Accepting the challenge of the fast changing music market is no longer an option. Spotify is becoming the key player in this game more and more and you really should build up a  strategy to get as many plays as possible. Here is a distillation of the experiences I made in the last months:

Big Spotify is watching you
Spotify is constantly checking the stats to see how many people put songs in their private playlists. It´s one of their strongest indicators show that people like the music, followed by marking it in “Your Music” or simply the amount of plays. Skipping a song is probably one of the worst things that can happen to a song. By the way, there are rumors that spotify is able to track when the music got spreaded over the web through blogs, Youtube, Soundcloud, etc.

Short Versions
It´s like a radio station. Spotify wants to satisfy their listeners with easy listening-sound. Short edits work better in a playlist, songs with long intros and outros often bore the listeners. So be prepared and release a short version on Spotify.

Upload 5 weeks before release
Spotify has a complex system to check which song they want to feature. So give them and your distributor time to work on that. Upload the song 5 weeks before the release and update your distributor about big promotion results like a feature on a important blog, feedback of an important person like maybe a deejay or magazine 1-2 weeks before the release.

Push other playlists

Always insert the Spotify link in your socials! This includes Youtube, Soundcloud etc. Wait with pushing your Release on your socials until it’s up on Spotify and you can add the link! By handling it that way it’s possible to put all the pressure on Spotify! Concerning to Spotify, putting music on Soundcloud, Youtube or Facebook is a negative thing. They’re competitors. It‘s the same with other stores like itunes, other streaming services or even radio. Spotify likest he thought of people listening to music on Spotify when they could also listen to it on any other platform. So you know what to do ;-)

Be consistent

You have to play the long game with Spotify. Plan your release marketing & promotion for 2-3 month and don´t use all tools directly in the first week.

That’s all for now. Probably not for long, everything always changes fast and I will keep updating you with more interesting facts every other month.

This article was found on hypebot.com