Music streaming platforms have complicated algorithms monitoring listener behavior, song performance and playlist engagement among many other streaming statistics. I have read that the Spotify algorithm also monitors blogs and other online media to gage off-platform performance of songs and playlists. There are so many things the algorithm is designed to determine and many of it’s functions are unknown even to streaming platform employees. We can take what we do know and put that to work for us to get the best song placement and playlist attention possible for an independent artist without a large music marketing budget to work with.
I have a project idea that will hopefully reveal more about how algorithms work when it comes to music placement and playlist followers. I will post a link to the project idea or experiment at the end of this article for other artists that would like to join the experiment.
In this example of the coffee house playlist above we have many artists participating in one playlist that is made for their own listening enjoyment. Each artists listens to the playlist everyday and sometimes adding songs but not adding any of their own original songs just yet. I think it is best not to add any of the collaborators original work for a few months until the playlist has demonstrated engagement to the mighty algorithm and begins to grow. With each artist listening to the playlist everyday, you don’t want each participating artist to be playing their own songs over and over while growing the playlist. Keep it to songs that you enjoy in the genre that matches your overall playlist. It is okay to use popular songs in your playlist, just be genuine about it and don’t add songs that you wouldn’t listen to.
After a few months hopefully you will see your playlist numbers grow and once it reaches a healthy following you can then add one original song from each of the collaborators catalog of original music.
It is far better to have one playlist with 15 artists listening and engaging with it than to have 15 separate playlist created by each of the 15 artists and no engagement at all.
The Christmas Classics Plus playlist above grew pretty rapidly with little promotion efforts. I think the reason for this is that when I created it I added all of my favorite Christmas songs and I listened to the playlist almost daily. This playlist has been around for years but it has lost momentum and stopped at 98 likes. I have an idea how this happened and I may have caused the algorithm to stop promoting the playlist. A very big mistake on my part and I often wonder what would have happened if I understood playlist best practices at the time.
Here’s what happened. As the holiday season came to an end I saw the playlist numbers at a stand still and thought I would get it ready for the next Christmas season by removing all of the tracks and starting over. Removing all of the tracks that had already been fairly successful from the playlist and starting over likely undid all of the positive algorithmic charm the playlist had that drew enough attention to attract 98 likes. The playlist hasn’t been the same since and I have been working get it back into the algorithm. I don’t know how forgiving the algorithm is when it comes to things like this, it may take years to bring it back to where it was if it’s even possible.
Inspiration, Love and Forgiveness is a playlist I created about a year ago and it has drawn in 16 likes without much promotion at all. This playlist is growing at a slower pace than my Christmas Classics Plus playlist, but seems to be a steady growth with about 1 new like every month or so. Hopefully it will continue to grow. This is a playlist that I made during a really hard time that I was going through and the songs gave me hope and I listened to it almost daily. The songs on it are amazing and I don’t see myself removing any of them but I will continue to add quality songs as I find them.
One of the main things I have learned from this is that the algorithm is designed to detect the difference between a playlist that is thrown up and never listened to again. I used to build playlists and think that making a good playlist title and description was enough to attract search engines and the streaming platform algorithm, but that is far from how it works.
I turn on my sleep playlist every night and set the timer for about an hour so it automatically shuts off. I think this one is growing at a very slow pace mainly because there are so many sleep playlists out there to choose from and it will likely take a very long time for this one to gain likes and I am okay with that. The point of this post is to share the mistakes I’ve made in the past with my playlists and that I have found a way to get through to the algorithms. There really are no shortcuts. Building a genuine playlist that you enjoy listening to will draw listeners to it simply because something that you yourself enjoy is usually made with care and is of higher quality than something thrown together for promotion purposes. There is of course nothing wrong with using playlists to promote your tracks, that is what is what I use them for but I’m presenting them in a way that shows that I enjoy them as well and have take pride in building them.
Coffee & a Playlist 