I’m forever researching and keeping my eye on what other marketers and music business professionals have to say on the music marketing landscape. What I’ve noticed of late from the music marketing space  is an increased focus on the Spotify ‘follow’ rather than playlist inclusion.

If you’re lucky enough to be included on an official Spotify playlist, that’s great, you’ll get plenty of spins and an increase in your royalties but I’ve seen many people comment that playlist listening is very passive listening, it’s a ‘lean back’ experience.  There might be little engagement from those fans (they’ll listen in the playlist but won’t go to your Spotify page and check out your other stuff).

In addition inclusion on user generated playlists might not get you the amount of plays you were hoping for, which might be annoying especially if you’ve paid a company to submit your music to these playlists.

Advice from commentators at the moment seems to be that your long term strategy should be more focused on asking your audience to follow you on Spotify.

Like a subscriber on YouTube, a Spotify follower should get a notification whenever you release new music meaning an increased, long term listenership for your music. In addition, the algorithm takes note of who is being followed which may mean an increase in algorithmic discovery on the platform too.

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

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