The death of the album came so furtively, that no one got the memo when it happened…but it did happen. Today, it’s important to know how to boost Spotify plays because digital streaming is now the supreme overlord that reigns with an iron fist over all music content.

Indeed, 2018 marked ‘D-day’ for compact when streaming took home the lion’s share of all revenues and sales generated by major record labels and artists globally.

There’s real money in Spotify…and it’s greener than you can imagine.

How Spotify is Bringing In The Dough for Artists

Spotify uses a series of metrics and algorithms to calculate the quality and popularity of your music.

And if you’re putting in the work to produce great content, you’ll end up in the most lucrative section of Spotify.

The Spotify playlists.

Prominent playlists can do wonders for your music career. That’s because they have massive following and ad-funding from some of the biggest Spotify promotion companies in the world.

For example, a Playlist such as Your Favorite Coffeehouse boasts a whopping 2 million followers!

And one artist⁠—Perrin Lamb⁠—made a mammoth $60k from having just one single added to this playlist.

How To Boost Spotify Plays on The Biggest Playlists

Like most achievements in life, you need to lay some serious groundwork before reaping the fruits of your labor.

And by fruits, we mean that fat, juicy, royalty check from Spotify.

It’s vital for you to generate a lot of interest to your content and get the attention of Spotify’s quality team.

To guide you through this journey, we’ve developed a short and simple review on how to boost Spotify plays in 2019.

Let’s begin:

Getting A Spotify Following- Breaking the Chilly ‘250 Barrier’

One of the major hallmarks of your music career is to get verified on your Spotify ‘Artists’ account. And to do so, you need to have at least 250 followers on your discography page.

This might sound like a piece of cake for the proverbial IG and Twitter accounts, but 250 can be quite a hassle on Spotify. That’s because you’re dealing with people who genuinely want to listen to good music.

Thankfully, we’re here to help you know how to increase Plays On Spotify.

Not only will we assist you to increase your organic Spotify promotion, but also share some fantastic hacks as will be discussed below.

#1. Set A Verification Goal

What is your timeline to get verified? Are you looking at a couple of weeks or four months? Whatever period of time you’ve set aside for your Spotify Artist promotion account, ensure you have a set schedule to meet your milestones.

Here is a simple step-by-step video on how to create an artist account on Spotify in a matter of minutes:

#2. Do A Little House Cleaning

A major faux pas that most artists do is to advertise themselves with a half-decent blog or website. You know, the kind where the content is strewn all over and the cover art is just awful.

This tends to leave visitors to your blog disgruntled, and wondering whether you’re a legitimate artist or not.

As a rule of thumb, always allocate some time and money to improve the outlook of your blog.

You can start by embedding a Spotify follow button on your landing page.

Make sure that your visitors can easily follow you by clicking on the link without having to leave your website page.

Don’t forget to also embed a Spotify play widget to your music content on your site.

It’s very simple, all you have to do is select the ellipses located next to your content on Spotify, copy the embed code, and paste it in your website’s HTML pages.

#3. Get Your Fans to Back You Up

Fan support is no doubt the cornerstone of any budding artist. You can gather all the support you need by telling your fans to follow you on Spotify via your social media accounts.

Other ways of rallying them to your cause include:

Baby-Steps. Learning the Basics of Playlisting

Once your verification is secured, it’s time to hunt for playlists. Of course, you’ll want to start by getting recognition from smaller playlists as you make your way up the ladder.

It’s simple; the more your tracks get added to different playlists, the more Spotify’s algorithms will take notice of your content and how successful it is on the platform.

An improved Spotify resume will get the attention of the editorial team and eventually include your content in top playlists.

There are five major playlist categories to target on Spotify:

#1. Your Own Playlist

As the name implies, this is a playlist of your personal songs that you’ve created, promoted, and featured on your discography page.

#2. Other People’s Playlists

Casually known as O.P.Ps, they refer to any playlist that is created by one of the millions of users or artists on Spotify.

#3. Collaborative Playlists

Considered one of the most customizable playlists on Spotify, they are designed to give a user the ability to add, delete, alter or change the order of any songs on the playlist.

#4. Curated Spotify playlists

These are some of the most high-end and lucrative playlists run by Spotify’s own editorial team, and usually, have the highest organic Spotify promotion results on the platform!

#5. Branded Playlists

These refer to Spotify playlists that are under the management of a major-label company such as Topsify.

Such playlists are designed to create a balance between well-known and upcoming artists in the industry.

Playlists are also created and grouped according to other features such as:

The genre of music

The theme of the content

Lyrics of the content

The region that artists reside in: continent, country, state, etc.

The influences that shape their music

The dates of release.

How to Create A Playlist

Now that you’re verified on Spotify, you can start by creating a playlist of your own music.

Here’s how to go about it:

While navigating the Spotify app, look for the (+) symbol to create a New Playlist

Once you’ve clicked the icon, provide a name and description of the new playlist you’re creating. Ensure to enrich the description with vital keywords that describe the genre of your music, the name of the songs on the playlist, the length, the date of release, and the albums from which the songs have been sampled.

Enhance the playlist’s visuality by uploading cover art. Make sure the cover art is awesome though!

You can also insert a URL link to direct users to your website (for your own songs) or to a music store to preorder content.

From there, click ‘create’.

And at last, add your songs!

We’ve also linked a summary of the process below:

Best Practices to Maintain and Promote Your Playlists

One of the best ways to promote music on Spotify is by maintaining healthy playlist habits. It’s not enough that you know how to create a playlist, you’ve got to make it gain popularity. Here are some awesome practices to adopt.

#1. Invest Some Time to Regularly Update the Content

For your playlist to maintain a consistent following, it must be updated on a regular basis. Otherwise, the playlist will lose its golden touch overtime.

You can dedicate one evening a week to refresh the content and build excitement amongst your followers.

#2. Diversity is Key

Unless you’ve created your playlist solely to promote your music, then ideally, you should make it diverse. In fact, Spotify can actually penalize your playlist for focusing too much on one artist!

#3. The Playlist’s Length Should Be Just Right

Spotify’s algorithm favors playlists with a minimum of 20 songs and a maximum of 60 songs. So, when creating your first playlist, an ideal number to have is between 20-30.

#4. Use Social Media to Promote your Content

Share playlists you have created on your twitter, Instagram, and Facebook profiles. You can take it a notch higher by asking your fans which songs they’d like to hear on the playlist.

#5. Encourage Your Fans to Sample Content From Your Playlist

Whenever a user is motivated to move a song from your playlist and add it to their own custom playlist, Spotify’s algorithm will indubitably improve your ranking.

So, request your fans to regularly do so!

Pitching your Music Content to High-End Playlists

So you’re probably thinking, “how can I further promote my music on Spotify and take my career to the next level?”

Well, by getting in touch with other playlist curators.

Indeed, here’s where your powers of persuasion come into play. As a rule of thumb, don’t rush; be patient and friendly!

You can start by pitching to independently-curated playlist creators and requesting them to check out your music.

If socializing isn’t your forte, however, don’t worry. You can also buy real Spotify plays if you’d like to have quicker results with your Spotify promotion.

Regardless of the genre of music, you can use the following principles to successfully pitch your content to established playlists:

#1. Perform a Google Search

A popular playlist, as well as the contact’s of the creator, are easy to find online. All you have to do is simply perform a Google search and save the information you retrieve.

#2. Do Your Homework

Spotify is a large platform. There’s so much activity going on that it’s easy to lose yourself for hours.

And we strongly encourage you to do this.

You might find some great playlists to work with. Make sure to note the ones that you’d like to contact in future.

#3. Follow Great Playlists

Don’t just look like a spammer though. Be enthusiastic when you approach them, and show your appreciation by following their work. Besides, isn’t their content enjoyable?

#4. Warm-up to The Playlist Creator

You don’t have to be all up in their face or anything. Simply send them an invite on social media, leave a comment or two on their blogs, and shoot a few compliments their way.

#5. Finally, Make A Pitch

After you’ve expressed your interest in their work, as well as show that you are knowledgeable in their genre of interest, you can politely (and briefly) pitch one of your songs to be added to the playlist.

After that, leave it to the universe.

If they add your song, great! If not, don’t jump the gun by unfollowing them or leaving a nasty comment on their page.

Instead, take a breather before pitching again. In the meantime, work hard on improving your content! If you feel you’ve hit a dead end with your strategies, you can always buy Spotify plays for cheap to get your account rolling.

It’s only a matter of time before your music gets the recognition it deserves on a number of playlists.

Eventually, Spotify’s algorithm will pick up on this and pitch your content to the in-house editorial team.

Before you know it, you’ll find your content on high-end playlists such as Fresh Finds.