So you’ve just uploaded your song to a digital distribution platform and your song is now officially online on a zillion streaming stores. Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Tidal and many more.
Submitting music online however, doesn’t necessarily mean that your song will get you streams. If you don’t have followers on your Spotify or Apple music account, then it's similar to performing a live show when there’s no one in the audience.
Once your song has reached all streaming platforms, that’s when the hard work starts such as promoting and getting your music heard. The main way to promote your music on the streaming platforms and getting heard is by getting your music on playlists.
There are other ways to do this like sharing songs on social media or on your artist website, but doing this will most likely not make a huge difference, unless you do this hand in hand with promoting your music on streaming platforms.
Getting on playlists is by far the most efficient and effective way to get your music heard.
But how do you get your tracks on playlists? Should you focus your efforts on Spotify, Apple music or Deezer? Which one should you choose?
If you want to know more, well then you’ve come to the right place.
Who, What And How?
There’s currently 4 streaming platforms dominating the music streaming market.
Spotify, Apple music, Deezer and Tidal.
Spotify
Spotify was launched in Sweden about 14 years ago and slowly expanded to Scandinavian territories such as Finland and Norway in 2009, and expanded to France, Denmark, UK and Spain 2 years later. Spotify is currently the world's biggest streaming platform with more than 400 million subscribers, with the service being available in more than 180 countries. 57% of Spotify users are non paying users and 43% of them are premium paying users.
The premium subscription service enables the option to browse freely between songs, listen without audio ads, offline listening and additional features. Recently Spotify expanded into the video streaming realm but that’s for another blog article.
The platform consists of user-created playlists, algorithmic playlists, editorial playlists, radio stations and podcasts. Spotify also has an option for "Spotify for artists" dashboard on artists.Spotify.com
If you’re an upcoming artist, you should definitely check it out
Apple Music
If you're using a music distributor to get your music spread through the streaming platforms, then you're already an Apple Music artist.
Spotify and Apple music are dominating the streaming market right now.
Apple music was launched in 2015 and is currently the 2nd most popular music streaming in the world with 88 million users. Apple music is currently available in 167 countries, with more popularity in the United States while Spotify is more popular in Europe.
The Apple music service is very similar to that of Spotify’s song catalog.
The subscription price for Apple music is basically the same worldwide. Just like Spotify, the platform has editorial and algorithmic playlists, radio stations and podcasts, but when it comes to user created playlists however, there’s a significant difference. When submitting music to Apple music, it’s also a bit more tricky, but we will get to that soon.
There is also an option of Apple music for artists, similar to that of Spotify, but far less advanced. You can still however, create your own artist account and develop your following on apple music.
Deezer
Deezer is a french streaming service that
was established in 2007, this music streaming platform has grown exponentially, reaching over 180 countries around the world and increasing its monthly active user base to 16 million users.
Deezer's content includes a shuffle feature that lets you mix your favorite tracks with Deezer's own featured artists. This is similar to Spotify's Daily Mix playlist.
Deezer lets you choose from a wide range of entertainment, sports and news podcasts and has 32,000 international and local radio stations. Deezer is also the first music streaming platform that allows radio partners like TalkSport to provide users with live sports commentary. E.g A soccer game. The platform is very popular in France, where it all started.
There's an option for submitting your music to the editorial team of Deezer, we're not sure if someone is listening on the other side but it's worth a try.
Tidal
Tidal is our favorite platform. Tidal, formerly called Aspiro, was first launched in the mid 90’s by Jörgen Adolfsson, Christer Månsson, and Klas Hallqvist and was purchased by Jay Z’s company in 2015. Unlike other platforms, Tidal provides streaming of high quality audio files.
Tidal has 80 millions songs in its catalog and more than 350K music videos. It’s available in 61 countries. Its pricing is very much the same as Spotify, Tidal and Apple music, and has more than 3 million users according to the company.
Playlists On Different Platforms
Once your song is uploaded to streaming platforms, you can start to submit it for playlist consideration on the different platforms.
Every platform has different kinds of playlists and different methods of submitting music to playlists.
Spotify Playlists
Spotify playlists are the most popular, and are split into 3 different kinds of playlists:
Editorial playlists - are created by Spotify playlist curators, which are members of Spotify's editorial team. Spotify is always promoting their playlists on their platform and that’s why the company’s playlists are the biggest ones.
Getting your music on editorial playlists can be a game changer for artists and can drive many streams and followers to the artist who manages to get their song on editorial playlists. It is not easy to get your music on these playlists, so go check our helpful blog dedicated to editorial playlists: How To Get On Spotify Editorial Playlists
Algorithmic Playlists
Every time you listen to your favorite song on repeat, follow an artist, or save a song, Spotify's algorithm remembers it. Spotify then collects this data, and creates customized playlists specifically towards your musical taste. These playlists are a great opportunity for artists to promote their songs and connect with their true followers.
There are three types of algorithmic playlists.
Daily Mix, Release Radar, Discover Weekly
Daily Mixes are updated daily and can include different types of music genres. The more you listen to the Daily Mix, the more often it will be updated.
Release Radar is a weekly updated playlist containing 2 hours of music. The songs in these playlists are new releases from artists you follow.
Discover Weekly features artists who match your musical tastes and people who share the same musical interests as you. Updated every Monday, it's a great opportunity to introduce yourself as an artist. To get your song on this playlist, you’ll need to gain many streams in a short period of time, this can be done by getting your song on the next kind of playlist mentioned below:
User-created playlists
These playlists are created by Spotify users. In other words, a uniquely curated playlist. Anyone can create their own playlists, and all users can choose to keep their curated playlists private or public. Most users are regular users who create their own playlists for fun and sort their songs by music genres and themes. Some users create playlists for more professional purposes such as restaurants, bars, music charts, exercise, sports, and playlists from different brands.
We offer a way to submit music to these playlists throughout our submission platform.
The main goal eventually is to trigger the algorithmic playlists and then get the editorial playlists attention, which will hopefully get your song on them.
Our platform, One Submit, also provides a way to submit music to radio stations, music blogs, record labels, YouTube channels and Deezer and Apple music playlists coming soon. Our submission process is simple and easy to use.
Apple Music Playlist Submission
Apple music playlist submission is tricky and less reachable than Spotify.
Like Spotify, Apple music has its own editorial playlists managed by the Apple editorial team. Getting your music recognized by Apple's editorial team is not an option right now and it's impossible to pitch your music to the editorial team or develop relationships with Apple's editorial team.
The big difference between the playlists on each of the platforms is the visibility of the number of followers for each playlist. On Spotify, you can see exactly how many followers each playlist has and you can also track the number of followers joining the platform through a 3rd party platform such as Chartmetric. On Apple music it’s a different story, because the number of followers each playlist has is not displayed publicly and Apple keeps the information private.
Yes, you can find user generated playlists and submit music to Apple music but the average user doesn't know if the playlist has a lot of traffic and listeners, or if it was just created and has low number of followers.
On One Submit we are expected to provide a way to bypass this issue and provide a path way for Apple music playlist submission, we are working hard to deliver this option in the next coming months.
Deezer Playlists
Deezer playlists work similar to Spotify playlists. There’s editorial playlists and there’s user generated playlists with a visible number of followers, unlike Apple music playlists, on Deezer there’s an option to evaluate the playlists and decide if it’s worth reaching out and submitting your music to.
The number of playlists is significantly lower than Spotify and there’s less variety of music playlists.
We are expected to launch a Deezer submission option within the next few months, but in the meantime, if you’re an artist looking to submit music to Deezer playlists, you can do your own research, find a playlist with a similar music genre to that of your music, and try find the curator and submit your music to them. It’s a long process with a low success rate but, it’s always worth a try if you have the time to do the research.
Tidal Playlists
Tidal playlists are mostly managed by Tidal, and most of the editorial playlists are not reachable for music submission. User generated playlists are not very popular and there's a very low count of followers to each of those playlists. Since Tidal currently has a low number of subscribers compared to other platforms, we suggest not wasting too much valuable time pursuing playlist submission to Tidal.
Spotify is undoubtedly the most popular streaming platform, but since there’s a lower rate of music submissions on the other platforms (Deezer and Apple music) there might be a golden opportunity to get your exposure on those platforms, as they have less music submissions compared to Spotify. Which Digital Distributor should you choose? There are many parameters for choosing the right digital distributor, Check out blog on Which Is The Best Digital Distribution Platform?
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