Between updating their subscription plans and experimenting with more visual profiles (still in early beta), SoundCloud has been on fire lately. ComScore even recently reported that their traffic increased by 26% in one month, making SoundCloud the 8th fastest growing site in the U.S. Though it’s certainly evolved since its launch in Berlin in 2008, SoundCloud has retained an attractive simplicity that makes for a winning platform all-around.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, SoundCloud is an online platform that allows you to listen to, share and create sounds — from music, to commentary, to podcasts… essentially anything that can be recorded and heard. Unsurprisingly, it’s taken on an increased importance in the music world and has become a space to premiere new tracks — press outlets often embed SoundCloud players on their sites — share works in progress — safely, thanks to the secret link feature — and generate buzz around a new or upcoming release, be it through sets (SoundCloud playlists), free downloads, or other engaging content.
Being such an influential audio service, SoundCloud obviously takes its copyright policy seriously. New uploads are put through a rigorous screen to make sure that all content adheres to copyright regulations. In order to help ensure that everybody’s rights are respected, SoundCloud uses a well-established and market-leading third party content ID system to help identify and block known copyright works from appearing on their platform. As a result, you may have gotten a copyright notification email while trying to upload one of your very own songs… This could happen if someone else has uploaded the song before you, for instance if you’re uploading a track to your artist profile that your label has already put up. In these cases, where you’re obviously not violating any copyrights, you could benefit from getting your profile whitelisted, so your tracks don’t get blocked while uploading.
If you’re an Orchard client, you’re in luck. In partnership with SoundCloud, we’ve updated our Marketplace app so that any track you upload using the app automatically gets whitelisted. If you don’t have access to Marketplace, you can still get your account whitelisted by shooting an email over to your client rep. We’ll take care of you.
In addition, we worked with the folks at SoundCloud to secure an exclusive 20% discount on upgrades to SoundCloud Pro Unlimited accounts for all our clients, giving you access to advanced features like more detailed analytics and further audio storage. For instructions on how to get your individual discount code, check your inbox for our Client Newsletter dated May 28.
And if you’re not ready to upgrade just yet, as a special bonus for using SoundCloud through Marketplace, you’ll still gain access to exclusive Partner Tools: geo-blocking, which will automatically be added when your profile is whitelisted, domain locking, which you can access via this link, and scheduling (coming soon!). These features give you increased control on your sounds and help to better target your impact, so take advantage!
To find out about these tools and more, take in this amazing SoundCloud/The Orchard Label Guide our teams have put together for you. In it, you’ll find everything you need to know about SoundCloud, how to install our SoundCloud Connect Marketplace app, and the amazing features you’ll find on the platform, plus tips on how to use them. I recommend checking out how to optimize your tracks (page 5), which widget to use on your website depending on your needs (page 9) and how to make the most of your analytics (page 15). Other useful resources are the SoundCheck Blog and Newsletter, to which you can sign up here.