HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM SPOTIFY “With 24m users around the world, Spotify represents a huge audience of potential fans for your music. Utilising our artist tools to find and engage with that audience is increasingly important. This blog by EmuBands explains how to make the most of these tools as well as looking at how an Artist can grow their presence within the service…” Bryan Johnson. Artist Services Ambassador, Spotify Spotify is now a key part in many artists’ release and promotional strategies. However, once you’ve distributed your release to Spotify and it’s available for your fans to search for and listen to, what’s next? How can you develop and grow your fan base using Spotify? The purpose of this blog is to attempt to answer those very questions and to help you get the most from Spotify. We’ll look to do this by discussing some basic, practical steps that you can take yourself, as well as covering some of the marketing opportunities that Spotify make available to artists. Create A Spotify Profile & Link This To Your Discography The first point to highlight is that your Spotify Profile is different, and separate, from yourDiscography on Spotify. To demonstrate the differences, we’ll use Frightened Rabbit as an example.
Above is the Frightened Rabbit Spotify Profile (click on the image to enlarge it). Your Spotify Profile will display your artists/band’s recent activity on Spotify, including details of any playlists that you have created and any updates to these.
This, however, is the Frightened Rabbit Discography on Spotify (again, click on the image to enlarge it). The Discography is where fans can find and listen to an artists/band’s releases. Every artist, by default, has a Discography on Spotify. However, they don’t by default, have anSpotify Profile set up. Later on this guide we will explain how you can set up an Spotify Profile. Once your Spotify Profile has been created, and linked to your Discography, fans can access yourDiscography via the ‘View Discography’ link on your Spotify Profile. Likewise, once linked, fans can access your Spotify Profile from your Discography by clicking the ‘View Spotify Profile’ link. By creating a Spotify Profile and linking this to your Discography, a blue tick will be placed next to your artist name on your Discography. This is used to indicate that both have been verified and linked. Gathering Followers: Creating a Spotify Profile and linking this to your Discography is a great way to drive engagement with your fans and encourage them to ‘Follow’ you on Spotify. Followers will receive notifications every time you release new music, share a song or create a new playlist. Frightened Rabbit are a good example of how to use this feature – for example, they create playlists of the tracks they listen to whilst on their tour bus, and encourage suggestions from fans. This is a great way to engage with fans. You can also embed Spotify Follow buttons on your web pages to attract new fans to your Spotify Profile and build your followers. Spotify have created a handy generator to help you create your own follow button and you can find this on their website, here. Setting Up Your Spotify Profile: To set up your own Spotify Profile and link this to your Discography, simply follow these steps: • Register an account with Spotify that you want to use to manage your Spotify Profile. • Browse to http://spotify.com/viprequest and request your Spotify Profile setup.
Once completed, your Discography and Spotify Profile should be verified and linked within 2 weeks. Artist Biographies on Spotify On an artist’s Discography on Spotify, you’ll sometimes notice that next to the ‘Related Artists’ tabs there is a ‘Biography’ link. We’ll use Glasvegas as an example and you can see a screenshot of their biography on Spotify below:
The content displayed in this section is ingested by Spotify from the AllMusic Guide and can be a great source of information for new fans discovering your music for the first time. In order to get your biography onto Spotify you’ll need to submit your details to the AllMusic Guide. We have a blog that covers this in greater detail and takes you through the process, so to find out more, read our ‘How To Get Your Artist Biography On Spotify’ blog, here. Playlisting Creating playlists is a simple and powerful way to connect with your existing fans and gain new ones. For example, you might want to share with your fans which new music is exciting you most right now, or which music helps you get going on a Monday morning. You could even compile a playlist of artists who have influenced your own career, or a playlist containing your personal favourites from your own catalogue. By creating and sharing playlists/tracks with your fans and engaging with them in this way, you are encouraging them to do the same, and, you never know, they might even choose to share some of your tracks. You can also submit any playlists you create to external sites like Playlists.net. This can be a great way to increase your exposure and attract new followers. Spotify have shared their own data on just how much of an impact playlisting and sharing can have on a track’s exposure and you can find some additional information on this here. Branded Playlists
Branded playlists are a great way to promote your label, event or brand and engage with your audience. These playlists allow you to set your own branded playlist image and descriptive text which can contain a clickable link to your website. Here are two examples of branded playlists that EmuBands have set up (click on the images to enlarge):
There are some key advantages to branded playlists over regular playlists. The first of these is the ability to select your own playlist image over the standard artwork collage that Spotify automatically generates for any playlist you create. A custom playlist image is an excellent way to promote your brand. The second key advantage is the ability to include a clickable URL in your playlist description. This is a fantastic way to convert listeners into traffic to your website and make additional information available that may not fit in the playlist description.
If you’re interested in setting up a branded playlist on Spotify, the first step is to complete the verification and branding of your Spotify profile. You can do this from the following link:http://spotify.com/viprequest. Once your verified profile has been set up, simply e-mail your EmuBands Account Manager with the following information: • The Spotify URL for your playlist (Right click your playlist title and select ‘Copy Spotify URL) • A 1425 x 1425, JPEG, 300 DPI image that you’d like to use as the playlist image. • A short piece of descriptive text for your playlist (If you like, this can include a single web
link.) Once we have received this information, we will request the branding of your playlist with Spotify. To allow for set up of your playlist we would generally advise a minimum lead in-time of 2-3 weeks. Promotion/Marketing There are numerous featured placement opportunities available on Spotify. These come in the form of both audio ads and visual ads, for example Display Ads and Billboard Ads. You can find examples of both of these formats on the Spotify website via these links. https://www.spotify.com/uk/about-us/advertisers/ad-specs/display-ads https://www.spotify.com/uk/about-us/advertisers/ad-specs/audio-ads If you’re interested in pitching your release for promotion on Spotify, we would advise completing the following steps a minimum of 8 weeks ahead of your release date and prior to the distribution of your release. If, however, you don’t have that much time, just speak to your account manager and they will be able to advise on any opportunities that may still fit into your schedule. 1. Download our template, here. 2. E-mail the completed template to your EmuBands Account Manager, along with details of any extra content, features etc. that you are interested in providing to Spotify. Examples of this would include exclusive early releases, bonus tracks etc. Before submitting a release for consideration, please keep in mind that it is at the sole discretion of the Spotify editorial team which releases are selected for promotion. Please also note that should your pitch be successful, you would be responsible for the preparation of any ads and ensuring that these meet with all of the relevant specifications. With this in mind, before submitting any releases for consideration, please ensure that you are able to meet with the specifications detailed in the links above. Songkick Songkick tour dates are now being added to Artist discographies, so make sure to keep your Songkick profile up to date, in order for your Spotify followers to find out when you’re touring. More info on this feature is available here. We hope that you’ve found this blog useful, however should you have any queries or if we can be of any assistance please don’t hesitate to contact your EmuBands account manager.
Blog Author: Stuart Stenhouse | Operations Director, EmuBands POSTED: Thursday 10th October 2013