We love how the rise of streaming services made access to music incredible easy. In this brave new streaming-world playlists are the most powerful tool to push your stream-count and increase your fanbase. So obviously, playlist marketing should be a huge cornerstone of your marketing plan.
The sheer amount of playlists out there is a bit overwhelming though. Here are a few pointers that will help you to step up your playlist game – especially if you’re just starting to promote your music to playlist curators.
Become legit
Verifying your profile adds some bonus features. Depending on your preferred streaming service you’ll be able to:
– Create and add playlists directly to your artist profile
– Brand these playlists
– Get in touch with your followers and fans directly on the service
Having a verified profile isn’t a privilege to major label signed artists. It is available to all.
Spotify Verification
Apple Music Verification
Work your playlist
After you successfully verified your artist profile, start your playlist journey with your own artist-playlist.
An artist-owned playlist is a great tool to build a relationship with your fans or fellow artists. You should use your own playlists to promote upcoming releases (put songs that inspire your music in the playlist) or to show your fans which music you like to listen to when you’re on the road or working out – be creative and always mix a few of your own tracks into the playlist.
Work the playlist like you work social media content: Share it, tag fellow artists that you put into the playlist and encourage your fans to listen to it. Even promote it.
Use Spotify Codes in a smart way – we wrote a whole article about that. Find it here.
This is not only going to increase your stream-count but you’ll also gain followers on your profile, which is always a good thing (but especially comes in handy in this case as you’ll see later in this post)
Streaming services = social media services
Most streaming platforms have a lot of similarities with social media platforms, users are able to follow artist and will then receive notifications when a new release comes out. Work your profile and increase your platform reach!
While Spotify relies on the artist to pull users in from other social networks , Apple has “Connect” (which basically is a full stack artist social network) as a part of Apple Music.
By default, Spotify pulls artist data from the ROVI database. Make sure you add your latest bio and pics there so your fans have the best experience when they visit your profile.
Although it’s all about the music playlist curators will have a look on your artist-profile. If you have an active profile with a decent amount of followers your chances of getting your track added to their playlists increases.
Get in touch with the right tastemaker for your music
A lot of blogs, radio stations and other tastemakers are running playlists these days – so take your time and research playlists that would benefit from your music. Don’t try to push your music into playlists just because they’re big.
Browse through genre sections on your streaming service to find out which playlist curators are active in your genre.
Although the sweet deal would be to get picked up from Spotify’s or Apple Music’s very own editorial team, additions to smaller, local playlists will pave the way for that. A successful streaming strategy definitely needs one thing: patience.
Always keep in mind that the people who run playlists put a lot of time and effort into curating them. Find out who they are (Google is your friend) and how they prefer to be contacted. You can also target influencers and tastemakers with Facebook campaigns – here’s a helpful influencer-targeting-guide.
If you finally make your move, provide all the information they need well in advance of the release – but at least:
– a promo link to your upcoming release
– the exact date when the release will go live on the streaming service
– basic information about you as an artist and your marketing plan
If you made it into the playlist, spread the love by sharing it on your profiles!
We hope this short guide for playlist-marketing-starters was helpful. Let us know if you have a different approach.
We’re working on an exciting new analytics app. Head to ForTunes.io and leave your e-mail address, we’ll be in touch soon.
Photocredit: Spotify
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