One of the main ways to reach audiences on the green streaming service is by pitching Spotify playlist curators. Although many people know about pitching, not everyone understands what it is.
This piece will talk about tips and tricks for promoting on Spotify, as well as the technical basis of this process.
The Spotify streaming service was founded in 2006 in Sweden. Unlike dozens of other streaming services, Spotify was initially innovative and focused on the user experience. The company worked in depth with big data and studied in detail the consumer demand for music, created on this basis algorithms to collect the “ideal” playlists for user tastes. At the same time, the service introduced new features for the industry – weekly selections of new releases, recommendations of releases, and much more.
The recommendations are difficult to use on their own – they are driven by algorithms. But the playlist creation is much more interesting because any musician can access it by using one of the distributors and getting a Spotify For Artists account.
One of the easiest ways to promote music on Spotify is with the SUBMISSION FORM / suggestion form. This is a great option for aspiring artists. For example, the popular New Music Friday program on BBC Radio 1 is guided exactly by Spotify charts when preparing its releases. The best part is that you can even send tracks that aren’t in the streaming service’s charts via the suggestion form.
To send music to playlists on the Spotify for artists you need to:
You can only submit one song from one account. The track should have all metadata filled in (the more metadata, the higher chance it will be added to the playlist). Moreover, if the track has already been released on Spotify, you can’t use the suggestion form — Spotify will detect the re-release. In order to send more tracks, we recommend using pitching services like SoundCampaign Music Pitching Platform. Thanks to it, you can find a popular curator with playlists matching the genre and mood of your music.
It is better to send a track to the playlists a month before release. A lot depends on the distributor here: if he uploads a track a couple of days in advance, the playlist editor won’t have time to think – by the time he decides, the track will have already appeared on Spotify.
Metadata plays a huge role in this pitching success, but the most important field is song description. Playlist editors expect to see information about the track that explains why the song should be on the curated playlist.
So, if the description catches on, the song is very likely to make the curated playlist, which means Spotify’s playlist curator pitching is a success. Getting on the pick is not only important in and of itself: followers will see the release on the daily Release Radar playlist. This is where a well-designed profile comes in handy — listeners will not only listen to you but also follow to the artist’s page. The next thing you do is follow the chain: more followers, more hits on Release Radar, more hits on Discover Weekly and Top Recommendations, and so on.
There are also times when a formalized artist’s profile isn’t enough. Getting people to follow you isn’t easy, even with all the information on the artist’s page. It’s hard to understand what prevents people from following, but you may use a kind of barter system: performers offer to follow in exchange for something. More often than not, it’s the distribution of merch, concert tickets, or other pleasures.
In addition to sending music directly to curators, there is another mechanism for getting into playlists – the pre-sale of a track. Spotify’s algorithms keep track of new pre-sales, taking this moment as a signal that users need to listen to your music as soon as possible. The service automatically drops the track into a series of playlists and collects listener reaction, and if it’s positive (it means the track is cool), it tries to promote the music even more by expanding its presence in the playlists.
You can make a pre-sale of a track through your distributor by getting a pre-save link from him. This link should be distributed to all the channels on social networks, giving out as many listeners as possible. Each click will be a signal to Spotify that there’s interest in the track, which means it needs help with distribution after release. A good way to increase reach and conversions is to make a video in which you mention the pre-sale link at the beginning, put it in the description and motivate users to click on it (again, by exchange for something).
