Soundcloud Responds to A Crippling Hacking Strike, In Their Own Words Using Soundcloud #PRNightmare

Soundcloud , the extremely popular social web platform for musicians and DJ’s to share their music with the masses, got hit with a hacker attack which put the website down for an entire day. As Facebook and other social mediums blew up with different theories from users on why the site was down, when Soundcloud regained its functionality the company used their own platform to answer the cries of users with their own voice.

In addition to an email communication that was sent their user base the Soundcloud executive team posted this audio file to provide a very sincere message to their users: http://soundcloud.com/alex/thanks-and-were-sorry-at/s-4SBID

While I often use Soundcloud to listen to sets from my favorite DJ’s, I never thought about using it for recorded communications on company news and announcements. Because the platform has a built in comments features, users can provide their thoughts throughout the timeline of the recording providing organizations with valuable insights and feedback.

It got me thinking this is an interesting way to add some additional color to press releases and/or outbound communications when video isn’t an option and engage customers and users in conversations. (Note: with any recording, video or audio, to improve SEO the file should also be transcribed and posted somewhere on the company’s site.)

Turning this potential PR nightmare into on opportunity for showing how their platform works, the Soundcloud team has inspired me to consider their platform as an option for my clients to tell their story in their own words. It also reminded me how important it is for tech companies to user their own tools, whenever possible for communicating with the public and media.