With streaming rising to become the dominant form of music consumption, playlisting has become an essential component of achieving industry success. In this eBook, Lee Parsons of Ditto Music outlines how to get your music on playlists while simultaneously building out the rest of you career.
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Guest post by Lee Parsons of Ditto Music. excerpted from the free ebook, Playlisting: The Billion Dollar Business
Spotify works like a tier system, similar to the conventional radio format. The biggest artists go straight to the top based on popular choice.
Newer artists can break through on Viral playlists, Fresh Finds and then – based on to the reaction of users – be moved onto hundreds of different playlists.
Playlists will include new hits, but also follow other popular trends based on things like Shazam, blogs and any online traction. Their complex algorithm is both automated, in part, and based on human input from the platform’s playlisting staff.
Apple Music works similarly, and while a lot of people focus on Spotify playlisting, it’s important to remember that everyone using Apple Music is a paying subscriber and therefore more revenue per stream is generated.
Apple Music also have curation staff, and from meeting with the Apple curation team worldwide, I can say from first-hand experience that they are all passionate about discovering new music. They have told me on many occasions that one of their key aims is helping new artists, so they are on your side.
They also have Beats Radio, their radio component which broadcasts globally, helping drive streams and ears to songs from audiences in all corners of the world, breaking many upcoming artists worldwide.
The question I’m sure you are asking now is… where do I start?
The first thing you need to know is that playlisting is NOT a quick fix for your career.
Too many artists contact me thinking that playlists will somehow guarantee overnight success, even if they aren’t working hard on the rest of their music career. That is not how it works.
If you are gigging, promoting, networking and making GREAT music, then you will eventually reach that next level. Unless you are putting 100% into your whole music career, you may as well stop reading here.
If you ARE spending time making great music, playing shows and building your fan base – here is how to get onto playlists.