Reddit can be a great resource for discovering new artists and promoting your own music. In this article, we explain everything you need to know about the most important subreddit devoted to sharing new and overlooked music: r/listentothis. Statistics from 2022 show that Reddit is the 9th most visited website in the United States and ranks 20th worldwide. With this kind of traffic, there is great potential to grow your audience and find new fans.
In short, Reddit is a social news platform where users can share their interests through a variety of communities, also known as subreddits. Users of the platform, or redditors, can either upvote or downvote posts, creating a hierarchy of the most popular submissions. The posts you see at the top of the feed are the ones that have been upvoted the most.
1. What is r/listentothis?
Listen To This is a subreddit community with over 17 million members devoted to promoting emerging artists and overlooked tracks. The page is a forum mostly made up of embedded youtube links where redditors share songs across genres and decades. All of the songs have one thing in common: the artist or track must not exceed a certain popularity threshold. In this subreddit, you won’t see videos of Beyoncé or Harry Styles. The goal of this community is to promote unknown artists and music that has been pushed out of the mainstream.
2. What are the rules for posting?
To respect the community of r/listentothis, there are a few major guidelines that must be followed.
1. No posting “popular” artists or tracks
The first and most important rule is that the artist or track posted must not exceed a certain popularity threshold. The track must not have over 500,000 plays across streaming platforms and the artist must not exceed this same limit for three or more of their songs. They must not have celebrity status or be a side project of an artist that already exceeds the popularity criteria. Also, the track must not be a remix or cover of an artist or track that is already well known.
2. No self promotion
The second rule is no self promotion. This subreddit is devoted to building discussion around new and overlooked music and is not designed in the way that Instagram or TikTok is. The community is more important than the individual on this platform so that a real exchange of ideas can occur. This being said, there are ways to share your music on this subreddit that sidestep the rules. I’ll explain how to do this later in section 4.
3. Be respectful
The third rule is about proper community etiquette. Harassment, threats, and use of slurs or demeaning comments will not be tolerated. Using racist, sexist, or homophobic language in the comments of posts will result in a ban.
4. Respect the time limit for reposting artists or tracks
The fourth rule is about the frequency at which an artist or track can be shared. Once an artist is posted, they must not be reposted for the next 7 days and the track must not be reposted for the next 30 days. If the submission gets over 100 upvotes, however, the artist may not be posted for up to 30 days. This allows other artists to get exposure and also prevents redditors from posting the entire discography of one band too quickly.
5. Follow the standard title format
The last rule standardizes the title format of posts. All posts must follow the template Main Artist Name — Track Name [genre/genres] (year) so that each entry can be easily classified with the correct information. For example, if you upload this video link, the proper title for the post would be Pastel Coast — Helios [Dream Pop] (2022). The link should also be a video from the artist’s official channel so that they may benefit directly.
Check out the full detailed list of the r/listentothis guidelines here.
If you’re looking to grow your audience and get guaranteed feedback, you can send your track directly to music professionals on Groover.
3. How can I engage in the r/listentothis community?
To engage in the r/listentothis community, the first thing you need to do is understand how the page works. The feed can be organized in four different ways: Hot, New, Top, and Rising. If you organize your feed by Top posts, you can then filter by time period: Today, This Week, This Month, This Year, and All Time. If we filter by Top posts of All Time, we see “Bigman – Beatbox Championship Solo” with over 25,000 upvotes. Today, this video has over 25 million views on Youtube. Reddit certainly played a part in making this video go viral.
Once you understand how the feed works, you can start posting comments and upvoting songs you enjoy. Does a band you stumbled upon remind you of another artist? Share it in the comments. Take on the role of a music critic by commenting something short but sweet about the arrangement, the style, or details about the visuals.
| Read also: How to make your music known on Youtube?
4. How do I promote my own music?
According to the r/listentothis guidelines, self promotion is not allowed in this community. However, there is a more discrete way of doing so and respecting the rules. Our advice is to create your redditor account under an alias that is in no way associated with your actual name or stage name. This way, you can engage in the community by sharing emerging artists you like and occasionally slipping in one of your own songs. Something to keep in mind when posting links is that a good youtube thumbnail makes people click. If the thumbnail is a simple yet captivating image, the chances redditors will engage with your post are much higher. Before choosing a thumbnail for your own video, ask yourself: would I click on this?
5. When is the best time to post on r/listentothis?
Like all social networks, there are certain days and times that maximize your chances of being seen. A helpful indicator on r/listentothis is that you can see how many members are online at any given moment on the righthand side of the page. A traffic analysis of Reddit shows that the best time to post is on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in the early morning US central time. Redditors are most active on Monday mornings between 6am and 9am CST, so this is the ideal time to post. Because Reddit is primarily used in the United States, make sure to correlate these statistics with the time zone that you’re in. When in doubt, you can always double check on r/listentothis to see how many members are online when you post.
6. What NOT to do on r/listentothis
Because Reddit is a site moderated by its users, there is a certain etiquette that must be followed to remain on the platform. As stated earlier, self promotion is not tolerated on r/listentothis, but also on Reddit in general. There are subreddits where self promotion is allowed, but overall, Reddit functions as an open forum rather than showcase for personal gain. Do not spam the feed by posting multiple links in a row. Do not post twice in one day to r/listentothis. This leaves space for the other redditors and also improves the chances of your post being seen. As outlined in the guidelines, do not insult others in comments or use inappropriate speech. This should be obvious, but do not start fights with other redditors that disagree with you. Do not make comments void of any content just to post. For example, adding “lol” or “nice song” to a post is not adding anything to the discussion. Take your time and really engage in the community. Hopefully, you will discover cool new music in the process and be able to share your own influences and songs!
💡 If you want a global view of the different music communities of Reddit, check out our article on the topic.
To grow your audience and get in touch with professionals in the industry, send your music on Groover now!