Podcast #01: Creating a successful playlist

People have asked me what made my playlists so successful and what they can do to create that success on their end. Let me give you a list of what I believe are the key ingredients in creating a successful playlist.

This post is also available as a podcast.

For the sake of example, this article will focus on the creation of a Hip Hop playlist on the Spotify platform. I am, by no means, a Hip Hop expert, but the guidelines are relevant to any genre, theme, and music streaming platform.

Exposure, exposure, and more exposure

This is, hands down, the most important ingredient and, frustratingly enough, usually, you start with none of it.  Isn’t that just peachy? Don’t panic, we will get there.

As with anything in the entertainment industry, the first step to success is to make sure that people can actually discover your product. For your playlist that means that it has to be out there; if people can’t find your playlist then it doesn’t matter if you have the greatest playlist on the planet because nobody will listen to it.  Don’t sit around and expect your audience to come to you.

Let me throw some numbers at you: Spotify has over 2 billion playlists and over 5 million new playlists are created every single day!

Every. Single. Day.

To be successful, a playlist has to be promoted and marketed like any other product.

Spotify has over 2 billion playlists and over 5 million new playlists are created every single day. Don’t sit around and expect your audience to come to you.

Unless you are well connected, you will truly be on your own in the beginning.  You need to find ways and outlets to promote your new playlist.  We will assume that you don’t have deep pockets to throw money at ads, so it is time to get active on social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram) and create a presence online!

Consider starting up a music blog and, if time permits, a website where you can showcase your passion for music.  Interact with the community but be genuine!

The music industry has one main currency: reputation.  As your reputation grows, you’ll find that people might be willing to share or promote your playlist. Passion tends to be contagious. Also, people passionate about music tend to surround themselves with like-minded people.  But be careful: reputation can be fleeting. Don’t be a sellout and keep your social media clean and void of offensive content.

Don’t let any of this discourage you: I, myself, had to start completely from scratch.  My passion for music and the support of my wife kept me going. You can work your way up; it can be a challenging journey but very rewarding.

Know your boundaries

The amount of followers you can expect for your playlist is directly dependent on your playlist’s theme or genre.  After all, you want to make sure that people want to listen to your playlist and that the theme or genre is something they can connect to.

A Hip Hop playlist has a much bigger potential audience than a Death Metal playlist but on the flip side, you will be competing against a lot more other Hip Hop playlists out there.  Always follow your passion but be realistic about your expectations.

Use Keywords

In the beginning, you will be very dependent on people finding your playlist through the search option in Spotify.  That means that you should use keywords in your playlist’s title and its description.; keywords relevant to your playlist’s theme.  You want to optimize your playlist for the Spotify search engine.

 

 

I am convinced that part of the reason behind the success of my main playlist was the cleverly chosen title and description:

 

 

You might ask “I want to create a Hip Hop playlist but there are a million other playlists out there with Hip Hop in its title!? What do I do!?”

Most articles on playlist curation (i.e. playlisting) recommend you to pick a title that is different, unique and that makes your playlist stand out. This is where I have to disagree.  Remember how people find your playlist in the beginning? Exactly! Through the search option in Spotify. So unless your playlist title or description has common keywords associated with Hip Hop (e.g. rap, beats, urban) your playlist will only sporadically show up in searches.

The most important part and I can’t stress this enough, is that people find or discover your playlist.  That upon searching, your playlist comes up in a decent spot.  I will talk more about the search engine optimization a bit later.

Make your playlist stand out

Now that your playlist shows up we have to find a way to hook potential listeners. After all, they are looking at dozens and dozens of Hip Hop playlists that their search resulted in (out of who knows how many Hip Hop playlists). Often enough listeners tend to pick official Spotify playlists or a playlist from one of the other big music companies out there (e.g. Filter, Digster, or Topsify) but tons of listeners check out the smaller and independently curated playlists. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be hundreds of big Hip Hop playlists, right?

At this stage, the most important aspect of your playlist will be your cover artwork. As soon as you start adding tracks to your new Hip Hop playlist, Spotify will automatically create cover art consisting of the first four album covers in your playlist.  This looks pretty crappy and it doesn’t help your playlist to stand out. Create your cover art and upload it.  It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but try to make it look, at least, slightly professional or engaging.

You can find good, copyright-free images online. I, personally, use Pixabay or Unsplash.  There are tons of free editing software online that can help you add text or logos to your image. One example is Canva.  I, actually, made all my playlist cover art using an app called Inkpad on my iPad.  I believe it only costs a few bucks, but there are free solutions out there.

 

Make it count!

The moment somebody checks your playlist out, you better make it count!  As you can imagine, in those early stages you won’t get tons of opportunities to get followers. (Sorry, just being honest).  Your playlist not only has to look nice but it also has to sound nice.

You have to make Hip Hop your own; become an absolute expert at the genre. It is essential to figure out what works and what doesn’t. You need to be on top of new releases and developments in the Hip Hop scene. You can’t just expect to throw 2,000 Hip Hop tracks in your playlist and for it to become a successful playlist.

Most listeners prefer highly curated playlists; meaning playlists that get updated and pruned often. This is where playlist curation becomes an art in itself and can get very time-consuming. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

To list some of the resources that I use:  YouTube channels, SoundCloud channels, blogs, and websites dedicated to the relevant genres.  On top of that, I follow key figures (e.g. artists, record labels, and even graphic designers) on social media to stay ahead of upcoming releases and news. And if that isn’t enough, I also follow a bunch of the more generic music websites ( Beatport, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Resident Advisor to name a few).  There are a lot more resources  I use and I could fill an entire blog post with that.  Besides that, listing all these also gives me the impression that I must be some sort of crazy.

So when your playlist is up and running, including a great title, catchy description, and fancy cover artwork, you might feel that you are still missing out on followers.

Additional Tips and Advice

Before you go, let me give you a few well-meant tips:

• Patience is oh so important!  Success doesn’t come overnight. Don’t get disheartened early on: hang in there. Keep doing what you are doing and, most importantly, become that expert.  If you have a good feeling about the track selection on your playlist, stick to it.

 

• Don’t ever take it personally. You might be sitting there thinking that your playlist is so awesome and deserves to be followed by so many more people. It doesn’t work that way. Don’t forget that only a few people might know of the existence of your playlist.  The rest of the world is totally oblivious to you or your playlist’s existence. Give it time.

 

• As promised, a bit more about that Spotify search engine optimization (SEO) that we spoke of earlier.  Even though I have never been able to find clear-cut Spotify articles about this topic, it is widely accepted that the Spotify search engine favors playlists that are regularly updated and playlists that have a limited number of tracks. As to what the perfect number of tracks is, the opinions and estimates vary, but it is less than 100 tracks and the magic number (according to most) is somewhere around 50.  If your playlist has about 50 tracks and is updated often, you can’t go wrong. Even though that approach can move your playlist up a few notches in the search results, don’t hope for a massive difference. It does not mean that your brand new Hip Hop playlist will show up on top of the search engine above Spotify’s “Rap Caviar”. Let’s be realistic, shall we?

 

 

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject so leave me a comment!

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Featured image by Bruce Mars on Unsplash.