In the age of digital music streaming services like Spotify, getting people to listen to your music is one of the most important things you can do for your music career and should be one of your main goals. But with so much competition in the music industry, getting your tracks heard can be a difficult task and it’s important to find ways to stand out and grab the attention of potential listeners on Spotify.
Here are some tips on how to get people to listen to your music on Spotify, which involves a combination of strategic marketing, promotion and engagement efforts.
1. Make your Spotify profile as attractive as possible
To stay on topic, let’s assume that you’ve already made sure that your music files meet Spotify’s requirements, that you’ve gone through a digital music distributor or aggregator such as DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby and Ditto Music to create an account and upload your music, and that now your only concern is to ensure that listeners find your track among the huge number of excellent tracks already on the streaming platform.
Before we talk about what you can do outside the platform to increase your stream count, you first need to make sure that your Spotify profile is complete and professional-looking. This includes a high-quality artist photo, a compelling bio and music library as well as links to your social media accounts and your own website.
And make sure you release new music regularly, as this can help keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. You can even post exclusive content on Spotify, such as bonus tracks, new music, acoustic versions of your songs or behind-the-scenes videos.
2. Consider playlists and collaborations
When it comes to playlists, you have two options. You can either submit your tracks to one of Spotify’s playlists, or create your own playlist.
For the first option, getting your music featured in popular Spotify playlists can significantly increase your visibility within the millions of songs available on the streaming service, and attract more listeners and music lovers. Take the time to research the best music and playlists that feature similar artists or genres and introduce your music to the curators. You can use tools like Spotify for Artists to submit your songs. There are also many independent playlists on Spotify that feature new and independent music, so contacting playlist curators and submitting your tracks can help attract new fans to your music.
Another thing you could do is go through a music promotion platform such as Groover to submit your music directly to Spotify playlist curators! This can save you a lot of time in the long run as you can pick and choose who to send your music to based on your goals, your genre, and your target audience. And on top of that, you have the guarantee of having your tracks listened to as well as receiving some feedback!
And if you prefer to take matters into your own hands, you can create a playlist that features your songs alongside other tracks by similar artists.
Similarly, collaborating with other artists, both on and off the platform, can help you expand your audience and reach new listeners who may not be familiar with your music. With this in mind, don’t hesitate to team up with influencers or other musicians in your genre on projects or feature each other’s songs on playlists.
3. Use targeted advertising campaigns
The next thing you can do directly on Spotify is to launch targeted advertising campaigns. Running targeted advertising campaigns on Spotify involves using Spotify Ad Studio, the platform’s self-service advertising platform. So, if you haven’t already done so, sign up for an account.
Spotify Ad Studio allows you to target your ads based on a variety of criteria, including demographics (age, gender, location), interests, listening behaviours and device type, so it’s up to you to define your target audience based on who you want to reach with your ad campaign.
The next step is to create the content for your ad. These can be audio ads (up to 30 seconds long) or display ads (visual ads that appear on the Spotify application).
Make sure your ad is engaging, relevant to your target audience and complies with Spotify’s advertising guidelines.
Now it’s important to determine your advertising budget and set the length and timing of your campaign. You can choose to run your ads continuously or specify specific dates and times for your campaign to run.
Submit your campaign for review and Spotify will check that your ad complies with our policies before it goes live. Once your campaign is live, monitor its performance using the analytics dashboard provided by Spotify Ad Studio.
Now, we’ve seen what you can do on the streaming platform itself to attract audiences to listen to your music, let’s look at what you can do outside the platform.
Having a strong online presence isn’t optional these days if you want to succeed as an artist. With that in mind, make sure you use social media platforms, your website and other online channels to promote your music by sharing links to your Spotify profile, playlist or individual songs, and encourage your followers to listen and share your music with their friends.
It’s also essential that you engage with your audience by responding to comments, sharing updates on new music releases or upcoming shows, behind-the-scenes content and previews of upcoming releases – with the aim of creating a sense of community around your music.
5. Consider getting your start on another platform
So many artists have made their debut on various social media platforms and music streaming services. And because video content is so popular these days, many have made their debut on TikTok with music videos, leading to millions of streams, if not more, on Spotify.
A great example is Stephen Sanchez who first built an audience on TikTok through a steady stream of content attracting over 122,000 followers.
Another great example is Lil Nas X who rose to fame in 2019 thanks to his smash hit “Old Town Road“. The song gained popularity on TikTok after users started incorporating it into their videos, creating a viral dance challenge called “Yeehaw Challenge.” This led to millions of user-generated videos and widespread exposure for the song. And today, the song has nearly a billion streams on Spotify.
Another great example is music artist JVKE who started by attracting an audience on his TikTok profile and today his single ‘Golden Hour’ has over a billion streams on Spotify. Why not have a look at his detailed social media strategy?
The truth is that because Spotify is so user-friendly and offers such a vast library of tracks, getting more exposure on another platform will inevitably lead to more streams.
Conclusion
By implementing these strategies and regularly promoting your music on Spotify, you can attract audiences and grow your fan base on the platform.
Don’t overlook offline opportunities to promote your music and consider performing live, taking part in music festivals or events, appearing on radio stations, podcasts or music blogs and networking with industry professionals to broaden your reach, and ultimately, attract more music lovers to listen to your music on Spotify.
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