An Artists Beginners Guide to Setting Up…. Spotify

One of the big new platforms for DJs & Producers from the last 8 months and looking forward to the next 12 months is the advances in Spotify.  With more distributors for electronic music pushing directly to the platform and more countries coming on board where the platform can be accessed, it’s becoming one of the go-to places to find and consume music.

At the recent IMS Ibiza, the annual business report announced that 12 Billion electronic music streams a month on Spotify, so for artists, it’s providing a real revenue stream and solution to the previously lost cash from the illegal downloading problem.  As 4g & wifi improves and soon 5G becomes available, why do you need to illegally download when platforms like Spotify can offer every track for FREE (with adverts) or for as little as £4.99 a month for Students & £9.99 for the average person.

For us at Data Transmission we see the rise of Spotify as something you are either going to do right now – get those numbers building, or you are going to do in 6-8 months time when its properly booted off and then you can join and be behind the curve.   Spotify for any young artist or growing artist is a brand new source of regular content for your other socials networks.   Spotify has made it very easy now with the advent of ‘Scan Codes’ for you to share your playlist/profile with your fans.  This works in a similar way to your Snapchat Ghost, whereby fans scan the strip and it brings them directly to your page.

We thought we’d bring you a simple beginners guide for those Artists/DJs who want to get on the ball now, so strap in as we ease you into Spotify.

1.  First up!  Get Spotify Desktop version for you Mac / PC from https://www.spotify.com, you can do much more than the app versions at the moment and we feel it’s essential.
2. The big thing to get your head around with Spotify are the TWO types of page.  Yes, we said two, you have your ARTIST PAGE these are automatically generated when you have a release.  The second is your PROFILE this is created when you create your account with Spotify, you can check out our Data Transmission Profile Here.  

Your Profile Set-up.

1. Sign-up for an account with Spotify (this is free) and we’d suggest using the username you want as your artist name  i.e https://open.spotify.com/user/datatransmission as you can see from ours.  Don’t signup using FB, it will link your artist account to your personal Facebook account, which is fine when you are little but as you grow and management become involved, they will need to login to your personal FB to access or get it changed and it’s a bit of mission.
2. With your profile, you can build followers on the actual profile and on the playlists you create.
3. You can get your profile verified, but its not essential.
4. From your profile you build your playlists, these can be anything you like, use the opportunity as an artist to be authentic, so don’t just put up a simple tracks i’m playing playlist.   Be more creative, after party tracks, bath time tracks, running tracks, tracks to cook to – you get the idea.
5. Your tracks you are playing you want to keep that updated – Spotify recommend daily but weekly is fine for a new artist.  When you update it you want to share that across all your other socials as a weekly piece of content.
6. If you are releasing tracks then make sure on the day of release you put your own tracks in to that playlist, the followers on the playlist will then get your new track.
7. If you are giving away free downloads on Soundcloud make sure you use one of the tools to drive followers for Spotify profiles/playlists i.e Hypeddit for example.
8. Make sure you include your shinny new profile link (https://open.spotify.com/user/datatransmission) on all your socials and if you have a website you can grab a widget like the one below to gain followers for your profile.

Your Artist Page Set-up.

First things first, bookmark this URL – https://artists.spotify.com it’s going to become your new friend.

Spotify artist verification — which previously required that you have at least 250 followers, has recently been changed as Spotify verification is now open to all artists, regardless of your following.  They recently re-branded their “Fan Insights,” to the now titled “Spotify for Artists.” (the link above)  Spotify for Artists provides artists and their managers with audience stats and tools for managing their profile on Spotify, get access here.

Once you have access, you see stats about everything from who’s discovering your music to which of your songs are trending on Spotify. You’re able to update the image on your profile, post artist playlists, and make an artist’s pick anytime you want, all from one place. You also become a verified artist, so your profile on Spotify gets a blue verification check mark.

You need to have a Spotify profile account to get access to Spotify for Artists. If you don’t have a Spotify account, you can set one up when you’re getting access.

Spotify artist verification is important for a few reasons. Perhaps the most important has to do with play listing. It’s possible, of course, to get your music onto playlists without being a verified artist on Spotify, but verification can really help you in your efforts to be taken seriously on the platform, get the attention of Spotify’s algorithm, and also get noticed by Spotify playlist curators.

Once you’re verified and have access to Spotify for Artists, you’ll get a blue check mark on your profile and be able to:

• Update your artist image anytime you want
• Post artist playlists to your profile
• Make an artist’s pick, which appears at the top of your profile