Music Marketing

5 Spotify Artist Tips for 2020

George Goodrich

Feb 25, 2020 — 4 min read

This is it, our top tips and strategies for growing your Spotify presence. Here we give you the full rundown including how to promote your music on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit and YouTube. We’ve also included one of our biggest secrets: how to identify your niche and sub-niche genres!

1) Three Ways to Optimize Your Instagram Profile

IG is no doubt the most engaged platform right now for connecting with your fans. Below are three of our top tips for upgrading your bio.

Get Your Profile Photo Dialed – this is a no brainer, however, it cannot be understated. You want to be eye-catching when you pop up in someone’s feed and you also want to be clear of who you are, so that when people search your name on Instagram they know it’s you.. Always go with professional photos if possible.
Use Linktree to Include Multiple links in Bio – IG limits you to only one link in your bio, however, the free site/services like Linktr.ee allow you to include a link that directs people to a menu of several links. This way you can include your Spotify, Tour, and Merch all in one link placed in your bio. Note: there are other services that are similar to linktree that you can use as well.
Use Instagram Stories Highlights Strategically – This is your chance to curate categories of content for your followers. This can be music, music videos, tour, merch, and more. Example: Russ.

2) Create a FB Group for your superfans:

As an artist, you’ve probably seen your FB Page become less and less effective as Facebook has shifted to prioritizing Groups. This shift presents an incredible opportunity for artists that we believe is vastly underutilized in the music industry.

Why FB Groups are so powerful:

The organic reach in Groups can be 10-times that of Pages. This means when you post, the members of your group will actually see it.
Groups can be self-sustaining: essentially run by the members, which requires much less work from you.

Starting your own is simple. Create a group linked to your Facebook Page and post guidelines in the group description. For an example of an artist doing this well, checkout Lauv’s FB group. As you can see, his group doesn’t replace his FB Page, rather it becomes an extension of it, focused on connecting his superfans with each other. He can then activate this highly engaged group whenever he wants, snagging their attention and directing them to take action.

Once you’ve created your group, write an introductory post welcoming new group members, then promote the group to your existing fans via your FB Page, Instagram, Twitter, and email list. Also, don’t sweat it if your group doesn’t become massive. Groups are about quality-members and high-engagement, not vanity metrics.

3) Using Reddit to Boost Your Music Career

Reddit is that weird social media site that you’re either obsessed with or never use. Regardless of which side you’re on, it’s important to be aware of the many benefits it can offer artists. Here are several key areas:

Get Feedback on Your Music – There are a ton of subreddits designed for artists to post their music for feedback from the community. Checkout this article for a list of great music subreddits.
Network with Other Artists – The community on Reddit is generally super helpful & supportive. Finding niche subreddits related to you, is an amazing way to connect with other people who are just like you.
Gain Music Industry Knowledge – Whether you want to learn more about production or get in-depth personal reviews of each music distributor – reddit is an incredible resource. Just use the search bar and type in your topic

4) Drive Spotify plays with YouTube Snippets

The traditional method of using YouTube has always included uploading your full songs as audio tracks or music videos. However, in the Spotify era we’ve seen many artists ditch the status quo for more creative strategies.

Brooklyn hip hop artist Kota the Friend is a perfect example of this. His simple yet effective YouTube snippet strategy has helped him reach over 1.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify and over 20 millions streams of his May 2019 album FOTO.

The method: create a high-quality video that requires very little budget or production. Release the video with only 1-2 minutes of your new single’s audio. Release the video on same day your song releases on Spotify. Put the link to the full song in the YouTube description. Then replicate this same strategy on your Instagram posts and stories.

Here’s an example for Kota’s song “Birdie” on YouTube (note the video length and the links in the description).

5) Identify Your Niche Genres

We’ve all seen how certain niche “sub-genres” blow up on Spotify: Lofi-Beats, Dream Pop, and Glam Rock to name a few. While many of these genre names didn’t exist before Spotify, it’s now crucial that you understand this new landscape and where your music fits in.

Why do you need to know your niche genres? To succeed in getting placed on the most relevant playlists and to feed the Spotify algorithms with the most juice, you need to know which of the 3,000+ sub-genres to target.

For example: if you make Pop music, determine which sub-genre of Pop your music fits into. If you make Hip Hop, which sub-genre of Hip Hop are you? Repeat for all major genres types.

How to Identify Your Sub-Genres:

Use Every Noise – EveryNoise.com has every Spotify Sub-Genre listed in order of popularity. Even better, you can click on the genre name and it will play a playlist of that genre, allowing you to see if this sub-genre is a match for you.
Use Playlist Push Similar Artists Tool: Every Noise is great, however, if you want help finding your sub-genres first, you can use our free campaign setup process to find relevant sub-genres.

Simply apply for a campaign and during the genre selection you can input similar artists, which will then give you genre suggestions. Then use Every Noise to verify this genre matches your music.

Want to learn 10 more artist tips? Checkout out this post:
How to Get More Spotify Plays and Followers.