Once you’re on a playlist, there are a number of things you can do to maximise the positive impact the placement can have. Editors at the digital services also pay close attention to data associated to releases across their platforms, so its important to maintain engagement efforts even after release day.
Even before promoting your music to playlists, it’s important that your artist pages on the digital music services are in order. Using services like Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists you can claim your page, upload images, and curate playlists. This will enable anyone discovering you through a playlist to understand more about you as an artist, and engage with you more deeply. Your artist page should always reflect your current branding and be fully fleshed out, including bios, Artist Playlists, and social handles.
Second, post the playlist to all your social media, making sure to tag (and thank) the curator of the playlist, and the digital service provider (if they are not also the curator, of course). This will let the playlister know that you recognize them, are supportive of their output, and that you will be a good partner to continue supporting in the future.
It is worth remembering that you can link directly to the track within the playlist with Apple Music, and for the other digital music services artists can link back to their product in these posts.
Third, make sure that you get in touch about playlisting 6 weeks prior to your next release. In the meantime, continue growing your profile via social media, press, radio, and live shows. This will enable us to continue pushing your releases towards playlist curators.
If you're interested in digging further into the opportunities, with the Digital Streaming platforms check out the below video from the AWAL Academy where we speak to Sam Potts who heads up the Global Commercial Partnerships team out of the UK office.