The wild majority of my music catalog is available on Spotify for your listening pleasure. Over the weekend, I decided to stage a long-term, coordinated promotional attack on the popular streaming platform.
I devoured a multitude of articles about “rising above the noise” with the goal of reaching more listeners worldwide. From the reading, I identified some good actionable steps, and have decided to share them with you here.
#1: Please follow me on Spotify.
By following me, you benefit by hearing my new songs first on your “Release Radar” playlist, and I benefit because my follower count boosts my relevance in the Spotify algorithm, and I’m more likely to appear on other playlists, which is how the lion’s share of Spotify’ers consume their tunes.
#2: Reach out to Playlist Curators
I got my hands on a contact list of thousands of Playlist curators, and I’ve been emailing several a week- mostly drawing attention to my new single, Want It All. Many of these are smaller, independent playlists with listenerships of 1000 people or fewer. Good news: the curators are very accessible and willing to add good, new music if it fits the vibe of their playlist. Also good news: there are thousands of them!
#3: Create my own Playlists
I’ve been doing this for a while just for my own purposes, but I recently have made a few of my playlists public. Most recently I created “‘Takes a Village” which features songs from the talented Chicago songwriters I’m lucky enough to know, as well as one second-hand curated “Nate the Bartender” by a young Albany Park bud who’s been kind enough to keep me up to date on the Hip Hop and R&B I might not otherwise know about.
#4: Consistently Release New Music
It’s mentioned beneficial to release new music every month. While this does not really match my workflow yet (I tend to do an album every couple years) it’s definitely worth considering.
It was also mentioned worthwhile to repackage older songs into new releases so the content is fresh again. This seems a little schemy, but I haven’t done a “greatest hits” since 2009. I’m due. Plus, I have an unreleased single I’m sprucing up that would make a perfect cornerstone for the compilation. More news on that next week…
#5: Follow me on Spotify
Thanks for reading, and I’m excited to keep you up to date with our progress. Have an excellent holiday (for my readers in the USA) and talk soon,
-W
