A New User’s Smule Guide
J_Thomas is well known in the Smule community for his fun personality and creative videos! Based on his experiences in Smule he decided to put together a Smule guide for new users on Singtopia and even created a parody video about it! Read more below:
So I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about the app on some of my joins so I decided to just make sort of a “New User’s Smule guide ” post that might help answer common questions, and I’m sure others will chime in, but I figured I’d get it started.
1) Probably the most-asked question is “How do I get more followers on Smule?”
While many think that being featured or having your songs on the performance chart is the only way to go, I beg to differ. It depends more on how much time you spend on the app. My first year on the app I averaged singing about 10 songs a day, but it’s also about interacting with people too. If you want people to follow you, give them a reason. LISTEN to all your joins and comment on them. Make sure you have Open Calls for people to join! The best way to get followers is to just simply SING! Soon you’ll find yourself in a little circle of Smule friends which somehow grows exponentially as time passes.
2) “How do I get featured or songs on the charts?”
As far as being featured, there are a few great outlets for that. Laura Reeves hosts a Smule Idol every week that gives singers an opportunity to be featured, and it’s open to anyone.
Think of being featured as an added bonus. YouTube can’t make your cat video viral just because you want them to! 🙂 And the same applies here. Just remember there are not only thousands of active users like us, there are millions of Smule users! There’s just not enough time or space to feature everyone.
3) Smule etiquette
While we all have our own definitions of Smule etiquette, these are probably the most common and somewhat expected:
a) Listen to your joins! I know I’ve been guilty before when I get overwhelmed and I miss songs, but if you have too many then you might want to cut back on open calls or close your songs earlier. Does this mean listen to every note and every second? No. That would be impossible (unless Smule is your full-time job). What I like to do is skip past my parts and catch my duet partner’s parts.
b) Comment something. Even if it’s an emoji to show you were there! You don’t have to be elaborate, but they just took five minutes of their life to join you, so something is better than nothing. As far as joining someone else, I actually comment on every song I join as soon as I’m finished. You can’t expect someone to comment on a song you joined if you didn’t leave a comment in the first place.
c) Obviously don’t leave rude comments. If you see them on your songs, don’t try to start a war – there is a delete comment option, and that’s why it’s there. Be the bigger person, even though sometimes they might not deserve it. As a matter of fact, you can block users now too, so if the problem persists, one push of a button and poof! They vanish. You’ll find that the Smule community is extremely protective, and none of us will stand for that.
4) “How do I join a group?”
There is an ENORMOUS community inside the app filled with probably hundreds of groups by now. Groups are a great way for new users to get involved and get to know people quickly. It’s very common to bounce around from group to group and it’s not really frowned upon, it’s more important you find the best fit for you. I’ve been in a few real groups and even some fake ones and it really helped when I first joined the app. Groups have various ways of joining – some have auditions and some just ask you to join. Each group has their own set of rules, and if you’re interested in a certain group, find someone in that group on the app and comment on one of their songs about how to join. They’ll let you know what to do.
The important thing to remember here is regardless of our groups, countries, languages, or even tastes in music, we all have a respect for each other and we love what this app has given us, whether that be a distraction from real life or a way to express our creativity. We might not always have the same opinions about how the app should work, but at the end of the day we all go back to it and sing. And that’s our commonality. We all LOVE to sing! If we didn’t we wouldn’t be here! I hope as a new user you continue to ask questions here in Singtopia because that’s why it’s here! Someone here has the answer! (Or Maria will die trying to get it for you ;))
I hope this helped answer some questions! Happy singing!
