If you’re a DJ or creator who uses Mixcloud, you’ll notice that we have a lot of unique genre tags for you to categorize your mix, radio show or live stream. With so many music scenes around the world and new sounds constantly emerging, tags are our way of highlighting this variety. Picking the right genre tag comes with many benefits. You can let listeners know what you’re playing and stand a chance of ranking on our Mixcloud charts.
But how do you know which tags to pick? And what might it mean for your shows? In this article, we share some advice on what to consider before you pick the right tags.
But first, how do you tag your shows?
When you’re ready to upload a mix, make a note of the genres you’ve played. After you’ve named your mix, you’ll be prompted to add up to five genre tags. Once you type in the tag you’re after, you’ll see a drop down menu of suggested genres.
Pick the tags that best represents your show
In essence, you need to have a good idea of the music you play to then be able to tag your shows. It’s important that the tags should always be representative of the music that your listeners will hear. Select as many accurate genre tags for each show as possible. This will maximize the chances of discoverability of your shows.
On a more technical level, tags make sure your content is filtered into the right categories. But also where your shows and live streams are discovered. For example, if you tag a show with only Jazz tunes as an Industrial show, the chances of the show being discovered and charting will be significantly lower. So, if you spin a lot of Afrobeats and want to reach more fans of the genre, make sure your tags are on point.
Use tags for large genres and smaller subgenres
With so many tags to choose from, get creative with the ones you choose. This will display the range of your shows but there’s also a method to picking tags for smaller genres. For a large genre, like Techno or Hip-Hop, the ‘discover’ page for that genre will get more traffic. But your show would be harder to hit the Charts. It’s worth noting that every genre on Mixcloud has its own ‘discover’ page.
Smaller genres generally attract less traffic, but it’s more likely you’ll do well in the Charts and be more visible to listeners and other creators. If you make a House show, pick House as a tag and then choose other more specific tags like Tech House, Deep House or Soulful House. Same goes for a genre like Rock and splinter sounds like Metal, Alternative and Progressive Rock. Utilise the five tag maximum and get more sounds to represent your show. In a sense, you’re covering your bases by picking a parent genre next to the smaller ones, and you can stand to rank in multiple Charts for each tag you use.
A quick breakdown of Mixcloud Charts
With over 1000 tags, we have built over 400 weekly charts. The charts are for shows that are tagged with one or more of these 400 tags, meaning you have a chance of ranking for your show every week. As well as music genres, there are tags for topics such as ‘comedy,’ or the format of your show as a whole, like ‘vinyl only’ or ‘multi-genre’.
Where you rank depends on how much engagement your show has generated in the first week it’s posted. On Mixcloud, engagement is the most important metric. As well as plays, we look at:
- How long the average listener tunes in to your show
- How many favorites, comments and shares you get
- Which genres you’ve tagged your show with
This way, we’re not solely judging charts by how many plays you got. A show with five genre tags where people are listening all the way through, commenting and sharing right after it’s posted, will often be more discoverable than a show with higher play count because it’ll have much higher quality engagement. In other words, if you can attract long average listens and a lot of activity, these will boost your chances of ranking.
Find other creators using similar genres
It’s worth knowing who else is using the tags you plan to use for your shows. That way, you know who is contributing to the communities that exist within these genres. Not only that, but you can find inspiration from their approaches to their mixes. That can encourage you to find more tunes or take a different approach to mixing in your sets. What’s more, these DJs could be future collaborators of yours, that you can reach out to, start a dialogue with, share their shows and vice versa.
Search up the tags you use and check out the shows that appear. Along with the featured mixes and the Charts, there will be hundreds of shows to choose from that you can filter by most popular and recent uploads.
When searching, you can also observe other creators’ approaches; are they using one or multiple tags? Are they getting a lot of engagement? What is the time duration of a show? All of this can influence your approach not only to picking tags but to making your next show as great as it can be.
Happy tagging!
Our tags are just part of our mission to make sure every sound and scene is acknowledged and appreciated on Mixcloud. Making use of them will place you in a strong position to have your shows heard by more people around the world. In the process, you can find inspiration from other DJs in the same genre space for your next show and beyond. So, with the right tags, a whole new world of music and communication awaits!