How I used Spotify Playlists to turn 500 monthly listeners into 140k
3 min readLove it or hate it, Spotify is now one of the best ways to be discovered online. It has advanced algorithms which calculate your music taste and recommends what you probably like with astounding accuracy. As with any algorithm, the key to success is to learn how it works.
This post is guest authored by Justin Wilkerson, from Ocean Heights. He has recently employed these techniques with great success.
A little backstory, I’m a bedroom pop/indie hip hop artist, been releasing music for about 5 years now, taking it serious for maybe 3. Our last two singles have made it onto editorial Spotify playlists, taking us from coasting around 500 monthly listeners up to 140k as well as half a million streams on the first single.
I wanted to try to give some help to anybody not taking advantage of Spotify and show how with a bit of effort and not that much mula, you can hopefully make something happen.
If we look at Spotify’s website we can see how they want their playlists to work:
Key points include that Spotify want the best experience for the listener, and that the listeners don’t feel “promoted to”. This might be why Spotify is so loved, as you don’t feel like you are under constant marketing pressures from artists with tonnes of money.
Step 1.
Make good music, seems really obvious but is still not that obvious. I’m talking high quality masters and all that. You don’t have to break the bank to get a industry ready master. I pay about $100-150. But seriously get a few outside opinions if you need. Look at playlists that you would fit on and compare your audio quality.
Step 2.
Make a bunch of promo material IN ADVANCE. This is where you’re gonna have to use some creativity. I made videos ranging from comedy sketches to editing the songs into videos of Carlton from fresh prince dancing.
Anything I could think of that was entertaining but made the repost feel like more than just an annoying spam or a repeat post of the cover art. Share that on your Instagram and Facebook story, if you have pals ask them to share it on theirs.
If you have extra mula consider spending it on boosted Instagram posts. But basically you want to have a solid 2 weeks of material that you can post about every 2-3 days just reminding people about the song. Most importantly you want to ENCOURAGE LISTENERS TO ADD IT TO THEIR OWN PLAYLISTS.
Step 3.
This part is key and free, as many of you know Spotify has added the ability to submit your song for playlist consideration through the Artists platform. I recommend doing this AT LEAST 12 DAYS IN ADVANCE OF THE RECORD GOING PUBLIC. It takes these folks time to look through the music, and in my experience it takes them about 2-3 weeks to make any moves.
Step 4.
So once the song is released you want to be releasing your material, and encouraging fans to add it to their playlists. But here is where we kick it into overdrive. The Spotify algorithm notices songs that are doing well on playlists without Spotify’s help. Meaning you need to impress that algorithm organically before it will promote you. So here is where we spend some money on playlist promotion.
There are hundreds of services online that will pitch your music to different playlists (Submithub, Playlist Push, etc) find ones that fit your genre and your budget. Be very mindful of them too because some of those companies are pretty sketchy. But I’ll spend about $200 in total with all promo expenses combined (Instagram boosted posts, playlist promo services, FB boosted posts)
Step 5.
Watch that data! Hopefully you’ll be landing on a decent amount of playlists at this point. About a week into release we were on 120 listeners playlists organically before Spotify added us to Fresh Finds.
And Finally...
Don’t be discouraged if you’re not blessed by the beloved algorithm your first shot. I made a whole ass EP and multiple singles before we ever landed anything. Keep making music and help each other.
