Latest Spotify update — Spotify’s New Features for Artists

Written by alex89jobling | Published 2018/03/14
Tech Story Tags: music | technology | user-experience | music-marketing | spotify

TLDRvia the TL;DR App

Spotify has revamped their Artist profile section to give artists more Spotify promotion features.

With over 70 million subscribers and 159 million active users, Spotify is the key service for listening to music. However, as an artists are competing with over 35 million other songs, within over 2 billion playlists on Spotify, so artist pages need to stand out amongst the rest. Here’s a list of the new key features and what artists can use them for.

Get Verified

Artists can now get their page verified. It sounds stupid that you need to get a little blue tick next to your artist name but it’s essential, as it means you’re able to update your artist image anytime you want, post artist playlists to your profile and make Artist’s Picks. The simple blue tick basically lets fans know that the profile belongs to the artist and if they don’t have that, the artist will struggle to grow.

It’s easy to attain too. Artist’s can get verified as soon as they’re given access to Spotify for Artists. It may take a few days to come through, but it will be worth the wait once the profile looks more credible.

How To Maximise You Artist Profile With New Spotify Features

Spotify are supporters of emerging artists and understand how difficult the industry is for new bands so have recently announced two new features to make your artist page even better and easier to promote — the ability to upload your own image gallery and connect all your social media accounts.

Firstly, let’s go through the photo gallery feature. You can now use the Spotify for Artists app to upload up to 125 images to your own photo gallery. You’re able to edit the order of the images too so make sure the photos that are most representative of you as a band are the first ones as this will be the first visuals your audience see.

As well as adding to your gallery, you can update your avatar image via the Spotify for Artists app, alongside the features such as your artist bio and Artist’s Pick.

Secondly, you can easily add your social media handles to your page, again using the Spotify for Artists web tool. The feature appears in the About tab on Spotify, so your listeners can easily explore your socials as well as your Spotify profile.

Have an Interesting Bio

Just below the new gallery feature is your artist bio, if you don’t have one already make sure to write one. Your artist bio gives the reader an insight to you as a band so make it engaging, creative and up to date. You can read more tips on how to write a perfect artist bio here.

Create Artist Playlists

Spotify for Artists makes it super easy to post artist playlists to your profile. This is an easy method to increase streams and put your band alongside your influencers so follow these instructions below to get making one.

- Create a new playlist in the Spotify app

- Build your playlist by adding songs. We recommend you embed your music within the playlists so it’s not just all you and a few others, don’t get too egoistic!

- When the playlist is ready, open the Spotify for Artists app

- Go to the profile tab and scroll down to the Artist Playlist section

- Click Edit then + Add Playlist

- Search for the playlist or copy and paste the playlist’s Spotify link in the search field

- Hit save

Be creative with your artist playlists, with titles such as ‘BAND NAMES Tour Bus Tunes’ or ‘What We’re Listening To’.

Add Your Upcoming Tour Dates

The concert tag allows you to add upcoming tour dates to your artist profile. This not only means all of your details are in one place but it also geo-targets fans, so they know when you’re playing near them, meaning an increase in ticket sales!

The concert tag is automatically updated from Songkick so if you haven’t already, update your listings on their now.

Use Artist’s Pick

Artist’s Pick is similar to a pinned tweet on Twitter, whereby you can pin something to the top of your profile, making this the first thing someone will see on your profile. You can pick from multiple different things such as a track, album, playlist or tour date, accompanied by a little message.

Again, be creative. Don’t just be repetitive by plugging your own music, playlists and tour dates. Spotify created the Artist’s Pick feature to give artists the opportunity to express themselves via their platform so do this! Share an album that inspired you, make a statement with a track or share a playlist that decided to add your track.


Published by HackerNoon on 2018/03/14