• by Colin Kirkland , May 8, 2023

SoundCloud, the 14-year-old music streaming platform, has launched a new tool to help artists engage with their listeners, inviting artists to direct-message their followers while learning more about them via SoundCloud's proprietary data.

“Fans” is now available on SoundCloud for Artists. The company says around 10,000 artists were using the tool prior to Monday’s beta release, sending fans links to unreleased tracks and setting up meet-and-greet events.

But now the tool will be open to more than 50,000 artists who subscribe to the platform’s Next Pro product, which provides SoundCloud artists with unlimited track uploads, track management tools, a premium profile badge and more.

Artists using “Fans” can now tap into the platform’s proprietary data -- collected from SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties model introduced in 2021, which took into account who users were listening to in-app alongside overall streams -- and sort their most engaged listeners based on comments, listening behavior, sharing habits and location.

“Fans” will let an artist know which listeners of theirs are artists themselves.

SoundCloud says that the new tool stems from a desire to provide artists with direct access to their fans.

“Our company was founded and built on helping artists share and connect through music,” said Tracy Chan, senior vice president of SoundCloud’s Creator business. “And, let's face it: building a fanbase (and being able to activate those fans when you need to) is the only real way to make music your livelihood.