Don’t get scammed by crooks who disguise themselves as organic playlist curators. Instead, become a mobile bot streams detector by following the steps discussed in this guide.
There is no automated app for checking the validity of Spotify streams garnered from playlists of interest. Hence, artists must rely on instincts, logic, or common sense to differentiate between bot-supported playlists and organic ones. Contrary to popular belief, it is pretty easy to detect fake playlists, but you must be quite familiar with the techniques discussed in this guide.
Who is the Biggest Loser?
When a desperate artist pays for a thousand bot streams on Fiverr or a sketchy website, who is the biggest loser. Spotify or the artists?
To solve this puzzle, we must understand how Spotify makes its money and payout model.
According to Eric Dott, an associate professor of music theory at the University of Texas, Spotify is not getting mad at artists who use artificial streaming because technically, they have nothing to lose. He maintains that creating systems that eliminate bot streaming might be more expensive than letting it remain on the platform. Although Spotify has called out a few artists who used artificial streaming, they have little incentive to go on a massive campaign against entities that use bots to boost their streams.
In his words, the money lost to artificial streaming affects the musicians’ share, not Spotify’s share.
This is because Spotify makes money from subscriptions of fans and ads, but artists only get paid per stream. So the amount paid to artists depends on the net revenue from advertisements and premium subscription fees.
A dollar gained for fake Spotify streams is a dollar lost by innocent artists who get their streams from organic listeners.
Follow the steps given below to detect fake Spotify playlists.
Check for an unreasonable spike in followers count via Chartmetric
Chartmetric is a data analysis tool that can be used to see how well or how bad a Spotify playlist is performing. You can also get data on how an artist’s account is performing. It is a freemium tool, but you can check any Spotify playlist’s followers’ count graph for free.
Search for the playlist name or paste the playlist link in the search bar on the Chartmetric website. Look out for any sign of ridiculous increase or decrease in followers’ count on Chartmetric. You can ask the curator to explain what influenced the increase in followers. If the curator cannot provide a tenable answer, assuming the followers are bots is safe.
Calculate the ratio of the monthly listeners to the number of followers
You can get the ratio by dividing the number of monthly listeners by the number of followers. Round off the results to get whole figures. The normal ratios are 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 up to 26:1. New artists that are just gaining clout can have a ratio of 50:1. However, artists who bought fake streams can have ratios of 100:1 up to 200:1. In a case where an artist with 100,000 monthly listeners has 50 followers, know that something is wrong somewhere.
Check for random recommended artists
Based on the artist’s playlists, Spotify recommends related artists on the artist’s profile page. However, if an artist gets plays from bot-supported playlists, the Spotify recommendation would be incorrect.
Ask the playlist curator for proof of organic growth
Most fake playlist curators would want you to believe they are getting streams organically. Ask them about the growth process. Real playlists curators use influencer marketing, cross-playlisting platforms, Facebook ads, and blog placements to boost organic streams. If a playlist curator claims he or she is using Facebook ads, ask for proof. If they cannot provide you with evidence, there is a high probability that they are getting plays from bots.
Ask other artists who have been featured on the playlist via social media DMs
If you got duped by an Amazon manufacturer, you would be motivated to drop a bad review and report them to Amazon. Unfortunately, although artists can report playlists to Spotify, there is no way to drop bad reviews since the act of soliciting for playlist features is illegal on Spotify.
You can reach out to artists featured on the playlist to know their experience with the playlist curator. If they say the streams are fake, it is most likely fake.
Check the top cities of the artists on the playlist
In the past, Spotify had a feature that allowed anyone to check the top cities where an artist’s listeners are based.
More often than not, the top cities of artists should come from well-populated areas. The exceptions are artists who are famous in small cities. Such artists might be able to pull off impressive numbers from their hometowns. Also, artists trending in a particular town might experience a sudden spike in streams coming from that region.
If the top cities shown on the Spotify profiles of various artists that are featured on a particular playlist are the same or the top cities have small populations, the playlist is fake.
Spotify removed the feature some weeks ago due to unknown reasons. The data visible on the about section of artists are the number of followers, bio, playlists, and the number of streams on recent tracks.
Final Thoughts
If you have been added to a fake playlist and discover that the listeners’ location doesn’t add up via your Spotify for artists dashboard, ask to be removed from the playlist and report them to Spotify.