Back in the days of yore, people created “mixtapes” for their friends by recording music onto a blank cassette tape. Outside of radio promotions, a lot of songs gained traction through this kind of word-of-mouth. Fast forward to today, and streaming giants like Spotify are enticing listeners with personalized, continuously-updated editorial playlists created on their platforms.
This means that song recommendations aren’t just being swapped from one person to another anymore. They’re coming directly from streaming services to millions of consumers. This makes playlists a major factor for your artists’ streaming performance in FanLabel.
“Spotify for Artists” Platform Makes it Easy to Submit Music
The Spotify for Artists platform allows artists to submit their music to Spotify’s editorial playlists. Artists can simply upload their song, provide details on the track’s genre and mood, specify its language, and check which instruments are included on the track. Then, boom – it’s instantly in consideration to be added to an editorial playlist.
Spotify has a team dedicated to listening to song submissions and adding them to playlists if they think they’re a good fit. For example, Country Singer Renee Blair was recently featured in Spotify’s “Wild Country” playlist with her single “Girlfriend,” now having racked up nearly 1 million streams on the platform.
While it’s not often that a selected song will have the same virality as, say Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” it’s definitely a great way to gain exposure and a lot of new fans.
Playlists Have a Distinct Mood Listeners Expect to Hear
Though playlist placement doesn’t guarantee listeners, the song is being placed in front of listeners who are arguably more likely to vibe with the track. This is based on the fact that most editorial playlists are often based on a highly specific genre or mood. A few examples of these playlists include, “Life Sucks,” “Country Coffeehouse,” and “Post Punk 2k.”
In comparison to a couple hundred (usually more broadly categorized) radio stations available to the average listener, there are nearly 1,000 Spotify editorial playlists available, each with their own specified mood or theme.
According to Chartmetric, “A combined total of 370M+ followers enjoy the 973 Genres & Moods playlists, with a median of 123K followers for a playlist and an average of 381K. There are 38 total playlist owners programming this dataset, though Spotify unsurprisingly is the dominating selector.”
The best part? Listeners can click on an artist’s name and hit the “follow” button within a second.
Artists are Finding Their Niche
In the music industry today, we’re seeing a shift toward a wider diversity of sounds and artists finding niche audiences – more so than a small group of similar-sounding artists being promoted to appeal to the masses.
And while having a song selected for an editorial playlist can be a great accomplishment, it’s not the magical solution to growing a fanbase.
Rutger Rosenborg of Chartmetric states the following:
“Playlists are like lighter fluid. They help things burn hot, quickly, but once that lighter fluid is gone, without some long-burning fuel going also, your fire can die out. For many artists, that’s where cross-platform marketing and engagement come into the picture.”
A lot of this marketing includes being active on social media, engaging with the right audience, and continuing to release new music. And speaking of playlists, FanLabel has our very own Spotify profile! Give us a follow here. Just one more factor that drives streaming and performance of your artists in the FanLabel App.
