Meet Musics Tastemakers of 2019: Independent Playlist Curators
We’ve all seen the playlists on Spotify with millions of followers that can gain millions of streams and expose an artist to a massive fanbase. But what about a new artist on the platform starting from ground zero? Enter Spotify’s user-created playlist curators. Playlists: a feature that was meant for users to easily catalog their own songs for different moods and settings has turned into micro platforms where new artists can get their music directly into listeners' ears.
Some of these playlists were created by accident and gained popularity for the simple fact they named their playlist something people were searching for. Others created playlists to stereotype their Uber passengers and went viral because of it. YouTube music channels have also started to migrate their subscribers to their playlists on Spotify.
These indie curators range from stay-at-home moms, side hustlers, college students and scrappy internet marketers. Building up a playlist takes a ton of time and dedication which makes most curators fairly young.
Ok so why are these people important? For a new artist it is nearly impossible to land on an official Spotify playlist. These smaller playlists ran by users can severe as a launch pad to those larger lists. When an artist is placed on a few smaller lists Spotifys algorithm picks up on it and based on listener data (saves, follows etc.) the song can be placed on larger official Spotify owed lists such as Rap Caviar, Today’s Top Hits and Songs to Sing in the Car.
So if I get added to enough smaller playlists I will get added to bigger official Spotify playlists? Not exactly, getting added to user-created playlists is half the battle. Your song needs to get a positive response from these playlists, if listeners are saving your song, putting it on repeat or even adding it to their own playlist that helps your song gather data where it can be slingshotted into a feeder playlist like New Music Friday, Fresh Finds, Fresh Finds Poptronix and New Music Friday. But wait it gets better! If users from those lists are also saving and adding your record the record will be placed on genre-specific Spotify playlists for example a Hip Hip song might end up in Just Vibing, Hip Hop Central, or Mellow Bars.
Spotify creates some ok editorial playlists that are fine for the mainstream but for more serious music fans take to digging up creative hyper-focused playlists that they can really vibe with. Not only are these curators creating great playlists most of them are growing by 5–15% month over month.
How can you get your music to these curators? You can spend hours trying to find these people through google and Facebook or you can check out Playlist Push a music startup founded by myself that has ran over 4,000 campaigns and works with the likes of Red Light Management, AWAL, DefJam, and hundreds of indie labels and artists. Playlist Push helps you to find the exact curators that already have music like yours in their playlist by scanning their entire network of over 1,300 playlists for over 2,000 genres on Spotify.
Are you an artist or label having trouble reaching real listeners on Spotify? Check out Playlist Push and apply for a Spotify Playlist Promotion campaign today. Or if you would like a FREE copy of my e-book “How to Use Spotify Playlists to Launch Your Career in Music” drop a comment below!
