Why Playlist Promotion Is Essential for Today's Musicians

For every musician, playlist promotion is the greatest way to go about to gain popularity in the music scene. This blog will explore tips to push the growth.

More than ever before, indie artists are pushing the envelope to rise above the noise, navigating discovery in the DSP era. The 10s of millions of tracks accessible through Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms begs a key question: How do you compete for attention in such a crowded space? It is sufficient to say, that playlist promotion has become the go-to answer. Spotify users now spend half their time listening to playlists they create themselves, are algorithmically generated, or are curated by tastemakers. A spot on a playlist with a large following can help boost a track beyond just organic growth. While there’s no surefire way to land on curated playlists, here are a few tips that might help.

Prioritize Your Social Presence: DSP editorial teams and third-party curators generally pay attention to your audience engagement across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Artists with show-and-prove marketing drivers increase their odds of placement, as engagement reflects fandom both online and off. Importantly, social traction is relative. 200 likes per post isn’t breaking records, but it’s still impressive for an account with 500 followers.

Off-platform activity is integral, according to Nicki Shamel, Senior Director, of US Digital Sales & Account Management. The Editorial teams want to be part of the plan, not the only plan. Very few things are successful in isolation, which is why artists need to build their careers off-platform. Playlist promotion is an excellent way to expose your music, but it cannot be the only thing that drives consumption. 

Research (And Reach Out To) Blogs and Publications

Having a trusted blog back your sound is a vote of confidence that benefits you and your music in many ways. Blog and publication write-ups, reviews, and interviews can help raise your profile and increase exposure, especially since most articles include an embed of whichever tracks you’re promoting at the moment.

Additionally, the press can help drive followers to both your social and streaming profiles plus lead to ads on listeners’ playlists if they like what they hear. Hopefully, your first piece of coverage from a particular outlet will foster a relationship with that writer and lead to more press and exposure down the line. It’s good to note that respectful outreach and diligent research go a long way, not every song is a perfect fit for every blog, and not every writer has the same taste. 

Optimize Your Profile 

In general, make sure you’re keeping your streaming profiles up to date with the most current and relevant info about the latest releases, live dates, and anything else that might catch curators’ eyes. The key here is to make sure you’re always active and that your profiles convey that. You can start cost-free optimization by these three things: 

Get Verified: You need to make sure that your streaming profiles are verified as it is a crucial part of establishing your presence as an artist on major music streaming platforms. 

Attract More Followers

Just like you work on increasing your social following, you also want to grow your streaming audience. Try these tactics:

    • Ask fans to follow your artist profile on Spotify and Apple Music along with your socials. Follower counts are important to streaming services because they see it as a potential to connect new listeners to the service.

    • Make sure your website and socials point back to your content on DSPs. Showing your support to these business partners is an important way of doing your part in marketing your music.

Create Your Own Playlist 

While you’re angling to get onto playlists, start creating a few of your own. It’s a great way to showcase musical tastes. Curation additionally; 

    • shows the DSPs that you, yourself, are invested in crafting content on their platforms

    • provides your fans (and you!) with shareable, listenable content that’s easy to post each time you update

    • introduces new listeners to your music via genre-based playlists that include your tracks 

Help User-Curated Tastemakers Find You 

Curated playlists are created by tastemakers who aren’t among a DSP’s in-house playlisting team. Examples include independent, third-party playlisters with a high number of followers whose playlists the DSPs consider trusted sources for new, emerging music. Reach out directly to a tastemaker by first following them on major music streaming platforms and then sharing your track with them. Include a note asking if they will consider adding your track to their influential playlist. Whether or not they read your note or — the ultimate goal — add your track depends largely on their taste (is your music aligned with what they like and playlist?) and is influenced by your social presence. If you have a sizable fanbase, offering to share that tastemaker’s playlist with your fans and followers can, in many cases, help close the deal.

Promotion Companies 

The best way for your playlist promotion is to ask for the guidance of the promotion companies which guarantees authentic fanbase growth and heavy web traffic. These promotion companies are packed with experts and marketers who have the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to the promotion of your music. Their curated packages which include paid PR writings, music blogs, articles, exclusive interviews, and artist reviews are not only affordable but also suit the needs of every individual artist. The deep-rooted connection and bonds of the marketers of these companies with the well-established personalities of the industry is also something a newcomer lacks. So, the safest way to deal with promotion is to hand over the responsibility to the big giants of the market. 

Getting your name out there is one of the most important things to put an effort into as a booming artist in the music industry. Playlist promotion through effective ways to get the reach your art deserves is a matter of great importance so apply these tips and see yourself becoming a global star.