Have you ever asked yourself how to get on a playlist? Getting on a Spotify playlist isn’t as hard as you might think for any one artist. In this short guide, you will find simple steps you should take to get on a playlist with Virtual Publicist.
Independent Playlist Curators and music taste-makers as they are called, have entered the musical world as an influencer-like contact that spreads the “good beat” to a nearby group of followers. Integral to growing your listener count on Spotify or other streaming providers, the curators themselves are not always easy to reach, that’s why entire marketplaces have been created to manage submissions.
Although some playlists have thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the majority will be in the range of 500–2500 listeners and help artists scale their careers from one milestone to the next.
With Virtual Publicist by your side, this entire process is streamlined through 1 easy to use platform. Simply search and select the playlists that fit your style and your level as an artist and start sending your message…I wish there were more steps but all in all, we’ve made it that simple.
Making your Spotify for Artist
Provided that you have a verified account on Spotify, start with putting a song up for an upcoming release, that way you can start pitching to editors. It is often helpful to pitch your song up to a few weeks before its release to give you a maximum chance of succeeding.
Editors on Spotify are the group that governs the main playlists that you can find on the suggestion page as well as the mood/category section.
Make sure to verify your artist account through Spotify for Artists; verified accounts are credible and trustworthy, and they make you look much more professional. Verified also means you have rights to streaming royalties.
From Spotify for Artists, you can start pitching directly to Spotify editors by clicking Music — Upcoming — Pitch A Song. Choose a song you want to pitch, fill out the information and submit! easy enough right?
How to Make sure the editors notice
To increase the odds of getting a playlist, there are a few things you could do. Start by running a pre-save campaign — a promotion that will let users save your upcoming release and hear it once it’s out. This will also give the Spotify algorithms the necessary data to place your song.
Spotify values traffic above all. Surround the song’s release with your advertising and influencers that will drive traffic to your Spotify profile so that the algorithm can pick up the activity.
Another helpful strategy is to pitch to media outlets that are relevant to cover your release. This is where Virtual Publicist comes in. With a directory of over pretty much the entire media landscape of North America, our platform will give you a 3 click process to send your pre-save links, to all the right people. Target your genre, filter through the category and job description of the contacts, and send send send!
Even if your guitar skills outshine your email skills, don’t worry, the Virtual Publicist platform arms you with a copywriter that will polish and place the proper words to get the message through.
Music blogs and Spotify
Oftentimes, music blogs will have their own playlists on Spotify, and getting coverage can also mean getting playlisted by that blog. An important aspect of full-blown PR like press coverage is that it feeds into the platform’s algorithm and gives you higher visibility.
You can take it a step further and pitch your music to independent curators. Virtual Publicist gives you the ability to easily navigate the landscape and gather the right list of contacts. Save your list and email them via the inbox. You can test your writing skills or use a template, whichever one you feel works best.
Playlist Platforms and Marketplaces
As an indie artist, you’ll also get more specific analytics being playlisted on these platforms compared to radio placements, which is a drastic improvement since it will allow you to make more precise changes to the implemented promotion strategy and get the best out of the advertisement. How to go about it, you might ask? Well, the more organic your advertisement and growth strategy the better.
In this case, we recommend finding paid influencers — people who will feature you and speak about your music on their YouTube channel or Instagram (whatever platform best suits you). Consider everything else an opportunity — wherever music is used online as background or to enhance another type of content — these are all opportunities to take advantage of and to promote yourself.
Closing Thoughts
Pitching can be a daunting task when you’re not sure who to contact or whether you’ll receive a response at all. Virtual Publicist makes it easy to reach all the people that fit the purpose of your campaign. Message them your pitch via VP’s Smart Message tool or create templates and save them for later use.
Playlist marketplaces are a jungle of questions for most artists. Will the streams count, will they lead to more, and is it really worth it? Usually composed of a shadowy SEO-jammed website with user-friendly buy buttons, playlist marketplaces are in the grey zone of the music promotions tool kit. Virtual Publicist streamlines this process by curating the curators.
If you enjoy creating playlists and they are good, promoting them on TikTok could help you gain followers quickly and build rapport with your TikTok audience. It’s a smart move for artists to include their own songs in the playlists that they promote. You just have to make sure that your music is a good fit and that it is properly balanced with music that suits both the vibe of the playlist and the vibe of your own music. This is an excellent method for gathering data on Spotify’s algorithm and getting your “Fans Also Like” section to reflect artists you want to be associated with, as well as increasing your monthly listeners.
Pitching is made easy with Virtual Publicist.