you're likely to get zero plays on all of them!

Right I get your point, if you do no advertising, but still get say, 2 plays on one of them, then presumably THAT is the best site for hits?

hmmm....
 
I just started posting to nowhere....you might want to try garageband.com basically in order to put your song up you have to review a bunch of othersongs...or pay some dough....but this system ensures some rotation....
 
The idea of this is to see which music site will generate the most plays on your tunes WITHOUT advertising for them, which only promotes their site even more. If you're going to advertise anything you ofcourse advertise your own site.

I'm interested in seeing someone post the same music file on several of these services, sit back and wait it out, to see which site will generate the most plays, on it's own. What this tells us is how many users are actually staying there, playing some music, checking out the various charts, etc.

We have to realize if we post music somewhere and it gets no plays on it own, then obviously their traffic ain't alot. And it's probably not worth out time to post anything there if we're looking for exposure.

OFCOURSE if you post music somewhere and then advertise your page there you will get some interest, but in my mind those misc music sites should be able to generate some interest on their own just by people surfing the site. If there is 1000's or millions on some of these sites as they say there is, the hits will come eventually.

This line of thinking is the same for the pc/mac software download sites, which I run several of by the way. :)
 
Thanks for explaining. It sounds like a really good idea to me. Now we just need a volunteer to try it out and report back. It could be done under an artist-assumed name, so no-one's credibility would be affected in any way.

I would guess that ewithout substantial advertising that there will be no hits at all, but if there are even a few hits in one of the sites that would be highly instructive.
 
There are a lot of different ways to measure this, but unless you match the traffic with people interested in your own sound by marketing hard, I don't think it matters a whole lot. So I use sites like NWR as part of "my community" instead.

I have music up on six sites so far. None of them generate enough hits to be statistically significant. I think you really need to use the site as part of an aggressive marketing strategy to make any of them perform.

Check out Richard Haefner's site at mp3.com: feel good banjo folky stuff and over 800,000 hits. He works the crowd hard and it shows. Is it more the site or the marketing effort that uses the site?
 
You also have to consider the type of site you are posting to will determine how many hits. A metal song on a folk site will get very little hits, no matter how many people go to the site. Most sites aren't so focused to be genre only though, but each has their subtle "flavors".

Also what category you post to will vary your traffic greatly. Again posting a metal song to a country category will generate less hits, than a metal category, on the same site.
 
Well, ofcourse you would post your tune in the correct category for that site. But let's face it guys, if 500 music makers all post their stuff on 1 site and those 500 musicians all post ads to that site and their music, who is benefiting the most, us or the website? After all when the listener realizes there is probably 1000's of other music there to listen to as well, what's their motivation to only listen to your stuff? (Ofcourse if your stuff rawks, that's another story!)

Seriously, this is something we need to do. After all it's users like us that make or break those sites. Perhaps I'll be the guinea pig and do something soon. Incase others are interested here's the guidelines:

1) Upload the EXACT same tune to several music sites, in the EXACT same category if possible.

2) Do exactly ZERO/ZILCH promotion for your tune on the sites you uploaded it to.

3) Monitor the number of plays for either 1,2,4 weeks and record the numbers.

The website with the highest number of plays would be the one in my opinion to consider giving serious consideration to uploading more tunes, linking to, etc.

Think about this folks, why upload a tune to someone else's website if you plan on doing a bunch of advertising to that site? You would benfit more by advertising YOUR website. The supposed benefit of uploading music to music sites is in my opionon is the possibility of "their" users checking out your music without you doing much work. I remember seeing ads for various music sites "upload you music and let 1000's of users listen to your music".

I will eventually do it, but it will take me a while to get something worthwhile for this experiment. :)
 
Roomx - you need to supply more information...

This thread is not about how many hits people achieve, but which host will bring you the most traffic without having to make any effort yourself.

You need to tell us
1. did you promote it
2. if so, how
3. are you a gigging artist/band
4. did the 900 plays just happen without you doing anything to get people interested?

Please tell...
 
Exactly, we need to make sure ZILCH promotion was done.

Thinking this over, another good thing to do would be for someone to post a shitty tune on several sites. And then see how many people listen to it. Because you probably wouldn't get multiple listens from the same person it might better reflect how many "1 shot" listeners there are.

This combined with a "real" effort test could go a long way in telling us EXACTLY what the potential is from these sites.
 
Hold on, don't some of these sites vet the material before it gets up there, so that strategy might not work for all of them? If you post a poor quality tune they may decide not to host it? Anyway, we don't seem to have a volunteer to do all this so it's just a thory at themoment!
 
I'm preparing a tune for this test. What I now need is a list of sites to post the tune on. Anyone have a top 10 kind of list for sites to post your music on?
 
I suggest you first define the criteria and controls for this test.

There is a very large number of factors that will effect the results, and one person to another will recieve very, very different results.

W.
 
Homeuser,
Just a note here for your test. Usually, if a tune is posted anywhere but NWR...I don't even bother to listen. I know NWR won't kill me with pop-ups or try to get me to d/l Realplayer. NWR works for me and I try to stick there. However, I don't go on the internet looking to d/l music.

bd
 
homeuser said:
I'm preparing a tune for this test. What I now need is a list of sites to post the tune on. Anyone have a top 10 kind of list for sites to post your music on?
Click to expand...

Don't have a top ten, but the obvious ones to start with are MP3.com and NWR. OK, someone now needs to supply another few...
 
This experiment has been in progress for a few weeks now. The test music is currently only available on 2 music sites. MP3.com and Soundclick.com. I will report the progress in my next update to this thread.
 
What's the control? What's the variables? Where's the research data for comparison between the sites?

W.
 
Well, I get almost NO play at mp3.com and I've been with them for three years. I get four hundred or so hits a month at Soundclick.com. Maybe four hits a month at Cornerscam...uh, I mean, Cornerband.com. I've only started NoWhereRadio like a month or two ago, but have gotten pretty much no non-homerec-referred hits.
 
Christopher, do you push the link to Soundclick more than the link to the others? I was wondering if from your own site all the music hosting sites you use are given a fair crack of the whip, or is the more prominent link to Soundclick for example? Just curious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top