How to Promote on Spotify: 10 Tips to Get Your Music Viral

As an emerging artist, promoting your music on Spotify can be a challenging task. With over 40,000 tracks being uploaded daily, it’s crucial to stand out from the competition and reach a wider audience. Spotify is currently the largest music streaming service, with a 30.5% global market share, making it a must-have platform for any musician looking to grow their audience and generate income.

However, with the right approach, it’s possible to get your music viral and reach a wider audience. Whether you’re a new or established musician, you should know how to promote your music on Spotify. This can only happen if you stop relying on luck and start using effective Spotify promotion services and reliable methods.

In this article, we’ll explore effective strategies for promoting music on Spotify. From setting up a Spotify for Artists account to collaborating with other musicians and using the power of user-generated content, we’ll provide actionable tips to help you reach a larger audience, increase your streams, and get your music viral.

Promote on Spotify

There are two ways you can carry out your Spotify music promotion that helps a song become viral. One is through an organic Spotify promotion, which you can achieve through self-marketing, word of mouth, and optimization of free marketing tools available in and out of Spotify. 

The other way is through a paid Spotify promotion service which lifts some burden on the artist so that he can focus on his music. Both organic and paid methods of promoting your music on Spotify can help increase its reach and make it go viral. Ultimately, you should promote on Spotify in ways that Spotify likes. Here they are:

1. Use Spotify for Artists

Let’s begin your Spotify single promotion with good housekeeping that is, setting up your Spotify for Artists account. It serves as your Spotify homepage, which you should spruce up every now and then. Keep it fresh and interesting by regularly updating your profile, including a high-resolution profile avatar, a photo gallery, and a compelling bio. This is where fans can view details about you, easily access your playlist, and acquire updates on your shows and upcoming projects. Hence, keeping your Spotify artist profile fresh and interesting can help you build your Spotify fanbase from zero to 10,000 much sooner.

While at it, it’s essential to do things on your Spotify for Artists account geared towards drawing your potential fans in. These include putting a nice high-res profile avatar that couldn’t scream Spotify artist any louder. Spotify also wants you to engage users by giving them a good experience. Thus, you can feature a photo gallery that shows you in action, performing at events and some behind-the-scenes, which can arouse people’s curiosity. Fill them in through your bio to make people want to listen to your music. When most of your visitors feel this way just by reading your profile, becoming viral won’t be too far from happening.

2. Pitch your music to playlists

A Spotify stream promotion includes putting your single in playlists. Knowing how to promote a Spotify playlist can gain you new followers and streams. Aside from curating their own playlist, artists should pitch their tracks on different playlists, such as editorial playlists, user-generated playlists, algorithmic playlists, and collaborative playlists.

Spotify editorial and algorithmic playlists expose your music to a large audience that is more engaged and actively searching for songs they like. Non-Spotify playlists, such as the ones created from collaborations and by Spotify users, are attractive to the platform’s algorithms. With sufficient favorable data, Spotify can pick up your track and recommend them to users of your genre, ultimately resulting in increased popularity and a larger audience.

When pitching your music to Spotify’s editorial team, make sure to submit your single at least a week before your intended release date or better yet, do it 30 days in advance, so it gets a spot on the Release Radar playlist. Don’t skip the description field, where you can tag your social media for instant recognition and specify your target Spotify playlist. You can also create a thoughtful pitch to other artists you plan to collaborate with and independent curators who have a high subscriber count and play music in your style and genre.

3. Collaborate with other Spotify musicians

One way how to promote a song on Spotify if you’re not getting your desired numbers is to do artist collaborations. Artist collaborations can double your reach and bring in new listeners. Consider working with artists in your genre or those you admire to create a collaborative track. Even megastars like Ed Sheeran, who has the biggest following on Spotify, still collaborates with artists; his recent hit album featured multiple artist collaborations.

And besides, it has never been easier to work with another artist than today who you don’t have to be in the same room with at any given time, making for utmost convenience. Hence, when you release your collaborative track, you are presenting it to your audience and those following the artist you are collaborating with, doubling your reach.

4. Utilize Social Media

First things first, it’s important to have a strong social media presence on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This way, you can connect with your fans, share updates about your music, and post sneak peeks of your latest tracks.

Next, use your existing network. If you have friends who are also musicians, consider collaborating on a track or promoting each other’s music on your respective social media pages. This not only helps build your fanbase, but it also helps strengthen the music community.

Another great way to promote your music on Spotify is to leverage hashtags. For example, if you release a new single, create a unique hashtag for it and use it when you share it on social media. This will make it easier for people to find your music and share it with their followers.

Another tip is to collaborate with influencers or popular music bloggers. You can reach out to them and ask if they’d be interested in promoting your music on their social media channels. Just be sure to do your research and only work with influencers who align with your music genre and style.

Last, don’t be afraid to get creative! If you have a quirky personality, consider creating humorous memes or videos to promote your music. If you’re more of a visual artist, create eye-catching graphics that showcase your sound. Remember, the goal is to stand out from the crowd and get your music in front of as many people as possible.

5. Try Canvas on Spotify

A canvas is a visual element that you can attach to your tracks on Spotify. It can be an outtake from a music video, a fun photoshoot, or a short video clip. When people discover your music, whether through a playlist or a link from your friend, placing a Spotify canvas gives them a hint as to what else you are up to image-wise. A canvas is often an outtake from a music video, a fun photoshoot, or a super short video clip you can put on each track.

According to Spotify, tracks with a canvas influence listeners to share them by 145% more, 5% will keep streaming them, 20% will add them to their personal playlists, and 9% are drawn to the Spotify for Artists profile page.

For your Spotify single promotion, you decide to feature a canvas of a woman with tears of blood as an example. With such visuals, you are trying to create curiosity and intrigue; showing your fans you have more to offer than just your musicality. It’s one of those early impressions crucial to building your fanbase. 

Whatever you do to tip that fan into exploring your music and getting addicted to it is a worthwhile exercise. If you can impact many other listeners, you can immediately become viral. It takes very little to repurpose content you’ve already made into the format of a canvas, making it easy to include in your marketing strategies.

6. Add your lyrics

Don’t forget another simple but effective way you can promote Spotify song for free is by providing lyrics on them. Sometimes, fans cannot make out that lyrical part of a song or tend to mishear the words, which can be frustrating. The accompanying lyric text allows your listeners to sing along using the correct lyrics and connect with your music on a deeper level, enhancing their overall listening experience.

With the lyric display, you get to share the meaning behind your song clearly, making it more interactive. This can help increase your user engagement and shares, which could make the song viral. At the same time, having lyrics is one of the factors that Spotify considers in recommending your track to users listening to your genre.

You can add the lyrics to your songs via music catalog services such as Musixmatch and Genius or your digital music distributor if available.

7. Consider Spotify Ad Studio

Spotify ads are a great long-term investment to promote an album on Spotify. The Spotify ad studio provides a self-service advertising platform enabling artists to create paid ad campaigns in as fast as 10 minutes or less. As a new artist, you’ll use ads as Spotify streaming promotions, but such a facility can also be a marketing tool for a brand, concert event, merch, or product.

When you promote on Spotify tracks, you are looking at widening your reach and building awareness of your artistry, which leads to improved streaming numbers. Spotify ads can be interactive or placed as display ads which you can set to target specific audiences according to their music taste. For instance, if your song is like Taylor Swift’s, you’ll tap her audience because they will likely gravitate toward your music. As such, they would welcome your ad placements since you are putting music as the ad itself, not the usual commercial sales pitch for products and services, which otherwise may be annoying. Moreover, it can help your track become viral, especially if it’s a good song to begin with. 

You can access the Spotify ad studio using your Spotify artist login to execute your music campaign. Note that while artists can do the process themselves, they should have a good grasp of their target listeners to optimize their Spotify ads.

8. Check your analytics

How is my Spotify song catching on? Where are my listeners from? Are my efforts to promote on Spotify showing up? These are some questions, the answers of which are essential for your continuous improvement, making for more intelligent Spotify streaming promotions. This is made possible with Spotify for Artists analytics which displays valuable data such as who’s listening, how your track is discovered, their location, how they listen to your music, etc. You can export corresponding reports as CSV files for your record monitoring.

If you run a paid Spotify ad, you can gain insights into the demographics of those who viewed it, ads served, ad clicks, CTR, ad frequency, and ad reach via Spotify Ad Studio. You can also view your new followers, track saves, and playlist ads, all of which show your musical progress on Spotify. Probably the only missing feature is to track the royalties on how much Spotify pays for the streams on your music, so you will have to go to your music distributor’s panel for that.

9. Give it a social media boost via Tiktok

Social media grew at lightning speeds, particularly in 2021, averaging 13.5 new users per second. That’s over 420 million new users in one year! With more than half of the world’s population tuned in, you cannot ignore the immense popularity of social media platforms and how they can impact your music and artist brand. 

Aside from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok is currently the way to go for Spotify musicians who should take advantage of its tremendous influence in the music industry. It is also highly favored by the younger generation which comprises a big chunk of music listeners. By actively creating content out of the most memorable parts of your video and generating buzz around your pre-release, your music can secure a spot on Tiktok’s hyper-personal spaces.  This Tiktok-to-Spotify pipeline can then lead to increasing your Spotify streaming numbers, building a stronger case for your song to land in any of Spotify’s highly-coveted playlists, which have a huge following and engagement. 

10. Seek a reliable Spotify promotion service

New artists have their work cut out once they pursue their music in the Spotify environment. Since they compete with emerging and established artists, more than organic music marketing strategies is required. At some point, you’ll realize you will not make the numbers you’re supposed to despite your efforts. 

Promoting music on Spotify organically through engaging with your audience, creating high-quality content, and leveraging social media is a much more sustainable and effective way to build a dedicated fan base and grow your presence on the platform. Purchasing fake plays is against Spotify’s terms of service and can lead to suspension or termination of your account. Additionally, such practices do not help to build a genuine, engaged audience and do not provide long-term benefits for your music career.

That’s why you can’t rule out using digital Spotify promotion services from providers like SongLifty to promote on Spotify, giving your music a shot in the arm that gets the attention of other listeners to turn viral. This would mean buying streams and followers using live Spotify accounts to make others curious about you based on social proof. Note that a legit music promotion provider like SongLifty knows that Spotify will ban anyone caught gaming their system.

Purchasing fake plays is against Spotify’s terms of service and can lead to the suspension or termination of your account. Additionally, such practices do not help to build a genuine, engaged audience and do not provide long-term benefits for your music career. Hence, SongLifty executes promotional strategies carefully yet effectively to produce results that make a difference.

Repeat

Four words: consistent and sustained promotion. Simply put, you are releasing music regularly and doing the marketing legwork. Sometimes, you can get lucky if one of two or three of your tracks becomes viral. But if you rest on your laurels too soon, you won’t get past being a one-hit-wonder. Instead, release a string of singles and keep working hard to promote your Spotify song like your life depends on it. Or maybe it does.

As an artist, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of getting your music on Spotify and only focus on promoting that. However, promoting your music solely on Spotify can limit your potential audience. To truly reach new listeners and grow your fanbase, it’s important to also promote your music through other channels. This can include using social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to showcase your work and connect with fans.

Live events, such as concerts and festivals, are also a great way to connect with people in a more personal and tangible way. By promoting your music through a variety of channels, you’ll have the best chance of reaching a wider audience and making a lasting impression on new fans. So don’t just focus on the Spotify bubble, get creative and think outside of the box!

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, promoting your music on Spotify effectively is crucial for any emerging artist looking to reach a wider audience and gain recognition in the music industry. From setting up a comprehensive Spotify for Artists account to collaborating with other musicians and utilizing the power of social media, there are many strategies that can help you reach your goals. Whether you choose to focus on organic or paid promotion methods, it’s important to be proactive and persistent in your efforts to get your music viral. With the right approach and a little bit of hard work, you can achieve great success and make your mark in the world of music.

That’s it; you now know how to promote on Spotify using effective marketing strategies to help your song become the next viral tune and nurture your musical growth. Not utilizing any available tools is like being in Disneyland but not trying all the exhilarating rides. That’s why we created our in-house Spotify promotion service to help you with success. Staying on top of your music promotions will help your amazing song acquire more streams and followers and remain on the radar, leaving your fans wanting more.