So, our last post on 60SMM discussed a recent survey which highlighted YouTube as the No 1 music destination for fans demonstrating why your music should be hosted on YouTube. We’re now going to look at another finding from that survey which shows that playlists accounted for 31% of total listening time compared to only 22% for albums.

DIY artist and musicians constantly build towards ‘the next album’ however it’s important to know that streaming is changing listening habits.  People are turning away from albums towards playlist as they allow people to access a wider variety of music based on a theme.  If you are constantly stuck in ‘album’ mode you could become irrelevant to your audience.

More people are using streaming services and consuming playlists rather than albums.

Playlists on streaming services are created in house and it’s hard for DIY artists to get their songs on them. Getting reviewed and discussed on the right blogs will help you in that respect. What all DIY artists should be doing is aiding their discovery creating your own playlists on services like Spotify.  Here are some examples

Create Themed Playlists Around Your Brand

If you are a hard rocking, hard drinking band, create a ‘party/drink’ themed playlist featuring your best songs on this theme and include lots of other classic songs.

This cruise line created their own ‘holiday cruise’ playlist. What playlist can you create around YOUR brand?

Playlists Around A Mood

If you have a lot of material on Spotify, try creating playlists categorising your songs into appropriate moods eg ‘Relaxing Acoustic’ ‘Weekend Party’ etc.

Go small/niche

Find a theme which one or more some of your songs fit into and create a playlist around that.  Add some other popular songs that also fit that theme.

Create a niche playlist and insert some of your music in there!

Remember to promote the playlist as you would any other music release.

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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