Why Soundcloud Sucks for Artists

As a blogger and music fan I love SoundCloud. But if I were an artist, I wouldn’t spend very much time building on the platform.

1.) Lack of Exposure

Engaging with any type of content whether it’s music, video or blogs takes time. So we want it curated for us where we trust the source. There’s no real homepage for Soundcloud where the top songs are promoted. Imagine if your song got played 5,000 times in an hour? It should be on a rising or upcoming chart, but this doesn’t exist.

Soundcloud also has a smaller user base (20 million+) than other sites like Youtube. While it does show up in the search engines, it doesn’t carry the same markup as a video does. People like clicking on images in Google.

2.) No Royalties

Okay this won’t be you, but it will be better

There aren’t any ways of getting paid for your Soundcloud plays other than directing someone to your buy link. I’m sure the conversion rate there is horrible. On other platforms like Youtube, you can be paid by advertisers while also growing your following. Spotify and Pandora pay royalties as well.

Why do you think Daft Punk doesn’t have a Soundcloud page?

3.) Limited Profiles

As an artist, there’s more than just the music. You have shows, merchandise, highlight videos, updates and other things you need to share with your audience to develop a loyal following. With Soundcloud you’re limited to uploading music or podcasts. There’s no way to broadcast your tour dates like you can in a Facebook update or video blog. It’s odd that Soundcloud would prefer to take the user off site for that interaction.

4.) No Video

If Vine and Instagram have taught us anything, it’s that the rush for mobile video dominance is here. Soundcloud’s app works well for music, but doesn’t have any way to integrate videos or other types of content.

Things like live streaming performances from a mobile device will become a regular occurrence for artists soon and they need a platform where it can be shared. Right now it’s Instagram or Vine. Maybe soon it will be Google Glass.

5.) Commenting is broken

Soundcloud’s commenting system is broken because in no way does it facilitate discussion about the music. If you take the time to write something insightful, witty or outright stupid, the community cannot do anything to show it was really good or terrible.

When someone likes our post on Facebook, thumbs up on Youtube or upvotes on Reddit, it’s like a small reward. It encourages you to do it again. This is a behavior and routine that we’re used to on social networks, but there’s no reward on Soundcloud if you’re just a listener. Without rewards, engagement is decreased significantly and there isn’t an incentive for listeners to be an active user.

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At the moment Soundcloud is the best community for sharing music. However the platform will need to innovate in order to appease influential users, incorporate non-invasive sponsored campaigns and develop incentives or rewards for casual users.

Follow @ben_hebert | Soundcloud

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