As of January 2021, Spotify has over 4 BILLION active playlists. There’s no denying that music lovers put the most trust in playlists for discovering new music and artists. This is an amazing opportunity as an artist or playlist curator to connect with super-niche audiences who truly dig your music and will want to support your efforts. While most of the big data driven playlists are curated and managed by Spotify, there are about 1.5 BILLION user-created playlists, which anyone can make, and the artists featured on them are being launched into the stratosphere!

4 Ways To Increase Your Chances of Getting On a Spotify Playlist

1. Get Verified

It’s so easy, do it after you read the rest of this article. Head over to Spotifyfor Artists, fill in the details and get your profile verified within a day or two. The verified mark next to your name not only indicates that you’re a legit artist, but also gives you control over your page, access to all your analytics and insights, and the ability to submit your songs directly to Spotify’s playlist editorial team.

2. Contact User-Curated Playlists Directly

Search Spotify for playlists that feature music in a similar genre to yours. Track the curators and follow their playlists so you can get to know when and what kind of new tracks are added and you will get a good feel for the songs they rotate through. This is a time consuming step but it’s critical for you to do your homework before you start pitching your music. Find and establish the curator’s account details. Followers? Private or Corporate run? Any contact or social media? These details will let you log information about them so when you’re ready to pitch you can hit as many playlists as possible. The goal here is getting your track featured on the most popular and most amount of playlists as possible. Now that you have a list generated, fine-tune your pitch. Approach it from the curator’s perspective and figure out why they should care about your email versus the hundreds of other ones they read through. It’s obvious what you have to gain from this relationship so offer your opinion on how they will benefit from featuring your songs. Be brief but be specific, something as simple as “Hi, I would like to send you some music for playlist consideration” is a great way to open up communication between you and them. Remember that ultimately this is about building a relationship with the curators so once you get their approval, follow up and send them the music as promised.

3. Paid Submission and Campaigns

The above is a challenge that music labels and artists spend millions on every year. Being featured on heavy hitter playlists is something that will directly lead to your success as an artist. You can take the leg work out of finding the right curators and constant rejection by using Spotify artist campaigns from companies like Socialcado. Socialcado helps independent artists like you launch your career by getting your songs heard by popular playlist curators. Campaigns like Spotify Idol typically run for 4 to 8 weeks, will put your track on multiple playlists and can help you reach over 100k streams. Socialcado doesn’t work with the Spotify editorial team directly, but generating thousands of streams will definitely put your profile on the map and lead to additional success on the platform.

4. Stay Engaged

As a new artist the best thing you can do for your career is staying active on Spotify. Having a consistent and engaged digital footprint will only help you achieve getting placed on human or algorithm generated playlists. Release new music consistently and often, even if it’s just singles. Promote your artist page on every platform and cast a wide net so that you can get more Spotify listeners and ensure that your new singles appear on their Release Radar playlist. Link all your social media pages to your Spotify artist page, share the links on all your platforms and engage with fans in the comment sections.

Final Thoughts

Getting featured on playlists is tough, but not impossible. Like anything else, building relationships is a lot work in the beginning. But once you have these connections getting features in the future will be a cake-walk. Boost your stats with a paid campaign or two, make sure your social media game is in check and get verified where you can. Focus on the music, tune it to perfection and curators and fans will follow.