Spotify Strategy for 2024
I’ve noticed that my editorial article still gets plenty of views, and while it’s still relivant, things have changed a bit in 2024. Firstly, if you make lofi hip hop like me, a lot has changed. Your chances of landing on an editorial is no longer a chance, but can be programmed. I’ve noticed that most of the lofi hip hop / beats editorials have been flooded with profiles that have abosolutely zero online presence. I will cover this in my next article, as there’s a lot to unpack, and that’s not the point of this one. What does matter is how that will effect your chances of landing on one. They are now personally currated, which won’t really matter for most of you because the algorthm is so fvcked it’s been flooded by these fake artists who’ve been adopted by the algorythm. So if you make genuine lofi hip hop, it’s now become more difficult in some ways to get heard. These playlists have shifted the content of the genre to these drone study beats by nameless artists because, well, it doesn’t really matter who makes them, as long as it’s boring enough to not distract you from studying. There are, however, some editorials left in the genre that have real people currating them, and you should seek to be picked up by them.
Now that your hopes have been tarnished, let me pick you back up with the good news. Radio plays have been exploding lately. Spotify has likely aimed to replace the need for these editorials by better understanding their audiences’ preferences in music. My radio plays have gone up tremendously, even without marquies campaigns (which I’ll talk about soon), and that will be a better way to sustain growth. You no longer need to be praying to the music gods to land an editorial, all you have to do is execute a strong marketing campaign. If you don’t have the budget to do so, this next part is for you.
Collaborating with similar artists should be your top priority. This will tell spotify who you sound like, along with the genre, and you will enherit a great deal of their fans in the process. Every collab I’ve ever done, big artist or small, has brought me new followers and given me more radio plays. You’re now in their radio algorythm, as well as every other artist they’ve accumulated in that playlist, and this will only snowball if you keep releasing consistantly. You also no longer need to stress about a 6 week window for editorial consideration. That’s not to say you shouldn’t consider it if you don’t have the volume of music to release, but if you’re sitting on 40 tracks, it’s time to start releasing them, and you can even do so twice a month. If you’ve got an album, be sure to impliment the waterfall strategy of dropping one track at a time, and then combining that meta data once it’s finished into the album.
The second thing you should be doing for free is creating content on social media. If you’ve done any research at all you’ve heard this before so I wont spend too much time covering it. Just know that I’ve seen artists become incredibly popular and successful over the years just by posting regularly. If you don’t have the formula to do so, it won’t work out as fast or effectively. So think about ways you can streamline the process; have a camera setup, try out different videos and see which one works best (spoiler, it’s going to be the one people can see your face in). I’m willing to bet a lot of your followers don’t even have the sound on, so if they can just see your face you’ll be getting extra attention just for that. There are far too many faceless producers out there and people aren’t going to care nearly as much.
My next strategy is the paid method. Facebook ads are great, doing them through hypeddit is even easier. I’m not sponsored by that or anything, it’s just an effective platform to streamline the gruling process of advertising on that god aweful meta ad page. Look up youtubers who talk about effective ad methods, they know more than me. There are some that have been building playlists to advertise to which is excellent because of what I wrote above. The idea is that you make a playlist full of artists you sound like, ideally with monthly listeners around 20k-100k, as well as your best work you’d like to advertise, ideally around 6 songs placed intermittedly. You’ll be not only growing a playlist, but promoting your own songs and teaching spotify about who else should show up on your radio as well as theirs. It’s killing 3 birds with one stone, and brilliant imo.
So you see now why your chances have been squandered from landing on these editorials made by algorythms. Companies like Lofifruits have built an empire through succesful botted playlists that have snowballed off each other, and now spotify thinks lofi hip hop sounds like an infant robot making jazz trying to luliby humans to sleep. Stay posted for my next article which will expose this bullshit that has ruined a favorite genre of mine.