You’re ready to get on a Spotify playlist, right? But how do you do it when you have no followers, no connections, and you don’t know the first thing about how to make it happen.
I’m the queen of trying to find loopholes when everyone else says it can’t be done. Official Spotify playlist curators are unbelievably elusive and well guarded. They are also not the only way to make your way onto a playlist.
Below are five ways to get your song onto a Spotify playlist starting with two that essentially have no barriers and ending with the official playlists that require more strategy and savvy.
The easiest way to get on a playlist is to simply make your own. It may seem a little bold to create a playlist with your music, but you have to start somewhere, right? By creating your own playlist you’ll have control over what bands you’d like to be aligned with, branding of your band and you’ll have the ability to create a framework for your sound. When creating a playlist, make sure it has a minimum of 20 songs with no artist repeating in the playlist to increase the chances of Spotify aggregators finding the playlist you’ve created.
This is a great way to create alliances with other bands, your fans, or people in the industry to create another layer of engagement. Essentially, you give power to the people to add songs to the playlist. By giving others a vested interest, it increases the chances of additional promotion of the playlist whether with a fan, band or industry person. In the case of the fans, it gives you an idea of the style of bands they gravitate toward. Anyone who has access to your playlist can add songs, delete songs or change the order so make sure you only share the link with people you trust if you are more protective. Once you’ve created a playlist, to make it collaborative simply click on the … next to the play button and select “Collaborative Playlist.” The share the link with your friends, other bands or your fans.
This is a bit more elusive, but can be another step up to securing a spot on an official playlist. User playlists are curated by regular music listeners, blogs, and any other variation of companies who create playlists. For instance, Green Light Go has several curated playlists revolving around the genres we represent. These included Indie Folks, Indie Rocks and Follow the Folk.
Branded playlists are playlists that are created by companies who utilize Spotify as a marketing tool for their brand. At Green Light Go we create fan profiles for all of our clients and branded playlists are a great way to tap into the profile we created. For instance, let’s say we’re working with a band where we’ve determined their fan shops at Anthropologie. We could then look at what Anthropolgie playlists could be a good pitch for the band we’re representing. In April of this year, Spotify created a new program where brands could sponsor official Spotify curated playlists.
These are the holy grail of playlists - the ones that are official Spotify playlists curated by Spotify employees. The number of followers can range from a couple thousand to a couple million. Obviously, this is the most ideal situation, but it’s also rarely the first step in the process. You’ll need to make sure you have a few basic things in place first. Most importantly, get verified on Spotify to give credibility. Second, work on increasing your followers and plays which helps with Spotify’s aggregators. Lastly, work on the steps above by creating your own playlist, collaborative playlists or finding unofficial Spotify curators to get your music on a Spotify playlists. All of those things will begin to add up until they can’t help but pay attention.
Green Light Go: Create your own Spotify playlist or work with others to create a collaborative playlist.
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