Think of your music as an independent restaurant, and your followers as regular customers.
An independent restaurant can’t believe first-time customers or out-of-town tourists to stay it alive; if they did, any slow months (or global pandemics) would really take a toll on the business. Instead, a restaurant’s goal is to make loyal customers: people that know the waiters’ names, and follow the Instagram page, and are the primary to undertake new menu items once they debut. Those regulars then act as a real-life algorithm, designed to stay the restaurant in business, and steadily convert new customers into more regulars over time.
In the same way, you can’t believe week-long playlist placements (even on Spotify’s editorial playlists, which I’ll mention later) to drive your streams and grow your audience. Instead, you ought to be finding ways to urge people to concentrate to your music repeatedly, add it to their own libraries, and tell people about you. it'd seem counterintuitive, but high streaming numbers aren't the top goal; consistent streaming numbers are. And followers are the sole source of consistent streaming numbers.
So, thereupon in mind, here are the simplest ways to urge Spotify followers in 2021.
1. Do research to know the platform.
The fact that you’re reading this tells me that you’re willing to try to to a minimum of a touch little bit of research to grow your Spotify presence. That’s good. Keep doing that.
I’ve been using Spotify as an artist and a listener for about five years now, so i'm a minimum of partially qualified to talk on the topic . However, only Spotify employees can really enter detail about the ins and outs of how their platform works. So, once I say “do your research,” i'm mostly pertaining to Spotify’s own cornucopia of articles and videos that cover everything you'd ever want to understand about how it all works.
They have plenty of stuff. Artists mention the simplest advice they’ve ever received. Playlisters mention how their process works, and canopy best practices for getting your music placed with their editorial team. And Spotify employees mention new features and methods for using them. Plus it’s all really satisfyingly branded.
Honestly, there’s an excessive amount of gold on their site to offer you any kind of direction. Just do some digging about topics that apply and appeal to you. Understanding the platform is that the initiative in using it well.
2. Use playlists, but use them the proper way.
This is where most artists fail . They specialise in pay-to-play and editorial playlists.
Pay-to-play playlists are made by users who have garnered an outsized audience. you'll pitch to their creators directly, or through playlisting services. Either way, it probably will cost money. And though the pay-to-play model isn’t necessarily bad, the playlists are general and not curated for specific listeners, so there’s no guarantee that the people that hear your music will love it . due to that, the conversion rate for brand spanking new listeners to followers is low.
Editorial playlists are playlists that employees of Spotify personally curate, and are updated regularly. While those playlists generate tons of streams, it’s really hard to urge on them, and placements don’t last very long ago new music is prioritized. And, a bit like pay-to-play playlists, since they’re not curated for specific listeners, the conversion rate for brand spanking new listeners to followers is low.
As I said before, playlist streams are like new customers at a restaurant. While it’s great to possess business of any kind, they don’t mean much for long-term growth and real-world success unless they translate into regular customers, which Spotify calls followers.
While aged an article or pay-to-play playlist is flashy and straightforward to brag about, the reality is that the lion’s share of listens, even for major artists, comes from two other things:
Users’ collections, which they generate themselves by actively choosing to make playlists and save specific songs
Users’ personal algorithmic playlists, which are generated by Spotify and dictated largely by what's in their collections
A user’s collection is actually their virtual rolodex of music they hear regularly. once they discover new music they like, they will take three actions on Spotify to form sure they don’t ditch it: reserve it to their library, add it to their personal playlists, and follow the artist’s page.
Algorithmic playlists are generated mostly using the info from a user’s library, personal playlists, and followed artists. There are a couple of sorts of algorithmic playlists, which are automatically generated daily (like the six genre-based Daily Mixes), weekly (like Release Radar and find out Weekly), and seasonally (like Spotify Wrapped).
(Quick note: Spotify is that the world’s hottest streaming service for a reason. They’re scary-accurate at predicting what songs users want to listen to at any given time; that’s why their algorithmic playlists are so popular. They know what you would like , and may deliver it perfectly.)
In short, you would like algorithmic playlist placements quite editorial or pay-to-place playlist placements. I promise. and that i can prove it.
The two hottest algorithmic playlists are Release Radar and find out Weekly, which update on Friday and Monday, respectively, and obtain the foremost listens on those days. Here’s a glance at Taylor Swift’s streams last month:
Do you see the apparent wave-like pattern, correlated perfectly with the times of the week on which algorithmic playlists are updated?
Even for somebody as successful as T-Swizzle, streams are completely dictated by the times the Spotify algorithmic playlists refresh. Pretty crazy.
The good news is that Spotify features a tool for getting new releases guaranteed placements on some algorithmic playlists. you'll examine that here.
So to summarize, most pay-to-play playlists are fine for driving streams up momentarily, but won’t gain you followers, because those playlists weren't designed specifically for his or her listeners’ personal preferences like Spotify’s algorithmic playlists are. But, if you’re ready to specialise in the proper sorts of playlists, growth is of course exponential. The more algorithmic playlists you appear on, the more followers you'll gain; and therefore the more followers you gain, the more algorithmic playlists you'll appear on.
3. Get covered by non-playlist curators.
There are plenty of magazines, websites, and blogs out there that are willing to showcase your music. In fact, you’re on one.
A lot of artists lately , when they’re marketing their music, take a streaming-heavy approach, and pitch exclusively to playlisters so as to drive streams. We’ve already talked about why those playlists aren’t necessarily as helpful as they appear . But even the simplest playlist-focused approach could be missing out coverage that's potentially more meaningful.
Any music blog that’s been around for a couple of years has almost definitely built up a fanatical fanbase of music fans who trust their opinions. This amounts to a readership which will concentrate to all or any the new posts on a site, week in and week out. this is often definitely true for 2 Story Melody, and I’ve seen it firsthand with other coverage outlets I’ve been a neighborhood of. So, while a stream from a random playlist means somebody listened to your song for a minimum of thirty seconds, a way more meaningful connection is formed when somebody reads about your song.
Think of it as an easy function of your time and energy . Hearing a song takes up a touch time and almost no effort on the a part of the fan. However, reading a thoughtful article a few song takes longer and it takes effort on the a part of the fan. The longer and energy they provide , the more likely they're to feel a connection to what they heard or read. So inherently, curators that concentrate on articles, blog posts, and other things that take time and energy to consume generate more meaningful reference to fans.
Next time you run an email or SubmitHub campaign, try that specialize in curators which will spend time writing articles or blog posts about your music. Though it’s not necessarily possible to trace a readers-to-Spotify-followers conversion rate, you’re more likely to form some meaningful connections with people that will want to stay up together with your music. which will mean more followers.
4. Never go every week without a reminder to your fans.
Many folks are small independent artists who run our own media. It’s easy to overlook simple things, sort of a weekly reminder for your fans to follow you on Spotify.
You almost definitely have Instagram and Tik Tok accounts where fans can interact with you. you almost certainly have Twitter and Facebook accounts, too. But you would possibly be missing out on a couple of key ways to urge the word out about your music.
A common media outlet that gets overlooked by newer artists is email. Email newsletters inherently feel more personal, and that they are an excellent thanks to establish a weekly rhythm of keeping your most dedicated fans within the loop. Services like Drip and Mailchimp make it very easy to urge started on email marketing.
Another method that’s getting more and more popular among artists is text message marketing. Don’t worry; you don’t need to publicize your private telephone number . There are services (including one built right into DistroKid) which will generate a telephone number for you to send and receive texts from, without your fans intruding on your privacy. If you would like convincing, here’s a key statistic: text messages have a 98% open-rate, while only 2% of total followers see your social posts.
Whichever outlets you select to specialise in , the purpose is this: all of those are daily, weekly, and monthly points of contact between you and your ever-growing fanbase. Don’t waste that influence. Never let every week pass without posting, texting, or emailing a link to your Spotify page with a prompt to follow it. confirm to stress how quick and straightforward it's to hit the follow button, and make it as personal of a prompt as you'll , in order that your fans feel as if they’re in on the journey with you.
5. Use Spotify for Artists resources.
As I said earlier, the Spotify for Artists blog and video series are incredibly helpful. But don’t stop there. There are variety of other things Spotify for Artists can do for you to assist build your follower base.
First, they need branded, auto-generated graphics ready for you to post, which draw your fans to your Spotify in easy and funky ways. Promo cards are easy to form , and are perfect to send via social posts, emails, and text messages. and that they regularly have new versions of those throughout the year (example: the many year-end statistics cards you see from your artist friends in December).
Second, they create most of their features easily embeddable. you'll easily include a follow button, an internet player of a song, or a playlist you’re included in by browsing Spotify for Developers. This cuts out the middleman (a link), and it's way better.
Third, if you would like to form your own graphics for promoting your Spotify profile, they grant free access to all or any of their branding. Logos, fonts, and other icons are all liberal to download from the promotional section on their site. That way, you'll combine your own artistic vision with their undeniably recognizable graphics, so as to assist fans connect you to Spotify in their minds.
Last, the Spotify for Artists app and website have an absurd amount of statistics that assist you track who listens to your music, once they hear it, how they found it, and the way they interact with it. All of those stats are worth maintaining with, in order that you're familiar enough together with your audience to cater to them, then that you simply can track your growth whenever you implement a replacement strategy.
I encourage you to form good use of those tools if you haven’t already. Also, they’re always starting with new tools to form your music seem legit to current potential followers. As of the day I’m scripting this , Canvas is that the most up-to-date example.
Conclusion
So, to summarize:
It’s tempting to worry plenty about streaming numbers and not such a lot about followers. But professionally speaking, Spotify Streams are great, but Spotify followers are a way more significant metric for real-world payoff. Followers guarantee consistent streaming numbers, and represent real-life people that are fans of you and your music. (If you skipped to the present paragraph, return and skim the restaurant metaphor.)
Spotify is pretty transparent about the way they are doing things, so it’s important to read abreast of their model and familiarize yourself with all of the tools they provide you. On top of that, it’s important to specialise in their algorithmic playlists instead of editorial or user-made playlists, just because these are both a product of and how to grow your follower base.
Outside of Spotify’s own resources, there are many other tools to tug your listeners in and obtain them to follow you on the platform. Blogs, magazines, and websites (like this one) are all great ways to place your music during a context where new listeners will actually concentrate thereto , instead of just let it enter one ear and out the opposite . And once new listeners become fans, social media, email lists, and texting lists are all great ways to attach with them.
In the end, it’s so, so important to use Spotify as how to further your artistry and obtain people to concentrate thereto . And you and that i both know that your music is dope, and definitely worth listening to.
