Its no secret that here in the PIAS Digital Marketing team we are big fans of Soundcloud. It drives our players on all the PIAS Group websites, and has played a key role in our campaigns for New Young Pony Club, Dan le Sac VS Scroobius Pip and We Are Scientists among others. As a promo tool you can use it privately share audio. As a consumer-facing tool it can be used to provide shareable players for fans to embed on Facebook, blogs or wherever they like. With the Dropbox function you are well set to run remix contests too, offering up the stems via a player, then inviting fans to upload their remixes to you once done. Hell, you can even create a Soundcloud Group, so that all remixes uploaded are shared among fans to listen to and vote on.

One thing I have found though is that people don’t realise just how much is possible with Soundcloud. Over at their blog though, Dave Haynes and other Soundcloud team members have posted a number of excellent practical guides, and so I thought I would summarise them and link to them here so you can take a read and hopefully improve your own use of this excellent platform.

#1: “What you always wanted to know about Privately Sharing your music (and weren’t afraid to ask)”
Surprisingly few people seem to be aware that Soundcloud can be a very powerful tool for privately sharing audio (such as promos of your latest release) to key recipients. This then is a simple guide to privately sharing audio, explaining how users will receive audio, how they listen etc.

#2: “How to send digital promos via email using the ‘secret link’”
An excellent summary of how you can use the private settings on tracks and sets to utilise Soundcloud as a promo tool for DJs, journalists or other interested parties. This goes beyond the first article above, outlining how you can privately embed a player and even combine it with a password-protected page and a Google form to collect feedback from your recipients.

#3: “How to Integrate a Secret Widget into a Promo Page”
This outlines one frequently missed capability of Soundcloud; namely the means to mark a set as Private and yet still create a widget for embedding. If, for example, you have a blog looking to run an exclusive on your new release, this will provide and excellent means for them to embed a good-looking player that nobody else has access to – and for you it means you can see exactly how many plays tracks received, where from, over what period etc etc.

#4: “5+1 Easy Steps To Set Up Your Remix Competition With SoundCloud”
As many artists will attest, remix contests can be an excellent way to interact with your fans and generate interest and publicity around a release. The above guide is the definitive guide on using Soundcloud to deliver this – something we are doing to great effect at present with Dan le Sac VS Scroobius Pip.

#5: “Hacking the SoundCloud player (part 1)”
This gem of an article from Dave Haynes outlines the hidden secrets of the Soundcloud player, such as using parameter switches to change the wording of the “Buy” button, for example. For us this has been a goldmine of info, allowing us to subvert that Buy button link into other uses, as well as giving us the knowledge to post more impressive 2×1 artwork players. These are the tricks that can separate you from others – learn them well!

I hope those prove useful. Got any other Soundcloud tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 10th, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Articles & Analysis, Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.