Interesting ideas! I've been growing a podcast/syndicated radio show on SoundCloud for house/techno for nearing 5 years. Initially I was one of those jackasses that gained followers by following others. That tactic is mostly pointless these days but years ago even though it was rather annoying, it worked. One of the things I did was find a fellow DJ with a very similar sound to me, then go through their follower list adding their fans. I have found, just in my personal experience, that targeting LISTENERS is paramount.

One thing I see often is artists trying to garner approval from other artists. It's great for community-building but doesn't seem to build large followings. Reposts are, of course, important but another thing I found helpful was adding a guest mix portion of the show and getting that guest artist to repost the episode as well. With smaller artists this impact is minimal, but as I have grown the show the guests have had larger and larger followings. This has a huge impact on play counts, reposts, and downloads. So much so that my play counts have doubled year over year since I started. To sustain that growth I have to have 500,000 plays in 2017. It's looking like I can hit that. My approach has been, instead of asking other artists to merely repost, showcase their work directly on my channel... I've been surprised by how easy it is to build momentum by targeting smaller-followed artists, to mid, then to large and work my way up. My first post on SteemIt, I put up a back episode of my show with Nick Warren. He has 83,000 followers. His repost has pushed that episode over 25,000 plays!

Probably my biggest mistake over all these years was allowing people to download my sets and shows "for free." I currently use a download wall plugin that requires listeners to follow me and repost the track if they want to download it. To be honest, downloads have dropped off dramatically BUT I retain followers much better this way. Through this method alone I've been adding about 10 followers per day and have only used it for a month. The site I use is https://theartistunion.com/ I do not pay for any of there promotional services, the download wall is service they offer for free.

Looking back on my response, my method isn't exactly based on generosity, but it has been very effective, I'm over 8,000 followers and more than half of those have been in the last year. I don't spend hours sending out messages asking for reposts, I barely post on Facebook or Twitter about the shows... it may not work for everyone, but it's working for me. www.soundcloud.com/brian-bacchus