The Secret Of Getting Yours Songs On Spotify’s Release Radar
There are many streaming platforms such as Tidal, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Pandora, and many more but one stands out from the rest: Spotify. You might be aware that Spotify is one of the most prominent streaming platforms when it comes to discovering new artists and songs.
However, on Spotify, it is hard to find your spot in between all these thousands of weekly releases as a new upcoming artist. The reason is not only the fact that over 40.000 songs are uploaded onto Spotify every day but also because listeners rarely find their way to the search bar to type the name of an artist and listen to their music. Instead, listeners prefer to stick with their favorite playlist(s) and listen to a variety of familiar and new songs.
You can gain a lot from landing in Spotify’s influential playlist. They can immediately widen your reach and get your music into the ears of people who might just become your biggest fans. Therefore, you should aim to get your music on Spotify’s playlists. More specifically, if you want to organically grow your streams and audience, you should aim to get on the algorithmic Spotify playlists such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly.
Spotify’s algorithm-based playlists, such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly not only generate millions of streams for artists but into the billions. As an artist or someone in the music industry you shouldn’t underestimate their promotional power, as listeners tend to check these playlists first when looking for new music or new tracks from their favorite artists based on their particular tastes. Those two playlists are created automatically by Spotify’s own software and algorithm. Now you may wonder, how exactly this process happens so they can know exactly how to make the best out of a listeners’ experience, and how can I get my songs on that Release Radar playlist to benefit from this opportunity?
We’ve been in the game with a focus on playlist marketing since our start, which led to having helped over 6500+ individual artists with their journey to a successful career.
As experts in the field, we can help you learn more about that! In this DaimoonMedia article, we’re helping you to expand your knowledge on how Release Radar works and give you tips on how to get your songs there.
How does Spotify’s Algorithm work?
Before we get into how Spotify’s Release Radar works, let’s discuss Spotify’s algorithm itself. Spotify’s algorithm, known as BART (Bandits for Recommendations by Treatments) is an AI system. The algorithm’s work is to keep the audience listening. And it does so by playing and suggesting songs that users are familiar with, while at the same time inserting some new tracks that the audience may be very likely to enjoy but most importantly haven’t heard of.
This way, listeners can stay connected to the platform and enjoy listening to music without frustration. Equally important, BaRT also captures user behavior to be able to make the right suggestions. This includes daily activity on listeners adding your music to their playlists.
How does it help artists?
Spotify’s algorithmic playlists can affect (independent) artists in a variety of ways. First of all, it gives artists the opportunity to get an additional boost for new listeners who have already been enjoying their music in the past. Secondly, if this shows good results, meaning little skips and increased likes, Spotify will start to recommend it to even more listeners. So for songs that are often skipped and aren’t added to personal playlists, there is much less benefit for Spotify to include it in their algorithmic playlists and expose the music to new listeners.
What is Spotify’s Release Radar?
Released in 2016, Release Radar is one of Spotify’s most useful features for music fans to discover new music. Every week they learn what their favorite artists have released. This is also an advantage for artists. Because listeners who are capable of following all your steps will find all your new releases and hear it.
Release Radar is a Spotify playlist driven by the algorithm of Spotify which consists of new music releases and updates every Friday. By tracking a wide range of listening habits such as user likes, shares, saves to their playlist, skips of artists/albums/ tracks Spotify’s algorithm creates the best list specifically tailored to your music taste. In addition, every week Release Radar playlists vary from user to user. However, instead of listing artists that users haven’t discovered yet, they offer up to two hours of new releases from artists that they already follow or listen to regularly.
Pro tip: Spotify only includes your release in Release Radar within the first three weeks after your set release date, after which it will start suggesting your music in Discover Weekly playlists.
What did the Spotify’s UK Director of Artists and Management said about Spotify?
The director of artists and management at Spotify UK, Bryan Johnson, said that the more followers you have, the more Release Radar playlists you get into. Moreover, he shared that the Release Radar is becoming an enormous driver for streams, even more than the editorial playlists.
So how can you increase the chances of your music being included in the Release Radar of potential fans?
Release music more frequently
Needless to say, the more music you release, the more likely you are to reach Spotify users’ Discover Weekly or Release Radar playlists. However, you should consider how the quality of your music weighs up against that quantity. The longer the average listen time is on your music, the more likely Spotify is going to recommend it to others. Therefore, if you are releasing a lot of music, always check your Spotify for Artist’s analytics and consider if you’re on the right path.
Moreover, define how your audience resonates with your music; do they share your songs, add them to their playlists and listen over and over? To get your songs heard, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the listeners on Spotify. Therefore, if you want to grow your streams it is important to stay updated with all of that relevant information.
Expert Tip: Think about “What similar musician does my ideal listener like? “What playlist are they listening to?”. Moreover, ask your fans questions on social media, and get to know them. Interact. That is the key to getting to know your listeners and your audience even more, and of course, increasing your chances to get on the Release Radar playlist with the proper marketing strategy.
Promote your music through different platforms
You should consider of how big of a focus Spotify is in your marketing strategy. Blindly focusing on Spotify alone is a common mistake. See Spotify as a platform to grow your fan base, not your only way for promoting your music and getting your artist project out there. There are many other ways you can benefit from promotional opportunities such as live shows, social media, advertising and email marketing. All of these have certain benefits and, ironically, have an indirect positive impact on the performance of your Spotify itself.
To Wrap it Up
Spotify’s Release Radar playlists allows emerging artists to bring music to market faster and reach more listeners. This algorithmic playlist segment on Spotify is also a great opportunity for reputed artists to reach their fans and improve the relationship by making sure they hear the new release. Therefore, riding the Release Radar is one of the many ways Spotify can help millions of artists on the platform and accelerate their musical career.
The most important thing is to build a good fan base. Every time you release new music, your enthusiastic fans will be notified about you on social media and in their weekly updated Release Radar playlist. To grow your Spotify streams, release more frequently, pitch to playlists, and encourage fans to follow your Spotify account. This will redirect the loop to the Spotify algorithm helping you with a little extra push. In the end, all of this helps you to grow more listeners on your music every day.
Curious if you can use more help in growing your artist career? Make sure to read our next blog and follow us on our social media channels. Moreover, feel free to ask us your questions to us on our Instagram (@daimoonmedia) !
