Let’s debunk some myths and do a quick Q&A:
🤷 Q: Do you need to submit your song to Spotify at least one week prior to get on your fans’ Release Radar?
📣 A: Although we absolutely advice to submit your song to Spotify at least one week before release for editorial consideration, we haven’t noticed any difference in terms of Release Radar.
🤷 Q: If I get more Spotify followers, will I get more Release Radar streams on my next release?
📣 A: In theory: Yes. More followers should give you more Release Radar streams, as Spotify will add it to more of their Release Radar playlists. However, these need to be active Spotify accounts, as they’re not gonna listen to your song otherwise. And they also genuinely need to like your music. Because Release Radar (just like Discover Weekly, Radio, Daily Mix, etc.) is based on Spotify’s algorithm and the more people that listen to it and like it (don’t skip the track and possibly save it), the more people will get the song and your future songs in their Release Radar. So buying followers will absolutely do nothing for you and we’d also advice against gating or otherwise incentivizing people to follow. Asking your social media fans to follow is a good practice though.
🤷 Q: So I can only get as many Release Radar listeners as I have followers right?
📣 A: No, this is not true. Release Radar is based on how many people like the song and Spotify’s algorithm finding similar people. Although you’re more likely to find your song within Release Radar of someone who follows you, you’ll likely not get included in all of your followers’ Release Radar. On the other hand it’s also possible to reach more Release Radar playlists than the amount of followers you have. For example this new artist we released recently had about 20 followers when their second song released, but still got 207 unique listeners via Release Radar. The more people like your song and the less people skip it, the more Release Radar you’ll get on this song AND on future releases.
🤷 Q: Alright, so if I run extra promo on my release or get 3rd party playlists to submit it, do I get more Release Radar streams on that release?
📣 A: Release Radar gets updated on Friday, so most Release Radar listeners will likely come from the first Friday (release day for most people). These listeners will have already received your song in their Release Radar playlist before you run promo. So your promo won’t impact that first Release Radar push at all. It can impact Release Radar for the following weeks if you’re lucky.
However, where it can really make a difference is with your NEXT release. If you promote your song the right way, you’ll get more listeners and hopefully also more people that like your song. So it will be easier for Spotify’s algorithm to find similar people when you release your next song.
🤷 Q: Alright, so promo won’t help my current release in terms of Release Radar. How about getting my fans to pre-save the release?
📣 A: Pre-saving a release won’t help the initial Release Radar push. To understand why that doesn’t work is to understand how pre-saves work. We’ll go into pre-saves a little bit later, but the basic idea is the technology behind ‘pre-saves’ doesn’t actually save the track for your listeners in advance. When people go to the pre-save website, THAT website will save their request in a database and then when the song goes live it will save the song to their Spotify library. Try pre-saving a song yourself and you’ll notice it won’t be in your Spotify library before the release day.
🤷 Q: Do you need to submit your song to Spotify at least one week prior to get on your fans’ Release Radar?
📣 A: Although we absolutely advice to submit your song to Spotify at least one week before release for editorial consideration, we haven’t noticed any difference in terms of Release Radar.
🤷 Q: If I get more Spotify followers, will I get more Release Radar streams on my next release?
📣 A: In theory: Yes. More followers should give you more Release Radar streams, as Spotify will add it to more of their Release Radar playlists. However, these need to be active Spotify accounts, as they’re not gonna listen to your song otherwise. And they also genuinely need to like your music. Because Release Radar (just like Discover Weekly, Radio, Daily Mix, etc.) is based on Spotify’s algorithm and the more people that listen to it and like it (don’t skip the track and possibly save it), the more people will get the song and your future songs in their Release Radar. So buying followers will absolutely do nothing for you and we’d also advice against gating or otherwise incentivizing people to follow. Asking your social media fans to follow is a good practice though.
🤷 Q: So I can only get as many Release Radar listeners as I have followers right?
📣 A: No, this is not true. Release Radar is based on how many people like the song and Spotify’s algorithm finding similar people. Although you’re more likely to find your song within Release Radar of someone who follows you, you’ll likely not get included in all of your followers’ Release Radar. On the other hand it’s also possible to reach more Release Radar playlists than the amount of followers you have. For example this new artist we released recently had about 20 followers when their second song released, but still got 207 unique listeners via Release Radar. The more people like your song and the less people skip it, the more Release Radar you’ll get on this song AND on future releases.
🤷 Q: Alright, so if I run extra promo on my release or get 3rd party playlists to submit it, do I get more Release Radar streams on that release?
📣 A: Release Radar gets updated on Friday, so most Release Radar listeners will likely come from the first Friday (release day for most people). These listeners will have already received your song in their Release Radar playlist before you run promo. So your promo won’t impact that first Release Radar push at all. It can impact Release Radar for the following weeks if you’re lucky.
However, where it can really make a difference is with your NEXT release. If you promote your song the right way, you’ll get more listeners and hopefully also more people that like your song. So it will be easier for Spotify’s algorithm to find similar people when you release your next song.
🤷 Q: Alright, so promo won’t help my current release in terms of Release Radar. How about getting my fans to pre-save the release?
📣 A: Pre-saving a release won’t help the initial Release Radar push. To understand why that doesn’t work is to understand how pre-saves work. We’ll go into pre-saves a little bit later, but the basic idea is the technology behind ‘pre-saves’ doesn’t actually save the track for your listeners in advance. When people go to the pre-save website, THAT website will save their request in a database and then when the song goes live it will save the song to their Spotify library. Try pre-saving a song yourself and you’ll notice it won’t be in your Spotify library before the release day.
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Do you have any other Release Radar questions? Let us know in the comments and we’ll respond to every single one of you guys. 🖤
What do you think is the best way to promote a track? 🔥📈
Anonymous Poll
40%
One big playlist
23%
Lots of smaller playlists
25%
Sharing it with my fans on social media
12%
Blogs, articles, etc.
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Let us know how you would promote your track and why in the comments! 📣 https://t.me/atlastchat
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⁉️ How to promote your track!
Alright, so what is the best way to promote a track on Spotify? There’s obviously not one right answer, but there are definitely a couple of wrong ones. In this post we’re gonna dive deep into Spotify promo and the correlation with Spotify’s editorial and algorithm playlists. Let’s start with some frequently asked questions:
🤷 Q: So is it better to get one big playlist or get multiple smaller playlists?
📣 A: If you get one playlist bringing in 1K streams or 10 playlists bringing in 100 streams each (also 1K total), what’s better? First of all, you’re getting the same amount of streams, so that doesn’t matter. But aside from that there are quite a few advantages to getting multiple smaller playlists over 1 big one:
1️⃣ If your track is in that one playlist and they take it out, you lose all of your streams. If it’s in multiple smaller playlists, you spread your luck.
2️⃣ Spotify looks at the overall buzz for a track. More (different) people including your song usually means more buzz.
3️⃣ It’s important your song is a good fit for the playlist. If you get one big playlist but it’s not a good fit (resulting in more skips for your song and less saves) it can actually hurt your song. Multiple playlists spread that risk too.
🤷 Q: Alright, so are all big playlists bad?
📣 A: Not at all! Big playlists can bring in a lot of streams, so they can help your song a lot. Just be careful when trading / buying spots in any playlist and look at these 3 things:
1️⃣ Is this playlist a good fit for your song genre wise? Do people that listen to this playlist wanna hear your song?
2️⃣ Are the other artists in this playlist legit artists with solid tracks? Are these artists that you’d want to be in your ‘similar artists’ section on your profile?
3️⃣ Does your song get a lot of saves and little skips from this playlist? For example fake playlists usually have a lot of skips, giving you more skips on your song, causing Spotify to think many people don’t like it.
🤷 Q: So what is a ‘skip rate’ and how can I check those ‘skips’?
📣 A: Anytime someone listens to your track and doesn’t listen until the end, but instead skips to the next song, that’s called a skip. The ‘skip rate’ is your average skips. If you get 100 streams and 30 people skip your track, your skip rate would be 30%. The lower your skip rate, the more Spotify will think people will like your song. Because that means they’re listening to the whole song.
ℹ️ Unfortunately Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, etc. don’t show the skip rates on their artist dashboards (yet). ATLAST offers this to all of their artists via our ATLAST Artists Portal over at artists.atlast.fm. There are some other distributors / labels that can get you this data too if you ask for it.
🤷 Q: Okay, so we covered playlists. What about blog promo?
📣 A: Blogs, articles and other coverage can be great for building your brand as an artist and getting more recognitions from other artists and fans alike. So in that sense it could be worth investing into blog coverage from time to time. Blogs and other media will very rarely result into tangible extra streams though. So if you just want to be featured on blogs to get more streams, that would be one of the least cost-effective ways to do it. If you want to build your profile beyond just streams it could be a worthwhile investment.
ℹ️ Pro tip: If you’re gonna pay for blog promo / PR, make sure you have a unique story to tell. As an artist or with that particular track. What makes you different from all the other artists releasing a track that week? Blogs usually only have a certain amount of articles they can write and even if they write about you, their readers will likely only read the most interesting stories. So make sure it’s a good one to increase your chances!
Alright, so what is the best way to promote a track on Spotify? There’s obviously not one right answer, but there are definitely a couple of wrong ones. In this post we’re gonna dive deep into Spotify promo and the correlation with Spotify’s editorial and algorithm playlists. Let’s start with some frequently asked questions:
🤷 Q: So is it better to get one big playlist or get multiple smaller playlists?
📣 A: If you get one playlist bringing in 1K streams or 10 playlists bringing in 100 streams each (also 1K total), what’s better? First of all, you’re getting the same amount of streams, so that doesn’t matter. But aside from that there are quite a few advantages to getting multiple smaller playlists over 1 big one:
1️⃣ If your track is in that one playlist and they take it out, you lose all of your streams. If it’s in multiple smaller playlists, you spread your luck.
2️⃣ Spotify looks at the overall buzz for a track. More (different) people including your song usually means more buzz.
3️⃣ It’s important your song is a good fit for the playlist. If you get one big playlist but it’s not a good fit (resulting in more skips for your song and less saves) it can actually hurt your song. Multiple playlists spread that risk too.
🤷 Q: Alright, so are all big playlists bad?
📣 A: Not at all! Big playlists can bring in a lot of streams, so they can help your song a lot. Just be careful when trading / buying spots in any playlist and look at these 3 things:
1️⃣ Is this playlist a good fit for your song genre wise? Do people that listen to this playlist wanna hear your song?
2️⃣ Are the other artists in this playlist legit artists with solid tracks? Are these artists that you’d want to be in your ‘similar artists’ section on your profile?
3️⃣ Does your song get a lot of saves and little skips from this playlist? For example fake playlists usually have a lot of skips, giving you more skips on your song, causing Spotify to think many people don’t like it.
🤷 Q: So what is a ‘skip rate’ and how can I check those ‘skips’?
📣 A: Anytime someone listens to your track and doesn’t listen until the end, but instead skips to the next song, that’s called a skip. The ‘skip rate’ is your average skips. If you get 100 streams and 30 people skip your track, your skip rate would be 30%. The lower your skip rate, the more Spotify will think people will like your song. Because that means they’re listening to the whole song.
ℹ️ Unfortunately Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, etc. don’t show the skip rates on their artist dashboards (yet). ATLAST offers this to all of their artists via our ATLAST Artists Portal over at artists.atlast.fm. There are some other distributors / labels that can get you this data too if you ask for it.
🤷 Q: Okay, so we covered playlists. What about blog promo?
📣 A: Blogs, articles and other coverage can be great for building your brand as an artist and getting more recognitions from other artists and fans alike. So in that sense it could be worth investing into blog coverage from time to time. Blogs and other media will very rarely result into tangible extra streams though. So if you just want to be featured on blogs to get more streams, that would be one of the least cost-effective ways to do it. If you want to build your profile beyond just streams it could be a worthwhile investment.
ℹ️ Pro tip: If you’re gonna pay for blog promo / PR, make sure you have a unique story to tell. As an artist or with that particular track. What makes you different from all the other artists releasing a track that week? Blogs usually only have a certain amount of articles they can write and even if they write about you, their readers will likely only read the most interesting stories. So make sure it’s a good one to increase your chances!
ATLAST
ATLAST Artists
Artist Portal for all ATLAST artists.
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🤷 Q: What about social media?
📣 A: Always utilize your own social media to the fullest. If you release with a credible label, they’ll definitely have release assets for you. Posts, videos, banners, etc. that you can post. Use these, repost fans, repost the label, have the label repost you, etc.
If you’re doing an independent release, it’s worth investing a bit into these assets. Don’t go crazy, it doesn’t have to be expensive. But make sure your fans know you’re releasing a new song and include them in the process.
The conversion from social media to any external platform (like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, etc.) isn’t that good as social media is designed to keep you on their platforms instead of navigating away. But it’s free to post, so always make sure you do that. And your true fans will definitely look up your new track. These are also the people that won’t skip your track and will likely save it to their libraries, so they’ll help you within the algorithms too.
❓ Have any other questions? Comment on this post and we'll get you the answers you're looking for.
📣 A: Always utilize your own social media to the fullest. If you release with a credible label, they’ll definitely have release assets for you. Posts, videos, banners, etc. that you can post. Use these, repost fans, repost the label, have the label repost you, etc.
If you’re doing an independent release, it’s worth investing a bit into these assets. Don’t go crazy, it doesn’t have to be expensive. But make sure your fans know you’re releasing a new song and include them in the process.
The conversion from social media to any external platform (like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, etc.) isn’t that good as social media is designed to keep you on their platforms instead of navigating away. But it’s free to post, so always make sure you do that. And your true fans will definitely look up your new track. These are also the people that won’t skip your track and will likely save it to their libraries, so they’ll help you within the algorithms too.
❓ Have any other questions? Comment on this post and we'll get you the answers you're looking for.
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Why Spotify’s ‘monthly listeners’ matter less than you think! 🧐
Spotify’s ‘monthly listeners’ seem to be one of the most important metrics for many artists out there. A common thought is that these monthly listeners reflect the popularity of the artist. But is that true? Let’s find out!
Spotify’s ‘monthly listeners’ seem to be one of the most important metrics for many artists out there. A common thought is that these monthly listeners reflect the popularity of the artist. But is that true? Let’s find out!
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What are ‘Monthly Listeners’?
Pretty self explanatory, these are the total unique listeners that have listened to your music in the last 28 days (4 weeks). This includes listeners that listeners to your music once. And this includes listeners that listen to your music 100x. Both are counted as 1 listener. But whereas the first one might have encountered your song in a playlist and perhaps doesn’t even remember it, the other listener that heard it 100x, would certainly qualify as a ‘fan’!
So not every listener is equal.
Pretty self explanatory, these are the total unique listeners that have listened to your music in the last 28 days (4 weeks). This includes listeners that listeners to your music once. And this includes listeners that listen to your music 100x. Both are counted as 1 listener. But whereas the first one might have encountered your song in a playlist and perhaps doesn’t even remember it, the other listener that heard it 100x, would certainly qualify as a ‘fan’!
So not every listener is equal.
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🚀 How to get more monthly listeners!
The easiest way to get monthly listeners fast, is to get added to a lot of playlists, resulting in many different unique listeners. However, these listeners might not be interested in your music, resulting in more people skipping your songs, which isn’t good. So do your research and build your song slowly, only reaching out to playlist curators with playlists that fit your song very well. This way you start building fans, instead of random listeners.
The easiest way to get monthly listeners fast, is to get added to a lot of playlists, resulting in many different unique listeners. However, these listeners might not be interested in your music, resulting in more people skipping your songs, which isn’t good. So do your research and build your song slowly, only reaching out to playlist curators with playlists that fit your song very well. This way you start building fans, instead of random listeners.
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😴 Listeners vs 🥰 Fans
A listener can be anyone. As long as they’ve listened to one of your songs for 30 seconds, they are counted as a listener. A fan is someone who listens to your songs on a regular base and keeps returning for more.
To get an idea of how many fans you have, have a look at:
🎵 Your monthly listeners compared to your monthly streams. If you have 1 million monthly listeners with 1 million monthly streams, everyone listened to your songs once. If you have 1 million monthly listeners with 5 million monthly streams, they listened 5x on average.
☑️ Your total listeners compared to your total followers. Are your listeners resulting in more followers? If people like your music, they’re more likely to follow you.
💚 The total listeners on your song(s) compared to the total saves on that song.
A listener can be anyone. As long as they’ve listened to one of your songs for 30 seconds, they are counted as a listener. A fan is someone who listens to your songs on a regular base and keeps returning for more.
To get an idea of how many fans you have, have a look at:
🎵 Your monthly listeners compared to your monthly streams. If you have 1 million monthly listeners with 1 million monthly streams, everyone listened to your songs once. If you have 1 million monthly listeners with 5 million monthly streams, they listened 5x on average.
☑️ Your total listeners compared to your total followers. Are your listeners resulting in more followers? If people like your music, they’re more likely to follow you.
💚 The total listeners on your song(s) compared to the total saves on that song.
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🤷♂️ What would you rather have on Spotify?
Anonymous Poll
63%
500K monthly listeners with 6 million monthly streams
37%
1 million monthly listeners with 2 million monthly streams
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This channel will be specifically to update our artists and other interested artists with pro tips about how to build your songs and detailed analytics about the music industry. Looking for all things ATLAST? Follow our main channel @atlast 🔥❤️
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🚀 Ads: Can’t live with them, can’t live without them
As an artist, you want to promote your songs the best way you can. When promoting anything, ads are some of the first things that come to mind. But is it worth it?
As with most things, it depends on your situation and your goals. Whether you use Facebook / Instagram for ads or Google / YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. you can be sure converting someone from an ad to a listener will be more expensive than what you make back on that stream. So in the short term you will never turn a profit with ads.
In the long term however, ads can still be a good way to build a fan base and get more people involved in your brand and with your music.
As an artist, you want to promote your songs the best way you can. When promoting anything, ads are some of the first things that come to mind. But is it worth it?
As with most things, it depends on your situation and your goals. Whether you use Facebook / Instagram for ads or Google / YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. you can be sure converting someone from an ad to a listener will be more expensive than what you make back on that stream. So in the short term you will never turn a profit with ads.
In the long term however, ads can still be a good way to build a fan base and get more people involved in your brand and with your music.
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🤷🏻♂️ Demographics
With ads its all about finding the right demographics. Getting that right can result in a low CPC (cost per click) on your ads, allowing you to reach more people for the same money. Getting it wrong can mean you won’t convert people into long term listeners.
❤️ Make sure you target people that WANT to listen to your music. A mistake I see a lot of artists make is creating a song and then expecting everyone to like it. The world is full of people with different tastes, so you can’t expect everyone to like it. But that’s a good thing. Because targeting people that like similar songs, will get you fans a lot quicker.
🥷 So what kind of people listen to your kind of music and to similar artists? Are they mostly male or mostly female or a mix? What age category? Do they use iPhone or Android? Which countries are they from? etc. etc.
🕵️♂️ The more you know about people listening to your songs / similar songs, the better you’ll get at targeting new people to listen to your songs. This is one of the many reasons why ATLAST offers this data to all of their artists. Kind of like a Spotify for Artists on steroids.
But if you haven’t released with us yet, Spotify for Artists or Apple Music for artists is a good place to start and investigate who’s listening to your songs! 🔊
With ads its all about finding the right demographics. Getting that right can result in a low CPC (cost per click) on your ads, allowing you to reach more people for the same money. Getting it wrong can mean you won’t convert people into long term listeners.
❤️ Make sure you target people that WANT to listen to your music. A mistake I see a lot of artists make is creating a song and then expecting everyone to like it. The world is full of people with different tastes, so you can’t expect everyone to like it. But that’s a good thing. Because targeting people that like similar songs, will get you fans a lot quicker.
🥷 So what kind of people listen to your kind of music and to similar artists? Are they mostly male or mostly female or a mix? What age category? Do they use iPhone or Android? Which countries are they from? etc. etc.
🕵️♂️ The more you know about people listening to your songs / similar songs, the better you’ll get at targeting new people to listen to your songs. This is one of the many reasons why ATLAST offers this data to all of their artists. Kind of like a Spotify for Artists on steroids.
But if you haven’t released with us yet, Spotify for Artists or Apple Music for artists is a good place to start and investigate who’s listening to your songs! 🔊
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📣 Are you running ads on your music?
Anonymous Poll
47%
Yes, I run them personally
26%
Yes, my label runs them
16%
No, but I'd like to give it a try
10%
No, I don't believe in ads
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It’s Amsterdam Dance Event this week! 🔊 Have you ever been?
Anonymous Poll
37%
I’m in Amsterdam now!! 🔥
26%
Not this year, but I’ve been there before.
21%
I haven’t been there, but I’d like to go.
17%
What’s ADE? 😂
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Hi guys! Spotify releases 'Made to be Found'. A new website guide that let's you better understand how fans listen to your music.
Made to Be Found details how music goes from distribution and playlist pitching, to three key pathways to reaching listeners:
- editorial curation by Spotify,
- personalized algorithmic recommendations
- fan-led streaming, like adding songs to personal playlists.
They also recommend actions artists can take along that journey to grow and engage their audiences on Spotify.
Check it out here: https://artists.spotify.com/blog/how-fans-discover-music-on-spotify-playlists-made-to-be-found
Made to Be Found details how music goes from distribution and playlist pitching, to three key pathways to reaching listeners:
- editorial curation by Spotify,
- personalized algorithmic recommendations
- fan-led streaming, like adding songs to personal playlists.
They also recommend actions artists can take along that journey to grow and engage their audiences on Spotify.
Check it out here: https://artists.spotify.com/blog/how-fans-discover-music-on-spotify-playlists-made-to-be-found
Spotify
Learn How Fans Discover Your Music on Spotify with New 'Made to Be Found' Site and 'Source of Streams' Stats – Spotify for Artists
Introducing new ways to understand and impact how fans find – and fall in love with – music on Spotify.
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Hey fellow artists! How’s it going? What do you guys think about this whole sped up / slowed down trend in the music industry? 🤔 Is it an absolute must, you don’t really care or should Spotify just make a 1.5x button and be done with it?! 😝
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