 A few years ago, one of my favorite websites, The Hard Times, did an article roasting the books I've written for musicians entitled, Bands Will Do Anything For Success Aside From Reading. If you're not familiar with the site, it's the onion-like satire of underground culture. And I have to be honest, as someone who's written books with lots of answers that can help musicians' dreams come true, and when all I hear from musicians is that their music is the most important thing in the world to me, yet somehow doing a little reading is a deal-breaker? I don't know. Anyway, the other thing is all these musicians want to do is get on Spotify Playlist since they think that e-girl they have a crush on may finally give them the time of day if they get on the Spotify hyper-pop playlist. Well, here's the funny thing. If you want to do that, you need to just make that banger of a track and do a little reading to find out what Spotify wants you to do to get on that playlist. But wait, this is YouTube, and the reason you're here is you hate reading. And I'm a YouTuber, so I basically tell you all the things I know and have read and then make videos about them. And the funny thing is, there really is some amazing secrets in here that no one is talking about. So in this video, I'm going to tell you everything Spotify tells you about how to get on their playlist, but you were too lazy to read. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon, a music marketer teaching musicians how to grow their fan base from zero to 10,000 fans on YouTube, and this is Muse Formation. Okay, here's the funny thing. If you're on Reddit or any other musician form, the posters there treat the rules around getting on Spotify like they're in some locked box secret. You can only access if you swim to the bottom of the East River, kick over four bodies and pull it out of a treasure chest. When really they're right here on Spotify's website. So let's stop wasting your time with my stupid jokes and tell you what you want to know how to get on these playlists. So everything here will be sourced from Spotify themselves. So watch and learn. So let's start with the most common question everyone seems to ask, how do you get on to editorial playlists after release? You cannot get on editorial playlists after release through pitching. And that's the key word here. Spotify may add it if it does well with listeners, but mostly what you should think of each single as is setting up the next one for success. And if you want to learn more about that, watch my video on building up your momentum with singles, which is linked now in the cards or in the description. The next question is, how can you better your chances of being playlist? So you hear they give away some good tips. What they say is beyond providing us with context about your music and the particular track you're submitting, make sure you submit your track at least a week in advance of its release and fill in every part of the submission form as accurately as possible. The questions you answer about your tracks mood and genre are incredibly helpful in surfacing your music to editors. Give us the who, what, why, when, where and how of your song. Who made it with you? Why did you make it? When was it made? Where did you make it? If there's an interesting story around you and or the song, please let us know. The music is key, but context is also extremely helpful to us. Whatever you do, we encourage you to not leave the note blank. And all this is important. And they tell you straight up. They use this information for things like getting you on the right playlist that are hyper contextual. I mean, if you see what they're saying right here is that they have certain playlists that they make that use the context of what you tell them. And it's not just the music. So be sure to give this some time. If you're curious about becoming a pro at this, I have a popular video that gives some next level information about how to write a Spotify playlist pitch that gets you on editorial playlists, which is linked on the screen now or in the description. It's worth it to put the time in since the odds are pretty good since they say, and I quote, around 20% of tracks are pitched through Spotify or RS are placed into at least one playlist, which means that you have a one in five chance of getting playlisted. But that also means you need to cut through the competition with a good pitch. Next question. Do Spotify editors look at third party playlists for inspiration? Yes, but there's an interesting detail. One of the things I've told you to do in my guide to Spotify is make a playlist of your friends and the artists you feel kinship with and keep making playlists regularly. Let's see if Spotify uses that to get cues of which playlist to put you in, as they say here, what artists are highlighting on their own artist pages and playlists helps give us direction. So make sure to keep up on those playlists I talked about in my Spotify guide video. And if you want to watch that, it's also linked in the description. Are blog write ups or radio play essential in getting playlisted? Now they danced around this question a little and answer it over the course of two questions. But the answer is they aren't necessary, but that the curators do get hip to the musicians they add from blogs and other coverage. Do I need a specific amount of followers or monthly listeners on Spotify to get playlisted? You do not. In fact, their answer is not at all. They actually even say followers and monthly listeners aren't a factor. But before you start asking what the why are you getting people to follow you, you have to remember Spotify serves you to more people on release radar for each follower you have. In fact, here's what they say. The way our playlist system works means that if you have 100,000 followers on Spotify, you'll automatically be featured on 100,000 playlist the week of your release. Let's also talk about this. I have a whole video on that that's linked in the cards. And right now, Spotify always wants to see you're being a good citizen. They want you to update your pictures in bio and in your playlist regularly. So make sure to give it a fresh coat of paint every month or two. Now let's get into some questions about the timeline of getting on playlist. How far in advance should you pitch your single? 28 to seven days. But they say here to pitch early repeatedly. So I would air on that side of things since they say, and I quote, get your music and early to give our editors a chance to listen. And they keep going on about how they really listen. Swab a little skeptical. I would really try to get in your pitch early. How often can you release singles? And can they still get in release radar? Here's what they say for release radar. An artist's release is eligible to appear in the playlist up to 20 days after it's been released. You can only have one song and release radar at a time. So if you're releasing multiple tracks over the month, keep that in mind. And they also tell you and I quote, you can pitch one song per artist profile at a time. Does paying for user curated playlist promotion look bad? Okay, with this one, I feel like I need to just read from this. Sorry, it's you who refuses to read this stuff, not me. Anyway, I quote. First things first, you cannot pay to get on an official Spotify playlist. If someone or a third party company is offering placement on a playlist in exchange for money, this is streaming manipulation service that goes against Spotify's guidelines for music promotion. The filing is not permitted for any reason whatsoever. Selling a user account or playlist or otherwise accepting or offering to accept any compensation financial or otherwise to influence the name of an account or playlist or the content included on an account or playlist. Additionally, really routinely remove user-generated playlists that claim to offer this so it won't benefit you in the long run. Our editors and algorithms are there to get your music in front of the most receptive audiences. Those other playlists aren't. Okay, so that's what they said, but I did make an interesting extraction by what they didn't say since their silence is deafening. So something we discuss on my forum all the time is Spotify seems to have devalued presaves and never actually mentions them helping you get on playlists anymore. And they seem to be a thing of the past, yet so many musicians push them super hard. So if you are planning some crazy pre-save campaign, put your energy into something that actually matters. Which by the way, you should join my forum if you want to discuss music marketing with a bunch of the most smart, passionate musicians there is. It's linked in the description. One other thing I will add some personal insight on is something that Spotify hints at in one of their videos which I'll play now, but I see particularly close to me. My girlfriend actually pitches playlists and features for streaming music for one of the biggest distributors in music for a living. And one of the main things she talks about is how important is to see that artists are sharing the playlists on social media when they get on them. Since Spotify and other services can see the upticks and traffic you bring them. So be sure to give thanks by sharing when you get on a playlist as it really helps you get on more. So that's it for this video, but right now there's going to be a link for two different videos. One is how to market your music on Spotify where I have tons more tips on how you make Spotify work for you since there's way more to it than this. And then I have a playlist that has tons of videos on how to grow your fan base from zero to 10,000 fans. Thanks for watching and click one of these videos and keep learning how to build your fan base.