Trying to find Soundcloud promotion that isn’t either completely useless or gained via overworked reposting networks is a tough gig. Fake plays, bot accounts, scripted comments and obviously falsely boosted numbers have become all too common on the platform and for many people that see through that, have lost interest. The facts are clear though, Soundcloud is still one of the most popular streaming platforms, especially for more specialist genres outside the Pop realm.
The guys at POWERhouse, a new platform that enables cutting edge targeting and reach campaigns on the platform reached out and invited us to test drive their new setup. Their promo setup uses algorithms that are able to detect bot-generated followings and as a result, cut through the problems that most Soundcloud promo services have. We’ve used repost sharing and other similar promotions before, but POWERhouse is offering something different and totally organic.
POWERhouse Soundcloud Promo was a natural extension from a group that already boast one of the most effective promo networks in the business. Through years of experience working every job imaginable in the music industry, our team now boasts a collective experience of over 50 years in this line of work. Although we mastered the PR domain and launched a tastemaker DJ promotions service, both of which are now among the most popular in the industry – we’d always been confused by the mystery, dishonesty and tricks that made “Soundcloud promotions” a dirty word in the industry.
Setting Up
Getting things started was a simple process, we submitted details that allowed POWERhouse to put together a bespoke campaign for our track. We were able to zoom in on our target market and set the promotion up so that we were only arriving into a reach of listeners that are interested in the genres we’re working with. This already was a surprising upgrade on other services we’ve tried as we’ve never seen a tool that is capable of overseeing where the reach of a promo came from.
We filled in the submission form and within 24 hours, the promotion was up and running. We had a demo of their 250,000 reach option which as the name suggests, is a campaign that results in other artists, labels, influencers and networks sharing our track. The key difference here is that we were able to get around fake followers. What POWERhouse can do is show that if for example an account has 2000 followers but the algorithm detects that 1500 if them are fake, only 500 of our reach number comes out of our budget. This is a huge upgrade on other services as with some platforms all it takes is a few reposts from artificially boosted accounts and that reach would have been fulfilled without any real traction.
Up & Running
A few days into the campaign, we were not in any doubt that things were progressing well. It was refreshing to be able to be absolutely certain that the plays, likes, comments, reposts and new followers were coming from real accounts. It’s completely transparent and we looked through every interaction and saw a clear pattern that the results were organic. The traction was coming from accounts with everything from under 100 followers right up to a few with tens of thousands, but they were all clearly real and you could see the obvious patterns. If for example we got a support from a larger account, you can track the peaks and surges of movement in a natural way. There was also a very strong ratio of comments or other actions per play compared to previously tested services. We were more used to seeing tens of thousands of plays and no real traction on other setups but this is clearly a human project.
You can detect a bot promotion through looking at the accounts interacting. They generally have 0 to 20 followers, no profile image or one that looks out of place and no uploads. The promo with POWERhouse was delivering a substantial improvement on what we’d usually receive from our current following.
The guys at POWERhouse explained to us how the majority of these cheap and fake reach campaigns work with the majority of available online promotions available out there. Much like POWERhouse, they’d say that they will promote to a 250,000 reach, but what happens is that the reposts come from accounts with fake followings and then the illusion is completed by adding fake plays from bot accounts. This gives the false picture of growth but in reality, nothing comes from these services as no human ears have actually heard your tracks. Digging into the insights on POWERhouse’s promotions, it was clear and obvious that the movement was organic and real. We we’re getting PMs from artists interested in working with the project, remix requests and comments that were detailed and obviously coming from a true source. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is the most beneficial promotion service we’ve come across for Soundcloud.
Summary
On completion of the campaign just 10 days later we had already hit out 250,000 reach. We had well over 100 new comments, a bunch of new followers that were interacting and we could trace the reach beyond that into things like social media shares from new listeners and mentions across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
A big thanks to the guys at POWERhouse, we’re totally impressed with their platform and will be using them for our projects moving forward. Bravo!
You can check POWERhouse out at http://www.powerhousepromo.co.uk
