My top 10 takeaways. This is a combination of things that we, that have been presented by, all these people who kindly share their experiences with me and also my own experiences, as an artist and as a songwriter. So my top 10 takeaways, number one, think hard about your genre. again, this might come, what come about figuring out your genre might happen kind of accidentally by just trying things out and you’ll figure out whatever works, whatever door is kind of open for you.
Maybe that’s a way to, somewhere to continue and to expand upon. where am I? Yeah. Yeah. So number two, think. Yeah, this is important. I think if you’re an artist or if you’re a producer, writer who’s involved in developing an artist. thinking about your Spotify for artist profile as your shop front, I think that’s really quite important. It’s a bit like if you imagine somebody who has a website that’s really out of date and you go on it and it’s like they’re mentioning things from three years ago and they’re, or maybe they have tour dates and it’s like 2015 or something, you instantly get that feeling.
It’s like, ah, this is all a bit unloved and a bit kind of old hat and not really being taken care of. It’s the same with your Spotify profile. I think it’s, think of it as your shopfront, and artists who, I know artists who are really, really, really good and cool looking and great performers, great, singers, great writers, but Spotify profile is, you know, they have 30 monthly listeners.
All the songs have that kind of backspace under a thousand streams sign. The photos are a few years old. It all just looks a bit unloved. And I think a lot of people refer to your Spotify page as your kind of like calling card. Like, the producer Rob Rock was saying, if he gets suggested of an artist to write work with, if their Spotify is looking a bit crap, then he’ll quite likely just pass on the session.
So it’s worth putting the time into making it look good. So trying to get on playlists through things like Submit Hub and Groover, or buying the Indie Bible, which is a massive, kind of compendium of vloggers playlists, radio stations. I, I mean, yeah, submit Hub and Groover are two, two ways up that I’ve had success in, in getting on playlists, which just helps start to get your numbers looking healthier. maybe not going through the roof, but at least like there’s some, some actions, a bit of movement going on.
So don’t, don’t let things look sort of old hat and a bit dusty and, and shoddy from not being attended to. So make sure your bio’s up to date your photos. Do a playlist. Just make it look like you give a, give a damn. Yeah. Leona, they are called Submit Hub and there’s another one called Groover. And you, both, both Of them, you have to pay like around two euros, two ish per per submission.
And you can submit songs, you can get feedback, you can submit directly to playlists. You can try and find a manager. There’s all kinds of different ways you can tailor it to what you need, but it’s a good way to just kind of start putting the feelers out. yeah, and putting in the hours again with learning all this stuff, you just have, you have to devote a load of time to, to learning these new skills. As Martin said earlier in these, replies.
Number four is good music. You know, undeniable quality speaks for itself. So as much as all these things are important to think about, I think just brilliant songs and brilliant productions, yeah, we all have to work really hard to do, to do something really good. and that will, there’s an undeniable quality to something that’s just really, really good. I mean, it’s kind of stating obvious, but it’s true for all of us.
Yeah. Number five, quickly, avoid dodgy looking Spotify promo payola offers. So it’s easy to get tempted by these kind of like, yeah, we’ll get you loads of streams, just pay us 50 quid and it’s normally 500 quid, but we’ll get you guaranteed 10,000 streams. There’s tons of this stuff online. I’ve tried a few of them and the quick way to to answer it or kind of address it is to say Don’t bother.
’cause they’re all a bit dodgy and actually talking about algorithms, if you go, if you use some of these services, they’ll just kind of bung your song on some random and fairly kind of mishmash playlist, which is genre wise, the complete, dog’s dinner of, of styles. And it actually, A, looks really kind of shoddy and unprofessional. B it can harm you with the algorithms. I skipped three. Yeah, number three was basically, number two was like shot Spotify for artists to make sure your profile looks good and put the effort and time into making it look good.
number three is you can’t, there’s no getting ground putting in a lot of time. This, it’s a huge amount of work, kind of learning the new, the new ways of marketing yourself, but it’s unavoidable. So I think it’s just be prepared if you haven’t, if you’re not already doing it, just be prepared to have to plow a ton of hours into it. yeah, don’t do sort of Spotify payola promo sites.
It’s a waste of money and actually, yeah, can harm you with the algorithms because if your songs, the algorithms are looking for patterns. So again, with the genre thing, if, if you are getting on lots of playlists that are like uptempo Sunday morning walk in the woods, whatever, if you have a song that matches that And you’re getting into all these kind of playlists, the algorithms notice that pattern and they can, if it’s working for you, they can amplify that by putting you on more of those playlists.
However, if you have, if the similar song ends up on some weird mishmash, like with heavy metal tunes and trap and mumble rap, whatever, it confuses the algorithm. It’s working against you. And also I know this from actual Spotify employees, you can get kicked off Spotify, you can get de platformed if you go for these kind of fake streams. you can kind of get in trouble and all the work and all the hours you put into getting your songs into a good spot can get un undone very quickly.
Moving on. I’m skipping number six ’cause it’s not very interesting. It’s just basically make a video. It’s cheap to do at home. When I movie like a lyric video, videos help. It’s a good thing to have as an extra bit of, content. again, I’ve, I’ve covered that with don’t be too in the bubble of Spotify numbers. Think about radio as well.
and in-person connection with fans master ownership, we’ve touched on that. It’s massive. That’s how the money gets earned on, on streaming sites. So owning master is as if not more important than owning songwriting shares. Singles release regularly. We’ve touched on that. So actually, yeah, finally, number 10, collaborations. I, I, whenever I do, one-to-ones, I feel like I kind of repeat myself a little bit because I’m always saying to people, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate, network, build your, your kind of community, of fellow creators.
And I mean the TSA is that which is brilliant. So you, you, you that are all in the chat right now, you’re doing that very thing. And I think I can’t stress enough how key it is. Like, for example, this radio Plugger who got me on radio Germany, I met him through a friend who’s a musician, tried it out.
It worked. So I tried it again and now a load of people are coming to me saying, Hey, how did you get that song on the radio? And then, and of course I give them the guy’s email and, and connect them. So it’s all just, it’s knowing people and having a community of of people who are in, in the same kind of like in the battle with you. And that is really, yeah, a key point. And again, like it’s great that the TSA exists and it that it is that very thing. So we all can learn from each other and we can all give each other a leg up, in all kinds of ways.
What was number nine? I don’t even remember. I think I skipped number nine. I skipped number nine because I’ve said it already. And that is that you should release more songs regularly than sort of like disappear for six months and then release an EP because whatever kind of like, traction You have built up will subside in those six months where you haven’t released anything. Dave Walker saying that seven and eight were just a jumble of words.
Oh God, I’m, I’m starting to rush now that we’ve, we’ve overrun so much. What was seven and eight? Number seven was don’t be too obsessed with Spotify numbers as your only metric of success. Yeah. Again, artists who have like 75,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, but then you go and see their gig and there’s like eight people there. So it’s not the only barometer of success.
It’s important, but it’s not the only thing. Number eight, own your masters or at least own a really big chunk of the master. ….