How do you get your music onto Spotify's algorithmic playlists?
We're working on a couple of single releases in the next two weeks so we're thinking about streaming numbers a lot!
We’ve got a couple of singles that are coming out in the next two weeks so our pre-saves are live and we’ve been pushing them for a week (although I’m sensing some resistance after the mainstream press highlighted some of the unnecessary data being sneakily accessed by some labels) but like everybody else who’s releasing music, we’re hoping to gain some traction with steaming services.
But the world of playlist pitching and streaming promotion is a very murky one! And it’s hard to find details and numbers around how much activity you need to generate to pique the interest of the DSPs editorial curators and algorithmic playlists.
That being said, there is loooooads of information out there but siphoning through it to find anything useful and actionable is a job in itself before you’ve even started to implement any recommendations or advice.
So, how do Spotify’s algorithms actually work?
Really simply (as in simple enough for my 8-year old daughter to understand) there are 3 main parts to Spotify’s algorithm…
1) listener behaviour (or ‘collaborative filtering’ as they call it) - If you and I have similar listening patterns and a lot of our tastes cross over, the algorithm may throw up an artist that you’re listening to, that I haven’t heard yet.
2) NLP (no not Neuro-Linguistic Programming) but Natural Language Processing - Spotify reads your songs metadata & crawls the web to find articles and blogs about you or your songs. It uses any common words, adjectives and language to get an understanding of which other artists are being discussed in the same way. (OK maybe Hettie wouldn’t understand that bit!)
3) audio analysis (or convolutional neural networks!! As in facial recognition software but adapted for audio! Amazing right!?) - By analysing your songs audio, Spotify can understand and estimate time signature, key, mode, tempo and loudness allowing it to match similar songs.
She explains it better than me 👇 👇 👇
Want to know more? Check out the links at the end.
And how do you get into the algorithms?
Again, there’s a lot of information out there about this! But mostly it’s about in-platform activity > song saves, follows & playlist adds.
Pre-saves are a useful tool to give your track a bump on its day of release and there are loads of tools to do that (Feature.fm / Soundplate / Show.co) some free some not. But as mentioned earlier, some people have been put off by some of the rights that have to be given for the pre-saves to work (add & remove items in your library) + some greedy labels who’ve tried to sneak in more and more unnecessary access rights.
Asking your fans to Follow you and add your tracks to their playlists is another way to give your profile a bump in activity in the week or two leading up to your release. You can do that on your socials, or ask your email list, with a link to your Spotify profile, or to the track you want them to add to their playlists, but there are also loads of tools to help you incentivise fans to Follow you using things like download gates where you offer an exclusive download for a Spotify follow.
And do independent playlist curators play a part?
Ah. I’m glad you asked. As this can be the murkiest bit!
General consensus is that yes, getting your track onto as many playlists as possible is a good idea, but there are loads of shitty opportunities out there that are praying on independent artists desire for streams.
There are loads of websites that offer playlist pitching services. Most are dodgy as fu*k and use botted playlists but there are a few who appear above board and it’s a service that a lot of legitimate PR companies and digital marketing companies are now offering - But if it’s legit and above board, prepare to pay what it’s worth!
Most websites that offer to guarantee a certain number of streams are using bots and are to be avoided.
and
And finally…
I came across a new piece of research that suggested that while you can’t argue that everything has changed in the music industry, everything is still the same when it comes to gatekeepers!
It’s called…
And it summarises a bunch of interviews with music curators working at digital music streaming platforms who all suggest that editorial comes first, algorithms second.
So, what’s most important for you and your music? Relationships with real people. Music curators. Researching and outreaching independent playlist curators. Building a database of people and playlists who you can contact every time you release something new - Or finding a service who will do that for you ; ) - It’s not gonna be cheap, either in time if you DIY, or cost if you outsource it. But other than working directly with your fans to create activity bumps on your streaming profile, it’s probably the best strategy if streaming success is your goal.
Interested to hear thoughts in the comments below if you can find the time to scroll past all the links!!
Cheers,
Rich
References & links:
How do Spotify's algorithms work?
https://indepreneur.io/podcast/ep-103-spotify-algorithm-works
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305119880006
And how do you get into the algorithms?
https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-to-get-your-music-on-discover-weekly-and-release-radar
More… case studies & other discussions:
https://www.ebaudio.net/new-blog/hackspotify
https://musically.com/2019/02/15/pitch-imperfect-playlists-farcical/
The rest of the links…
https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/music-promotion/boost-streams-pre-save-campaign-spotify/
https://blog.sonicbids.com/spotify-pre-saves
https://musically.com/2018/08/16/sandbox-207-pre-saves-apple-music-for-artists-jory-boy-and-more/
https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2018/08/presaves-pre-adds-what-they-are-how-to-use-them.html
https://unlockyoursound.com/spotify-pre-save/
http://here.org.uk/2019/06/18/why-havent-spotify-released-an-offical-pre-save-tool/
https://blog.groover.co/en/tips/pre-save-a-new-essential-tool-for-artists-to-promote-their-music/