Can Spotify Become the Next Live Nation?

Can Spotify Become the Next Live Nation?

by | Sep 29, 2021 | Highlight, Spotify

Spotify is well-positioned to become an event promotion giant. The freemium audio streaming platform is leaning towards complementing its low royalty payout model that has been heavily criticized by established artists, including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke. Both artists refused the Spotify platform’s model by the temporal withdrawal of their music.

To up its pay model without increasing its current monthly subscription fee is an arduous task. Another approach is to become an utterly premium streaming service, but such a move will deprive the Swedish streaming service of its over 190 million free subscribers.

One brilliant move that will most likely increase its revenue is to enter into event ticketing for virtual and live shows. As claimed in a recent report by The Information, Spotify is planning to venture into selling tickets to events through their heavily-visited platform. It is not the first time Spotify would dabble into concert tickets promotion. For example, Spotify announced a series of virtual concerts featuring Rag’n’Bone Man, Leon Bridges, Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, and Girl in Red in response to the complete absence of live events caused by the 2020 Covid pandemic.

The Spotify virtual concert was a product of the partnership between Spotify and Driift, an immersive live streaming platform. This move could be Spotify’s way of testing the waters in preparation for a more significant move: to take over the event ticketing business as they did with podcasting.

Spotify is now a major contender in the podcasting space despite its late arrival into the industry. Apple saw the potentials of podcasting way back in 2005, while Spotify gave its users access to podcasting in 2018. In 2021, Spotify emerged as the winner in terms of podcast monthly listeners. Spotify has 28.2 million monthly listeners, and Apple has 28 million monthly listeners. Spotify has achieved this almost impossible feat despite arriving late, and the same could happen with event ticketing.

Unlike streaming, events offer a higher payout. From 2015 to 2019, the average music concert ticket price increased from $78 to $96.17 per person. The current Rolling Loud three-day concerts cost $541 (regular ticket) and $1,344 (VIP ticket). Suppose Spotify can help artists headline events in the regions where they are popular (according to their monthly listeners’ stat). In that case, the relationship between Spotify and artists could get better.

In line with the report mentioned earlier, Spotify is not interested in displacing or, at the very least, locking heads with established events companies like Live Nation Entertainment.

Instead, they intend to work with these events companies using their consumer data as leverage. We have heard this song before; Spotify, in a bid to prevent labels from pulling their artists’ songs from its site, publicly acknowledged that they do not intend to replace the labels.

However, in 2018, Billboard reported that Spotify has allowed artists to upload their songs directly on the platform in exchange for Artists’ advances. Although labels perform more functions than licensing music, the intent to bypass the labels makes Spotify a direct threat to them. We can witness the same plot with the events business.

The Information report caused Live Nation Entertainment stocks to dip by 0.9%. It is not clear whether Spotify will try to displace the current events juggernauts in the future, but it’s not impossible.

How to go viral in Spotify Trigger Cities

How to go viral in Spotify Trigger Cities

by | Sep 15, 2021 | Highlight, Spotify

The music industry is structured to make pop stars bigger at the expense of upcoming artists. When an artist like Drake announces a forthcoming release on his Instagram handle (which has over 85 million followers), he gets hundreds of thousands of reposts from labels, influential athletes, colleagues, wannabees, fans, and blogs across the globe.

On the other hand, no new artist is showered such mouth-watering encomiums, even the ones who are signed to international labels. The music game is simply cutthroat.

For an upcoming artist to go viral on Spotify, he/she has to stand out among the pick-me crowd and journey into unconquered territories. They must employ affordable and reusable advertising tools to reach a more receptive audience.

At a time when many artists invested their resources on Facebook ads, Lil Nas X took a different path by combining elements of trap music with country music, and most importantly, he ventured into the then-unknown world, TikTok. The rest is history. That one single, Old Town Road, helped him attain viral popularity and a diamond certification in the States almost nine months later. Old Town Road spent nothing less than 19 weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, a daunting feat for a new artist.

For the sake of this article, the uncharted waters are called triggered cities and the next ‘Lil Nas X’ is you! Now let’s go into some more details. In a recent report, Chartmetric published a list of cities with listeners who would jump on new sound regardless of genre. The trigger cities are also very receptive to upcoming artists. The juicy part of the report is that these trigger cities are cheaper to target with ads compared to other hubs. Once reception and competition have been catered for, the remaining tion-factor required for an artist to go viral on Spotify is listener’s retention. The only way to retain your listeners is to release a song with high replay value. We assume that is not an issue in your case.

The Spotify streaming landscape is currently experiencing a demographic change as the Swedish platform bags more global music subscribers. Spotify users are consciously and unconsciously creating algorithmic playlists and viral trends in regions where a good number of artists are not targeting. Traction from these regions can increase your Spotify Popularity Index and get you into playlists with millions of active followers.

The rule of thumb in music marketing used to be to target areas with the most premium subscribers. The reason is that streams from cities filled with premium subscribers get a higher payout from Spotify to artists compared to streams from cities populated by free users (Spotify users who use the ad-supported tier). However, this method leaves a lot of money on the table and restricts the reach of the artist. Budding artists would get a better chance of going viral if they advertised more to trigger cities.

Quantity over Quality

The trend table is a ‘Bizarro’ world that operates independently and conversely to our world as we know it. Hence, conventional clichés –such as not all that glitters is gold, opposites attract, what goes around comes around, and quality over quantity— do not apply in this weird realm.

Here, gold that does not glitter does not get clicks, opps barely attract, what goes around would most likely get lost in endless social media feeds, and of course, quantity will always displace quality from the charts. Isn’t it a strange world?

When it comes to the Spotify algorithm, the number of plays is one of the factors it considers before recommending a track. 

Having 2000 plays from 400 premium subscribers does not have more algorithmic effect than 200,000 plays from 50,000 free listeners. The algorithm, as a non-human tastemaker, only focuses on finding the right music for the right audience and it requires a significant amount of stream data to recommend your track. The more plays you get in the first week of your release, the easier it is to get playlisted on Spotify.

Latin America takes the lead

The Chartmetric study was based on data from two of the world’s most visited platforms for audio and video streaming – Spotify and YouTube. For the sake of this guide, the Spotify data will be our point of focus. Spotify, unlike YouTube, gets most of its monthly listeners (criteria for determining Spotify app/web activity per user) from Latin America, the USA, and Western Europe. The USA and Western Europe Cities do not fall under the trigger cities. Why? The cost of advertisement is high in those regions plus they might not be really receptive to upcoming talents since all eyes are on the established artists due to the Hollywood effect.

To get a better view of what trigger cities look like, we need to analyze YouTube views by city. The only similarity between the Spotify and YouTube lists is that Mexico, a Latin American trigger city, retained its number one spot. The YouTube list is dominated by Latin American and Asian cities. The top ten cities on the YouTube list perfectly describe the idea of trigger cities. The top ten trigger cities include Mexico City, Bangkok, Bogota, Lucknow, Santiago, Patna, Lima, Pune, Sao Paulo, and Indore.

USA and UK cities struggled to make the YouTube list, as New York debuted at number 23. Latin American cities such as Mexico, Santiago, and Sao Paulo made the top ten lists on both Spotify and YouTube.

The Darwin Effect: The need to evolve to survive in the global music industry

According to Charles Darwin’s original thoughts on natural selection, only ‘the fittest’ get to survive the storms that nature presents from time to time. The organisms that do not adapt get wiped out during food scarcity or a natural disaster. The global music industry operates by this law. Not every rapper who makes it to XXL Freshman Class will stay relevant in the next decade.

While the Chartmetric report hailed the ability of listeners from Trigger Cities to anoint the next global superstars, it questioned the depth of transcontinental cultural reception. Every musical genre evolves from a particular culture, for instance, rap has its roots in black American culture and activism. However, artists who are able to transcend genre or combine elements from different cultures would amass millions of streams in a short amount of time.

A good example is Jason Derulo. His recent feature on Tesher’s song titled Jalebi Baby Remix got over 16 million streams on YouTube within a week. Jason’s ability to blend his dance-pop style with Asian fusion made the song an instant hit. A feature from an artist who is already established in the targeted region will also increase the reception of the listeners in the chosen trigger cities.

Final Thoughts

Even though some of the US/Western Europe cities with high activity on the Spotify music app are not classified as trigger cities, artists can still bank on Latin American cities alongside their home cities for streams during their first week of release, as this period will determine the success of the track on Spotify. Remember, it is stream quantity, not quality will get you into the essential Spotify algorithmic playlists.

Three Spotify Myths Confirmed by 2021 Fan Study

Three Spotify Myths Confirmed by 2021 Fan Study

by | Sep 10, 2021 | Spotify

Spotify has democratized the way music is being shared on its streaming platform, unlike AppleMusic. The audio streaming behemoth allows artists to pitch their music to editorial playlists via its ‘Spotify for Artist’ site. To top it all, Spotify released a fan study report aimed at helping artists understand what works and what doesn’t.

The 2021 Spotify Fan Study shows consumer behavior and how artists can expand their reach. In this guide, we’ll discuss the three Spotify myths that were confirmed by the latest fan study report.

The Gospel of Spotify Save Rate

There’s barely any music blog that has not preached the gospel of Spotify save rate and the reasons every rising upcoming artist must appeal to their fans to save their songs prior to the release date. Before the report was published, no one had concrete evidence that the amount of Spotify saves amassed by a track can influence its success on the Spotify app.

The Spotify fan study states that listeners who save your track would most likely listen to your track more than three times after 6 months. And most Spotify listeners stream a song more than three times before saving. Going by that rule, If 1000 Spotify listeners save your song, you can get 6000 – 10,000 streams.

Where is the party at?

For Spotify artists, Latin America is the physical San Junipero, heaven on earth. Latin American cities discover and stream new music more than any other region. Judging by the total streams of new content, three Latin American cities – Sao Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City – top the chart. Roughly 700 million Spotify streams came from Sao Paulo. That is the number of streams generated by two American cities, Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

As an upcoming artist, you need to push your music to ‘where the part is’, meaning you must find an audience that would most likely check your music. Spotify listeners from Latin American cities are receptive to new music and that’s good news for you. Also, it is relatively cheaper to advertise in Latin American cities compared to the USA or UK.

The Release Party Never Ends

According to Spotify, the 7-day post-release push is not enough, as 53% of tracks reached their peak after that period. Consistent marketing connects people who could not listen to your music in the first week with your music.

It is safe to say every upcoming artist has an established artist they look up to in terms of style and public persona. Hence they might be tempted to mimic the campaign strategy of artists like Rihana or Eminem who rarely post about their previous releases. First things first, you are not RiRi or Rap God.

Secondly, you need to understand that these artists have fan pages and label media accounts with millions of followers that are posting the music content on their behalf endlessly.

When you get big, you can choose not to post about your past projects or unapologetically postpone a scheduled project after holding several listening parties like Kanye West. Unlike the industry babies, upcoming artists need to blow their trumpet every time in a bid to keep getting streams. Why? The moment your fanbase forgets you due to the lack of consistent marketing, your music goes down the drain.

5 Types of Algorithmic Playlists on Spotify

5 Types of Algorithmic Playlists on Spotify

by | Aug 4, 2021 | Spotify

People don’t want to miss out on good stuff. If they love your music, they will hit the like button, put it on repeat, save it on their private playlist, or maybe share it with friends. But – and this is the only but – you must be discovered to be desired.

The algorithmic playlists are where upcoming artists become popular on Spotify. This is your chance to go viral. This article is all about giving you the oft-ignored Spotify playlisting hacks that have worked for major labels and successful indie artists.

Are you ready? Let’s roll.

What are Spotify Algorithmic Playlists?

As the name suggests, Spotify Algorithmic Playlists are playlists that are curated by the Spotify algorithm. Unlike editorial playlists and listener playlists, artists can easily hop on algorithmic playlists by following the rules explained later in this guide.

Spotify algorithmic playlists are not the same for everyone. The algorithm curates private playlists for every user based on individual listening habits. Factors – such as save rate, replay value, like, share rate – help the algorithm decide what music is best for its users. The implication of this curation technique is that a song can remain in the playlists of millions of Spotify users for as long as the users keep listening to the song. Editorial playlists are updated weekly or monthly but algorithmic playlists tend to feature songs for longer periods of time.

These are the 5 Types of Algorithmic playlists on Spotify – Don’t Miss Out on Any!

The five types of algorithmic playlists on Spotify include Discover Weekly, Release Radar, Daily Mix, On Repeat and Repeat Rewind, and Spotify Radio. In this section, you will learn the nature of these playlists and how the algorithm places songs in these playlists.

Discover Weekly

After several weeks of using the Spotify app, the algorithm creates a Discover Weekly playlist for users and updates the playlist content every Monday. The playlist contains exactly 30 songs.

Although the playlist is personalized like other algorithmic playlists, Discover Weekly is also influenced by the musical taste of other like-minded users who listen to the same genre or artists.

‘Stealing’ new music recommendation from 356 million Spotify users prevents the Spotify algorithm from suffocating users with their favorite songs; hence users can discover new releases that align with their old stuff.

How Does Discover Weekly Work?

The Discover Weekly algorithm is influenced by three factors, namely – collaborative filtering, natural language processing, and raw audio track analysis. These three factors determine what song makes it to the playlists and what song stays for long.

Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative filtering is defined as the ability of the algorithm to analyze user interactions with songs using a matrix-like rectangular array of user stats of 356 million users against its 70 million track archive. Simply put, collaborative filtering is dependent on user activity. The stats used include saves-to-listener ratio, skip rate, share rate, number of likes, and number of times a song was repeated.

The save rate is one of the most important factors that can help your song get on several playlists in the first week of release. Running a pre-save campaign gives your song the boost it needs to appeal to the algorithm.

Natural Language Processing

The NLP models crawl the web and analyze texts to know what the internet is saying about you or your upcoming release. It is important that you get word out about your project using your social media account and blogs.

Raw Audio Track Analysis

Like industry tastemakers and playlist curators, the Discover Weekly algorithm wants to get a feel of your music. Raw audio track analysis is the algorithm’s way of listening to your music. The factors it considers are liveness, danceability, loudness, energy, key, and positiveness. The standard for how loud a song depends on the genre. Note the best practices in your genre and adopt these qualities when mixing and mastering your songs.

Release Radar

Unlike Discover Weekly, Release Radar is updated every Friday. Release Radar is a playlist Spotify users depend on for new music. It is a playlist that greatly differs from user to user. If a user has skipped or listened to your song before, the song cannot be included in the Release Radar of such a user.

How Does Release Radar Work?

One thing that gives Release Radar an edge over other algorithmic playlists is the desire for fresh songs. To get your music into Release Radar, you ought to pitch your song on Spotify for Artists seven days before the release day. The playlist does not accept songs from remixers or re-released versions. Users who follow you will be notified when you make a new release.

Daily Mix

The daily mix consists of six pre-shuffled playlists. The playlist contains songs from the various genres you love in addition to songs from the On Repeat and Repeat Rewind playlist. The daily mix playlists vary with the listener’s mood. The playlist continues to suggest infinite music to the listener so as to prevent the music from halting.

How Does Daily Mix Work?

Daily Mix is not the kind of playlist listeners’ go-to for new music, as it majorly focuses on their favorites. Your music will show up in the Daily Mixes of your Spotify fans.

To keep the fire burning, you may want to post engaging videos that remind your fans of your songs on your social media accounts. If they remember you well enough, they will keep listening to your songs. The more they listen to your songs, the higher the probability of your songs landing on their Daily Mixes.

On Repeat and Repeat Rewind

There are times when listeners just want to shut their doors on new music and focus on the songs they love. This playlist contains songs users have highly interacted with in the past and the songs that are currently repeating.

How Does On Repeat and Repeat Rewind Work?

This is a playlist for throwback faves and current faves. Artists have little or no influence on this playlist.

Spotify Radio

Spotify Radio is a functionality that allows Spotify users to create a playlist based on any artist, genre, song, album, or playlist. The playlist can contain up to 50 songs. Users can download their Spotify playlists except the radio created using a playlist.

How Does Spotify Radio Work?

Like the On Repeat and Repeat Rewind playlist, artists have little or no power over Spotify users’ Spotify Radio. They listen to who they want and they want you really bad, they will create a Spotify Radio based on your songs/albums.

Practice This Leading Playlisting Ritual to get your tracks on Spotify Algorithmic Playlists

Having a well-thought-out plan will improve the effectiveness and timeliness of your campaign. Follow the steps below to increase your chances of being playlisted on Spotify.

Be time conscious: Timing is of the essence

Your track performance during the week before and after release can help increase your Spotify popularity index; hence it is advisable to make hay while the sun shines. Start a pre-save campaign one to two weeks before release and intensify your efforts a week after release.

Getting your music on independent listener playlists can be helpful, but stick to playlists within your genre. Paying playlist curators to put your music on an unrelated genre or hiking your streams using bots can get you banned from the Spotify platform. If a rap song gets featured on a playlist made for rock artists, there’s a high probability that the song will get skipped. Also, the data from such a playlist can mislead the algorithm into ‘assuming’ that the song would appeal to rock listeners.

School the algorithm

Unless you are Justin Beiber, The Weeknd, or some big Asian superstar with a huge fan base and immense historical data on Spotify, the algorithm does not know you well enough to predict what audience would resonate best with your music.

It is necessary you school the algorithm by pleading with your core Instagram or Facebook fans to follow you on Spotify. You should also get featured on blogs, so the algorithm would extract a lot of valuable information on you when it crawls the web using Natural Language processing.

Bribe You Tribe

How your song performs boils down to the support you get from your tribe. Your tribe is not necessarily the same as your fanbase. These are the people that know you and have a somewhat personal relationship with you for instance your colleagues, current or former schoolmates, family, mutual friends on social media, neighbors, and pretty much everyone you know.

Let’s be real, not everyone who knows you as a singer or follows you on social media is a fan of your music. This might sound harsh but don’t take it personally. It is what it is. Use your connections to your advantage and reach out to them directly to stream, like, save your songs and follow you on Spotify. Before you do so, please ensure your music is good enough. People won’t take you seriously in the future if you force them to listen to trash.

You can announce that you are going to reward one or two people who follow you on Spotify with money, tickets to your next show, or a special shoutout on your page. This would definitely spur people to follow you on Spotify. Not everyone will respond, but it is okay. A few more trials may convince them.

Rinse and Repeat

One mistake artists make is forgetting to repeat a method that works. They want to move on to the next trick without milking the previous one. Be smart; rinse and repeat.

Final Thoughts

Unlike Apple Music, which runs an in-house playlisting model, the Spotify playlisting model is fair, decentralized, and easier to use. If the editors don’t think you are a good fit for the editorial playlists, the algorithm or some independent playlist curator might give you a shot.

The Best Countries to Target Your Spotify Music

The Best Countries to Target Your Spotify Music

by | Jul 28, 2021 | Highlight, Spotify

Here at Loudlab, we understand that as an artist, manager, or even a music label, it is easy to solely focus on major cities such as Los Angeles, London, and New York to promote your music.

But what if we told you that the best countries for social media marketing for your music are not what you may think?

The music business today is quite different from what it was ten or twenty years ago. Platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes revolutionized how music is enjoyed and, most importantly, monetized. Consequently, markets have shifted significantly. If one desires to generate sizable revenue off their music, they must understand the power of targeting specific nations or cities. This article will offer insights into how to do that.

The Three Main Categories

Let’s start from the top. As an artist, manager, or label, there are three main groups of countries that you should target for your digital marketing. For this article, we will focus on Facebook ad targets for Spotify.

  1. Developed nations
  2. Latin-speaking countries
  3. Vietnam and India

1. Developed Nations

These mainly consist of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Northern Europe. What makes them stand out is the value of their payouts per stream, primarily because they are at the very center of the music world. Iceland, for instance, has the highest payout at $0.006 per stream and $6182.9 per one million streams. In comparison, Spotify pays only $702.53 per one million streams in Tunisia.

Developed nations have more leverage in the industry. They also have a bigger audience and a consumer base willing to spend more time and money on music. The more money they spend, the more the money that gets to the artist.

2. Latin-Speaking Countries

What these countries don’t offer in terms of pay – they all sit in the middle of the pack – they make up for in volume. In general, audiences in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Colombia, and Italy engage, share and comment a lot more than their counterparts in developed nations. This applies whether an artist is new, emerging, or already a staple in the music industry.

It is the engagement that creates traction for an artist. It allows their music to be recommended to more listeners, thereby racking up the numbers and getting more people interested in their songs. The more ears they have, the more money they make, and this is the biggest strength that these Latin-speaking countries have over more developed nations.

3. Vietnam and India

These two countries pay the middle range, just like their Latin-speaking counterparts. However, their most considerable value is just how affordable it is to target listeners therein, compared to the volume of engagement you get in return. This is the case, not just with Spotify but also with YouTube.

India, for instance, dominates the top 10 YouTube Max Daily Views chart, indicating that there is an audience ready to consume whatever content is available on the internet. As an artist, manager, or label, targeting such a market is guaranteed to yield more significant and better rewards than targeting other developed countries like the United States.

Key Take-Aways

Gone are the days when the big music labels and distributors dictated the music market. Thanks to the internet, the power has been shifted to creators and consumers. As it currently stands, the consumer can even be in the most remote part of a country yet still offer value to the content creator.

It is wise to target main markets such as the United States and Europe to market your music digitally. However, as a creator, manager, or label, it is about time you started considering other lesser-known nations in Asia and Latin-speaking countries. The market is already there. Moreover, the cost of targeting them, even with Facebook ads, is relatively low and affordable, and your investment is guaranteed to pay off many times over. So quit focusing too much on the big markets and make that shift today. If prominent artists such as Lauv have benefitted from it, so can you.

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