Newgrounds is still a fairly unfamiliar site to many people, even though it was launched 20 years ago.
Over the years Newgrounds has gone trough many big changes and now it is a thriving community of creators. Especially the Newgrounds audio portal has grown tremendously.
In this article I’m going to tell you how to promote music on Newgrounds. Click here to check out Newgrounds’s audio portal, if you haven’t been there yet.
What is Newgrounds and audio portal?
Newgrounds is a place where animators, game developers, music producers and drawing artists can share their work. It was established so that all these creators could easily collaborate.
Now it’s much more than that. Especially the audio portal is now widely used by music producers to get their music out there and find new fans.
Producers also use Newgrounds to get their tracks to Geometry Dash – a popular mobile rhythm game. Tracks uploaded on Newgrounds can be used as a background music of custom Geometry Dash levels.
When Geometry Dash enabled players to use music on Newgrounds, everyone uploaded their tracks as fast as possible in the hopes of getting their song to the game.
How to upload music to Newgrounds?
Everyone can upload their tracks to Newgrounds for free. This happens by simply creating a Newgrounds account and uploading your song.
Your track will be immediately available for others, but it can’t be featured on audio portal’s front page or submission pages immediately. This is because new artists on Newgrounds needs to be scouted first.
But what does scouting means and how can I get scouted?
Scouting was created to prevent misuse of the audio portal and to improve the quality of the audio submissions. Already scouted artists can scout unscouted artists, if they submit good songs and are not breaking the audio portal submissions rules.
So in short, upload only original content you created and no unfinished or poor quality tracks. Eventually you will be scouted.
All unscouted artists’s tracks will appear on the unscouted category and on the artist’s profile.
When you get scouted, your tracks will appear on the audio portal. Your tracks can be now also featured on the front page of the audio portal.
Scouting also means that there is chance you can get your tracks to Geometry Dash. However, you need to also be whitelisted by Geometry Dash to get your tracks featured. This happens by contacting the owner of Geometry Dash, but there is no guarantee that you will get whitelisted.
How to get tracks featured on the front page of the audio portal?
The best way to get a lot of listeners to your music is get featured on the front page of the audio portal.
There are there different lists on the main page of audio portal you want to get your track on:
The popular audio list is basically the best of the week list. Each of the lists are usually updated at Thursday night.
There are a lot of competition on the audio portal, so it is not an easy task get on any of these lists. You need to make quality music and grow a little bit of following before you have a decent chance to get featured.
The more your track is up voted, downloaded and listened, the better are your chances to get featured. If you have friends or following on other social media sites, you should encourage them to up vote your track.
You don’t need that much views as long as your track’s score is good. I’ve got my track on the popular audio list with about 300 listens.
If you get featured, your track will first appear on the popular audio list. If your track is still doing great after 2-3 weeks, it will be promoted to the best audio this month lists.
It is very hard to get tracks on this list. But if you do, there is a chance to get your track to the best audio this year list.
I’ve only got couple of my tracks to the best audio of this year list so it is extremely hard. The list updates much slower than others so you will get tons of listens, if you get featured there.
There is also a fourth list which is called high ranking classics. At this point it’s nearly impossible to get your tracks there, because currently the tracks on the list have generated millions of listens over the years.
I believe there hasn’t been any new tracks on the top 10 of that list for years.
How can I market my tracks on Newgrounds.
If you want to grow your audience in the long term, you should be active on the audio forums.
By genuinely helping other artists, collaborating, sharing production tips and reviewing other’s music you will get you more exposure.
Audio forums is a great place to ask help and find similar minded people. There is also a dedicated audio promotion topic, where you can post your tracks to advertise them.
In general, just communicating with other artists and connecting with them will give you more exposure. People will trust you and they will remember you when you post new tracks, if you have talked to them.
Another way to get more listeners is to participate in audio competitions. If you check out the audio forums, you see if there are competitions going on.
Competitions are also a great way to develop your producing skills, because it force to to make music in a short amount of time.
If you don’t want to participate in competitions, you can try to get your tracks to games or animations. There are many game developers and animators searching music for their projects in the audio forums.
This way I got my tracks to Geometry Dash! The developer of Geometry Dash was looking for music for his game so I decided to respond to his topic and said that you can use my music and linked them.
No one knew back then that GD would become big game. That’s why you should try to get on as many projects as you can. You never know what is going to blow up and make you big!
Profile page
You profile page can be used to tell something personal about yourself. You can tell what kind of music you produce for example and what are your goals.
If you are interested in producing music or music effects for others, you can mention it on your profile page. There is this section called “open for commissions”, which can be used to tell other people that they can hire you.
Profile page also lets you create posts. When you make a post, it will show on your profile page. You can put your post to the front page of Newgrounds every 14 days. This can give you a lot of exposure.
When something big happens or I release a new track, I make a post about it. All your Newgrounds followers will be notified when you make a post.
I recommend to create new posts always when you have something interesting or new to say. But not too often!
Newgrounds allows you to edit your profile page. You can change the order of the blocks (latest audio submissions, posts, etc..) on your page by dragging them. You can also change the colors and banner of your page.
Banner is a great place to brand yourself. For example, you can add your logo or slogan to the banner along with social media channels you are actively using.
This way people know where they can follow you. Make sure that the banner looks clean and professional. Check out my other article about YouTube optimization for more information about making a banner.
Recap
Before you can get listeners, you need to upload your track and get yourself scouted. Consistently uploading and improving your music will get you scouted eventually.
If you want to get more listeners on Newgrounds, you need to be active on the audio forums.
Connect with other artists and share your work. Review other’s music and be helpful in general. Don’t forget to participate in competitions.
You should also update your profile page, add your general information, upload banner, add you social media links and organizing the page.