Loudlab, Author at Loudlab

The 4 New Audience Metrics on Spotify for Artists 2022

by Loudlab | Oct 16, 2022 | Highlight, Spotify, Tips

Spotify for Artists makes it easy for musicians, managers, and labels to study the behavior of their listeners. Every update Spotify introduces brings the online platform closer to becoming the best streaming playground for artists, data-wise.

The Swedish streaming service recently added four spanking new engagement stats on Spotify for Artists. In this article, you will learn how to access, interpret, and utilize these four stats to the benefit of your artist brand.

Spotify Audience Metrics: Old versus New

It is not uncommon for artists to put out documentaries of how they struggled in their formative years, a good example is the off-season documentary film recently released by Jermaine Cole.

Like an artist, the journey of becoming a fan can be very interesting. Some listeners get converted via late-night talk show performances, word of mouth, YouTube reviews, Instagram influencers, Facebook communities, Reddit groups, Spotify Playlists, Marquee Ads, and many more. The list is endless, but the discovery avenues that matter most are the ones that can be pinpointed, traced, and reused. That is why Spotify for Artists is a powerful tool for building a cult-like fanbase.

In the past, Spotify only provided artists and labels with conventional engagement metrics such as listens, clicks, impressions, and reach. However, they got negative feedback from artists complaining about the lack of depth and key metrics on the data provided on Spotify for artists. This is still a small improvement in the Beta test phase but it’s already available and better than before.

The New Spotify Audience Engagement Stats

It is true that your artistry is defined by your personality and personal experiences. However, as you grow in this cut-throat music game, your decisions and art will be colored by the audiences your music attracts. You would have to speak their language, connect with them, tour their various locations, dress like them and maybe give them a shoutout in your songs. To do any of these, you must first know them.

Under the “Audience” section on Spotify for artists, you can access your listeners’ data. You can limit the data to a specific timeframe. Here, you can know the “source of streams”, as your streams can come from your profile and

catalog, playlists, library, and other undefined sources. The monthly listeners’ data is updated daily to help artists improve their Spotify campaigns, but it shows the number of users who stream your song(s) during a 28-day duration.

Also, you have access to the demographics of your listeners such as age, country/city, gender, and predilections.

Streams / Listener

The average number of times your listeners played your songs. A higher streams/listener indicates a higher audience engagement.

Saves

The number of times people saved your music to their library, showing an intention to listen again in the future.

One advice artists get when they ask for the best way to grow their Spotify presence is to up their save rate and start a pre-save campaign before the release. So does it mean to save a song on Spotify?

Your song is automatically saved to a Spotify user’s library when the person likes your music by clicking the heart icon or playlists your song.

Playlist Adds

The number of times people added your music to their playlists, showing an intention to listen again in the future. Now, you have easy access to the total number of playlists your songs were added to.

Before, you only had access to the top 100 playlists your songs are on. These playlists are arranged according to the number of streams amassed from them. If you are checking your Spotify for Artists dashboard via the web, your song needs not less than 2 listeners from a playlist to be visible on your end. If you are using the Spotify for Artists mobile application, your song needs not less than 25 streams for the playlist to be visible to you.

Intent rate

The percentage of your listeners who saved or playlisted your music, showing an intention to listen again in the future. In the eyes of the Spotify algorithm, higher intent rate indicates a higher audience engagement.

The intent rate measures the percentage of listeners that saved or playlisted your song. A high intent rate shows that many listeners like your song and are interested in listening again in the future. According to a Spotify study, an increase in interest rate resulted in a 250% boost in the number of streams amassed by several artists six months after.

Final Thoughts

Artists like Travis Scott and Justin Beiber can sell-out shows (online and offline) at any time and day because they have built a cult-like following. The only way to do this is to build a strong relationship with your fans and these new stats can be used as great indicators to measure yours. Spotify is not just giving artists the avenue to get new listeners but also the chance to build a reliable fanbase. Seize the opportunity!

6 Pro Tips for a Raving Spotify Fan Base

by Loudlab | Jun 30, 2021 | Spotify, Tips

Some songs become earworms, while some others fail to impress and push listeners to skip them immediately. Music enthusiasts are often on a quest to find their next favorite song that will lead to a new favorite and another one.

You and I need to admit that our music taste has evolved since we became Spotify users. Because most of us, in our streaming journey, found that one unknown band who stayed forever in our ‘Heavy Rotation,’ the remarkable artists of whom we became huge fans of, or maybe that groovy beat we played on repeat during the whole summer. These songs often lead us to another artist who takes us to a third one, and when we realize, we are emerging in a new musical style.

These experiences result from Spotify’s algorithm matching music lovers and music they will love. At the same time, it helps us expand our musical knowledge and evolve our taste every day.

However, growing a fan base and standing out on the most popular streaming service in the world are not easy tasks. Independent musicians from all over the globe are fighting for the same ears, developing strategies to

leverage Spotify’s algorithm and get more exposure and organic traffic. In order to help your music stand out and expand your fan base on Spotify, we listed six precious tips that will help you find your fans on the platform. Check them out!

1. Submit Your Music To Playlists

The best way to reach out to new fans and increase the number of people listening to your music is to submit it to playlists on Spotify. Most streaming services base their music discovery system on playlist engagement, and Spotify is no different. A large percentage of the universal streams on the platform come from the most popular playlists, being those Algorithmic – created automatically by the app and tailored to our music taste; Editorial, the ones curated by a team of Spotify curators; User-Curated, the ones curated by the users. Even though editorial playlists tend to be more significant as Spotify highlights on the platform, user-curated playlists can also have a broad reach. Some of these playlists – curated by brands, artists, influencers, and regular users – fall into the category.

There are three main possibilities for getting your music featured on Spotify playlists:

A – Submit your track to Spotify editorial playlists via the Spotify for Artists app. The process is smooth and quick, but you need to submit your songs at least six weeks prior to the release. (essa frase ta incompleta)

b – Look for appealing user-curated playlists. Search for curators online and find ways to get in touch. There are services such as curators databases and playlist pluggers if you prefer to have professional help.

C- You could use services like IndieMono, Submithub, and Soundplate. Some of these are free to use.

2. Create Pre-Save Campaigns

Pre-Save campaigns are a great way of generating awareness and creating expectations prior to your music release. These campaigns help artists build momentum before a new music campaign, keeping them warm and ready for more.

When a listener decides to pre-save an album, they receive a notification on Spotify as soon as the expected single, EP, or collection is out so that they can listen to it immediately. Amazing, right?

3. Create Your Own Playlists

Creating your playlist and highlighting it as your “artist’s pick” on Spotify can bring positive results when promoting your music and fostering fan engagement. Your music selection will also help your audiences to have a deeper connection with your work.

By presenting your music to your fans through a well-curated selection—side-by-side with different artists from the same genre—you can set a great mood and shape your fans’ perception of building the proper branding around your work. When curating your own playlist, add some of your songs together with music from similar artists, your influences, and inspirations. Promote this playlist on your social channels and send a message to the artists you featured so that they might do the same.

But remember: keep your playlist fresh, with constant updates and constantly add new songs. Regularly sharing a list of songs will direct more attention to your music and increase listeners’.

4. Make Sure You Have Some Budget for Online Ads

Integrated digital marketing campaigns are vital for the success of any independent musician. You have to reach new fans where they are hanging out, and it’s most likely this place as social media.

If you are a starting musician without a substantial audience yet, or already an established performer with several thousands of fans, creating paid ad campaigns on social media might be a no-brainer. These campaigns are perfect to immediately boost your reach when thinking about promoting your releases and starting a conversation with your listeners.

5. Use a Download Gate Strategy

Download gates are link aggregators that allow you to give away a downloadable gift in exchange for a requested action, usually social platforms interaction such as follow, like, or subscribe. This tool is often accessible via a website. It allows artists to rapidly accelerate their fan base growth when offering something as the download of an unreleased track in exchange for one or a few actions.

Follow-to-Download Links or simply download gates foster two important dynamics; expanding the reach of your music and improving the quantity and the quality of your following. Most gateways will allow you to add multiple gating steps, such as combining two or more of these social interactions.

In other words, you can make that secret recording available for your fans and only deliver it to those who agree to follow your profile, save your album, or like your playlist on Spotify. These actions can even work together with interactions on other social media channels, such as following your Instagram, subscribing to your YouTube channel, or liking your Facebook page.

6. Share your music with QR Codes

QR codes can be an excellent way of promoting your music both online in the physical space. When aimed at a cellphone’s camera, they are quick response codes that can direct the user to specific addresses on the internet. In this case, drive people to listen to your music! You can send them on emails, post them on your social media channels, print them on your flyers, your promo CDs, or your business card… The possibilities are endless!

Wrapping it Up

Spotify is the leading music streaming platform in the world. Therefore, gathering listeners, attracting followers, and fostering a fan base on the platform is essential for any music artist. The advantages of having your fans on your reach are enormous. The more people play, like, share, and engage your music through your music, and the more people will see your music recommended exponentially.

We hope these six pro tips for building a Spotify fan base will help you create this virtuous cycle and take you to the next step in your music career.

5 No-Brainer Tips for Artists Engaging with Their Followers

by Loudlab | Jun 1, 2020 | Tips

In today’s fast-paced social media-driven world, it is essential that you continually engage with followers on any variety of social media platforms. Not only to put yourself and your work out there, which you should be doing already as an artist but to truly help foster a passionate community of art and artist that you want to see come to fruition around you. Here are five quick tips to keep in mind, so that the community you build around yourself and your art is engaged and excited about the work you are producing.

1- Find Your Core Audience

There is such a variety of social media platforms now with new ones catching on seemingly daily. It is imperative to latch on to the select few that are going to show off your work in the best light and that have active users who want to engage with others in their creative spaces. I’m not just talking about followers in general but finding people who really love and support the artist they follow.

Diligently research each platform you come across and look up people you admire in your creative discipline to see how engaged their followers are. This will help you gauge if that platform is right for you. Sites like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Behance, Deviantart, and are all great jumping-off points but there are handfuls of others that work in just the same way for sharing work and engaging with followers. Each has different features and tools you can use to make sure that you are focusing on the ones that will help you actively directly reach your core audience and fans.

2- Be Active in the Online Community

Too often we passively stand on the sidelines watching what’s going on in the community but never getting involved or just ‘liking’ things passively. Take the time to comment and share other artists’ posts and works that resonate with you and that you think will resonate with your followers. This type of behavior with not only help you continue to be active and present in the online community, but hopefully some of your own works will resonate in that same way with other artists, and they will help you spread the word about your work and potential upcoming events you are involved with.

3- Respond to Followers
“Questions / Request / Comments”

As an artist, and especially one trying to build a devout following, do not overlook talking with your followers about questions they have, request being sent in for posts and content (i.e. commissions), and thanking or responding to people for kind comments on your work and posts. This type of engagement and action from you will let your followers know that you see and hear them and appreciate their engagement with your work. It might become tedious to be hyper-engaged especially when your following outgrows the time you have, but it can make someone’s day by kindly responding to a comment or following new accounts pointed out by followers to grow your digital reach.

4- Share your Work and Process
“When Applicable”

I know that this one might be the biggest no brainer of them all, but I feel like it needs to be said. Too often I see artist accounts dormant for months on end, and then they wonder why nobody from the community is engaging with their posts when they finally emerge from their creative cave with finished work. You don’t have to share your whole process or even a small part. But showing a close-up of one section of a painting before its finished, or brush strokes you are practicing on a blank canvas, or even sharing what your workspace looks like after a particularly vicious creative outburst can engage followers into wondering what the outcome might be and eagerly anticipating when your next show or sale is going to be.

5- Be Yourself and Be Real

This might be the easiest or hardest tip to follow them all depending on who you are. It is so easy to be fake online or to try and make yourself seem larger than life. Please refrain from acting in this way. Not only is it pretty see through to your followers, but it will dim down all the credibility and good juju you have built up over time being an active part of your creative community. If you have nonstop work to share, share it! But conversely, if you have a terrible creative block, let your followers know that too. If you have kept in mind the tips previously mentioned, hopefully, your followers will help lift you up, suggest ways to break out of your creative rut, and encourage you to keep going because they do in fact enjoy the things you share with them.

Being an artist is hard, but with the advent of social media, there are now more ways than ever to get in contact with and show your art to people who will like it. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you out when it comes to building a following and engaging with that following to cultivate a strong online creative community.

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The 4 New Audience Metrics on Spotify for Artists 2022

Spotify Audience Metrics: Old versus New