How to Get on Spotify Playlists as an Artist

Video Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

[00:00:00] Emily: All right. Welcome to get offset. My name is Emily, and I’m going to tell you how to get your music on Spotify playlists. Well, I can’t promise anything. I mean, I’m not some major important person. I don’t have any friends at Spotify. What kind of got some co alumnus folk at Spotify? I don’t even have a Spotify subscription.

[00:00:29] I used title. Um, but Hey, my band’s gotten on some Spotify playlist. We’ve gotten some, some good, some good traction there as I have a little bit of experience. And I wrote an article about this for convert kit. So check that out. Link is in the video description. Um, yeah, I didn’t get paid to do this video though.

[00:00:50] I didn’t get paid to write that article. So let’s get to. Let’s talk real talk though. What are the benefits of being on a Spotify playlist? Uh, if you want to be on a Spotify playlist to get money, I am going to tell you that’s bad idea. You are not going to get a lot of money from the Spotify playlist because you don’t get a lot of money from Spotify streams.

[00:01:11] Yes, you do get some money from streams. They legally have to pay you, but it is not a lot of money at all. No, it’s very little. Um, if you want to get on a Spotify playlist for your own vanity, That’s a great idea. If you want to get a spot on a Spotify playlist for some visibility, it’s a pretty good idea.

[00:01:31] Especially those editorial playlists or playlists that are associated with well-known blogs, um, playlists that are associated with, uh, other well-known publications, playlists that are actively promoted. Um, they’re great. Another, so I’m getting ahead of myself, but basically if you want to get on a playlist for my.

[00:01:53] It’s not, not a good idea. And if you ever get offered to be on a playlist in exchange for money, it’s not a good idea. And if you see those playlists where they’ll put your song on a playlist and exchange for following the playlist, uh, guess what? That’s not a good idea either because every other song on that playlist is on that playlist, uh, because they followed it.

[00:02:16] So every follower of that playlist is probably someone whose song is on that place. You can do the math. It’s not hard. It’s not helpful. Put your, put your time and energy where it’s going to be of best use because your time and energy is finite. All right, let’s talk real, talk more talk. Um, can you pay to get on POTUS Spotify playlists?

[00:02:45] Yes, you can. It’s a bad idea. It’s a bad idea. And the direct correlation of pay to play, you can pay. Publicists and other playlists experts to work with their contacts to get you on reputable playlist. That is a tactic that if, um, it’s important for you, if you think this is a good way for you to spend your promotional budget, uh, that’s an option I recommend it’s like any other kind of publicity or marketing and, um, yeah, that’s something that you can certainly do for your money.

[00:03:19] Uh, A lot of those playlists that you can just like pay to get on a lot of their listens or bots that doesn’t get you much benefit. Obviously it wasn’t real fans and that’s not real money. I’ll probably just get taken away from you. All right. So there’s that question. Get, get that one out of the way as a popular one.

[00:03:39] Um, so let’s talk about the types of Spotify playlist because how you get on each one. It depends on the type of Spotify playlist. Let’s talk about the algorithmic playlists first, because these are the ones that is kind of like, I don’t want to say it’s a total crap shoot, but it’s the most mysterious, um, it’s the one where they’re, they’re automatically generated.

[00:04:06] Uh, these will be called things like my daily mix one. Um, and they are uniquely generated for you as a listener. You log in and there’ll be like, oh, you listened to a lot of Mandy Patinkin. Here’s a list of other things. I like Mandy Patinkin, or you listen to a lot of Sunday crush. Here’s some other things like Sunday crush.

[00:04:28] So it’ll take your interests and it will find other similar things. And people love these playlists. People use these to discover a lot of new music. I use these similar types of playlists on title. All the time. And I love having a mix of similar songs that I love with things that are similar. I love having a mix of songs that I know in love with things that are similar is how I’ve discovered a lot of great new music.

[00:04:57] Um, and you can do, you can actively do things that will improve your chances of ending up on these algorithmic playlists. There aren’t guarantees, but there are things you can do that I’ll get into later that can improve your odds. All right. So the second type of playlist is the editorial playlists.

[00:05:21] These are harder to get all, these are really hard to get on, but they are like where the money is. These are her. Um, Like the, um, Latin pride for pride month, fresh finds, uh, they’re usually broken up by genre and they are a huge deal. It’s a big deal to get on these. Um, I’ve gone on one or two, uh, but you have to plan ahead.

[00:05:47] Very specifically there’s there’s, uh, there are steps you have to take to get on these playlists, which I will get into don’t you worry, but know that you have to plan, I would say at least three weeks ahead of time. Um, and you have to like build out your Spotify profile. You have to really think long and hard about this because it’s kind of like you have one shot to get on these playlists and that.

[00:06:14] Yeah, it’s stressful. And then the last kind is user generated playlist. So this is the most common type of playlist. It’s like a Sunday crush got on a couple of these types of playlists. We got on the NPR, uh, fresh Friday playlist of the day. Our album was released. That was really exciting. That was big for us.

[00:06:36] Uh, we got on an ultimate ears playlist, um, for 11 immersive songs you have to listen to on earphones. That was really exciting for us. Um, but I, you know, everybody also personally makes their own place. On title. I have playlists for songs. I like to listen to when I’m boxing, I have a playlist for songs I like to listen to when I’m walking to the grocery store specifically, I have my, my songs.

[00:07:01] I like to listen to when I’m running, that are just from bands that are based out of Minneapolis. Like I have, I have all these kinds of songs, um, all these different kinds of playlists and, uh, influencers like to make these playlists too. So there are lots of ways to submit to these playlists that we’re going to get in.

[00:07:19] But let’s, um, let’s talk about our next thing. How hard is it to get on a Spotify playlist? Oh, it depends. The more valuable it is to be on the playlist. The harder it is to get on it. It’s not going to be hard to get onto a friend’s playlist or to make your own playlist and share it with your fans.

[00:07:37] That’s, that’s pretty easy. Um, and you’re naturally just going to end up on a few algorithmic playlists here and there. Playlists that your fans already have. And people who listen to some bands that are like probably close friends of yours already, you’re going to end up on their playlist naturally. And that’s how it’s supposed to work.

[00:07:59] So that those are pretty easy editorial playlists, really hard to get on really, really difficult. Um, but possibly. So it just kind of depends the more, the more valuable it is, the more attention is going to bring to you the more ears that are going to hear your music that never heard it before. The more difficult it is to get on a Spotify playlist.

[00:08:21] So let’s talk a little bit more about getting on those editorial playlist. Um, and just any Spotify playlist in general. Uh, I’m going to kind of focus on editorial because. That is the hardest. It is the one, the only one that you really need to plan in advance. So step one, shocking is you have to distribute your music to Spotify, and you cannot do this on your own.

[00:08:46] You need to use a service like distro kin. If you don’t want to have a district hit account, you can save 7% on your first year by using the affiliate link in the video description, uh, to get off. Uh, it’s district.com/vip/get offset. Uh, we do get a kickback from that. It really helps support the channel.

[00:09:05] So thank you in advance. If you do that. Totally understandable. If you don’t, you can also use a service like tune core or CD baby. Uh, those are ways to distribute your music Spotify as well. I used a stroke kid personally. It’s more affordable. Uh, I like their bonus features and I like their support personally.

[00:09:23] I’ve had more luck with their support than I did with tuna. That was two and go for years, uh, it felt like it was with money because their annual fee was about the same amount of money I made and streaming and sales every year, which should tell you a little bit about how much money I make in streaming and sales every year.

[00:09:42] So district kid I make. 30 bucks, 40 bucks, 50 bucks a year. All right. So the first step is to distribute your music to Spotify. Um, Spotify also district alpha makes it really easy to get verified on Spotify. You need to do. Um, so you can work with them to do that. Uh, it should be super simple if you’re, it’s a little bit harder, I believe if you’re moving from like tune core.

[00:10:09] Um, but it was really, really easy for me to do this when I was doing it for my personal music, because I didn’t actually do it through tune core. I forgot. Uh, so unfortunately there aren’t any freeway. To do it directly through Spotify to put your music on it there directly. I think there used to be, but they took that option away because money, uh, greed capitalism.

[00:10:34] So next step is to build your Spotify artist profile. Uh, check the link in the video description for detailed steps on how to do that. It is free to do, um, you basically have to go to artists@spotify.com easy. Um, Verification stuff. You may, it may take a little bit, you may have to send some emails if like you kind of have passively that the process once.

[00:11:03] Yeah. If you have to put it in your URI, I explained all of this in the article. I’m not going to get into it now because you don’t, you don’t want me to just read this article to you. Do. No step three. And this only will work. The reason there’s a reason I am listing this in this order. There’s a reason that I said you have to distribute your music to Spotify first and then create an artist profile because you have to distribute your music in advance.

[00:11:30] You have to. Your music distributed as a future release, to be able to qualify for an editorial playlist. This is very important. I’m not a hundred percent sure why Spotify does this. I suspect the answer is in the realm of because they can, but it’s how it is. Them’s the breaks. Um, so you go into district hit or whatever you set your release date for like.

[00:12:01] I would say just to be safe, like a month in advance. I know I listened. I know it sucks. I know you want it out there. Like now you’ve probably spent a long time writing, recording, nixing, mastering these songs. You want them out now you gotta wait a little bit longer if you really want to get the most impact of things is important.

[00:12:22] If you want to have this chance. Uh, so when you go into Spotify, Once you’ve submitted your music at usually in the next day or so, you’ll see a tab called future releases. So you click on that and you’ll be, you’ll see the option, um, to submit a song, just one song from this release for a playlist submission, um, do this, they recommend two weeks or three weeks.

[00:12:58] Since it can take like two weeks to get your music from your distributor to Spotify, kind of depends. Five weeks is safe. You want to be safe. You want to give them more time because the longer you give them, uh, the more time their editorial team will have to like, listen to your music, you your submission, the more time you’ll have to potentially end up on some playlist.

[00:13:19] I think that’s probably why I have. Any success on any playlist of Cy had quite a bit of lead time. I gave, I gave it like six weeks when I released my song old gross. So that did end up on a couple of playlists and that was pretty cool. It was pretty cool to like, get a little bit of a bump on just the song I recorded because, you know, It made me happy.

[00:13:41] So like some of the questions they’ll ask you, you can only do one side time again. Uh, you’ll have to answer some questions like Shaundra, sub genre, mood, instrumentation, language lyrics, certain culture. If applicable hometown city are most associated with it, you’ll be asked to describe the songs and then they’ll let you know, like, Hey, they get a lot of submissions.

[00:14:02] Of course they do their Spotify. So they basically, they never get feedback. You’ll just know. If you get on a playlist, when you look in your analytics later and see, so yeah, that’s, that’s pretty normal for the music business by now. You should know that you typically don’t get feedback. So whenever you do get feedback from anybody, you should really just like, know that feedback was either an act of love you, or does an act of absolute malice and hate and you’ll know which it is when you get it.

[00:14:39] So the next thing you do is, uh, you pitched to independent curators. So there those independent lists and, uh, there’s like, there’s a lot of ways to find them. You can search playlists that have like, whatever genre you most associate yourself with. Like, if you’re an indie pop band, maybe search indie pop, uh, see who’s making playlist called indie pop that has.

[00:15:02] Art independent art. Um, maybe see what music blogs that you like, see if they have playlists. Um, it’s kind of like a normal PR sort of deal at this point. There are, um, you know, you can visit a similar band’s profile and see what squirrel they’re discovered on section and see what playlist they were on.

[00:15:28] That’s another one. Um, you can search Spotify for, um, online publications. See if they have playlists pitch. There, there are websites. I listed a few websites in the ConvertKit article. Submit hub is free to start. But you have to buy premium credits for a better chance of hearing and music heard sound plate is free to submit, but you, where you can submit to an like, like at this point, like they, they do start to kind of get paid in the paid territory.

[00:15:56] And part of me gets it for things like submit hub. It’s like they get so many submissions. Part of it really is just like making sure that people who are submitting are like serious about it. It’s for me, it’s more like, Are you submitting? Are you being asked like 400 bucks for a guaranteed, guaranteed placements?

[00:16:21] Like if you’re getting asked money for money for guaranteed placements, that’s more of a red flag than like credits or, uh, submitting a small fee. Cause I feel like small fees are more of just like to make sure you’re serious about it than to. Fleece you. So the, ultimately just do the research, look around, see what the actual playlists are.

[00:16:47] If some of the playlists are legit, like real music, blogs, real publications, real results, real bands, uh, obviously could be worth it for the chance. Not really my cup of tea, my band hasn’t done it. I haven’t done. I don’t think I would particularly, but I wouldn’t knock someone for trying it at least to try it and see what it’s like.

[00:17:15] I don’t really know anyone who has done that, but Hey, if you have done it, I love to know what that experience was like for you. Let me know in the comments, please. I’m very curious. Step five, the convert could articles and steps. I forgot about that. Uh, improve your chances to end up on algorithmic playlist.

[00:17:41] Like I promised, there are things that you can do to make it more likely to end up on those really, really valuable algorithmic playlists. I actually think the algorithmic playlists are more valuable than, um, some of the lower level. Curated playlist, like ending up on it. Let’s be real ending up on NPRs like all songs considered playlist was a huge deal.

[00:18:06] And like, that was, that was so great. And like, I would trade nothing for it, but getting up on these algorithmic playlist, like that’s excellent. And the more of those you end up on, like, that’s like, I love that I’d rather do that. I’d rather get on. Two of those and three of these like paid playlist or like follow for an ad kind of playlist.

[00:18:32] So like you like, well, here’s some of the things that you can do build your Spotify followers. You’re more likely to be on these algorithmic playlist, if you have a lot of Spotify followers, because it makes you seem more legitimate. So ask your fans to follow you on Spotify and kind of explain why it’s important.

[00:18:49] Don’t just tell people, like do this thing since. And email. So your fans and be like, Hey, you know, even if you’re not like, even if you only have a free account don’t ever listen, if you give a, if you give us a follow, it could really help us get in front of new fans. And I hope that you want to see us as successful as possible.

[00:19:07] Like, as you probably know, we don’t get a lot of money from Spotify, but what we do get is, uh, some new ears on our music. Hopefully those people come out to shows hopefully as people buy merge and you know, you can help us. Even if it’s not like an immediate financial thing. So anytime you can let your fans know how to help you, that isn’t financial do it because they’ll probably do it, you know, speaking of ways to help things that you like, that aren’t financial.

[00:19:36] If you like comment and subscribe, you’ll really help this channel. All right. Another thing you can do to, um, boost your chances of being in an algorithmic playlist is to encourage organic playlist ads. Uh, like there, there are ways you can do those without just straight up asking. Obviously you can ask your fans to like, add us to your workout playlist or add a Sears on playlist I a soccer playlist.

[00:20:04] Um, or you can just like, see who’s added to their playlist and. Give him a shout out, take a screenshot, uh, post on Instagram and be like, Hey, thanks username for adding us to your playlist. I really, really appreciate it. Cause it just like you can search yourself and see like what plays list you’re on.

[00:20:23] Especially if it’s been played a certain number of times. Like just, just so you know, out there, viewers, we, we, we can see when we’re on your sexy times, playlists.

[00:20:41] We can see, we can see what you’ve named your playlists that have our music on them.

[00:20:49] Sometimes we judge you.

[00:20:54] I’m sorry. Uh, you can also, um, like work, like kind of have.

[00:21:08] You know, bands, you know, as a band, you can also create playlists that are featured pretty prominently in your artist profile. So you can like make some playlist. I have some bands that you’re friendly with, um, encourage them to do the same. So that’s just kind of a.

[00:21:24] I just kind of a friendly thing that you can do that can like help each other out, you know, Spotify, Spotify. I can talk a lot about Spotify. You know, Spotify said that they were going to stop illegal, illegal streaming and they did. Um, but you know, you ever, ever, ever you ever fixed a problem and then just cause a completely different problem.

[00:21:52] Yeah, that’s this long we say about that. And I can just say like, don’t, don’t completely rely on, on Spotify for your promotion, even though it’s the most well known of the streaming services. It’s sure as shit. Ain’t the only one. Um, and it’s also not the only one playlist. It’s also not the only one that, um, As far as payment goes, it’s kind of toward the bottom.

[00:22:17] Apple music pays more titled, pays more shit. Napster pays more Napster, pays like a lot more. I think title pays twice as Spotify pays. So, uh, you know,

[00:22:33] I just think that Spotify should pay artists more money per stream and. I say that as somebody who wouldn’t particularly benefit a lot from it. So, um, and that’s why I don’t use Spotify. Whenever I can avoid it, which is most of the time. All right. Well, uh, everyone out there. Thank you so much for watching.

[00:22:55] Thanks for understanding again, please like comment, subscribe below. Uh, please let me know what other topics you would like me to talk about. I did study music business in college, so I’m not just talking out of my ass. Uh, I’ve been working in the music industry since then, basically, uh, in various capacities.

[00:23:16] I’ve interned in, I think like I’ve so if you want to cut my internships, I’ve been working in live music since I was 19. Yeah. Cool. That’s where most, most of my joy and love comes from. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, until next time, my name is Emily goodbye.