Why is my track getting skipped on Spotify?

Why is my track getting skipped on Spotify?

by | Oct 6, 2021 | Highlight, Spotify

You were wondering why listeners are skipping your music on Spotify? This guide will teach you how to reduce your Spotify skip rate and amass massive Spotify streams.

For Spotify listeners to skip your track, it means you have done a great job in getting your music out there. However, you would need more than just exposure to build a reliable fan base; you will need to push your music to the perfect audience.

There are two reasons Spotify listeners are skipping your songs viz.

  • You are marketing your music to the wrong audience.
  • Your music needs better creative input.

The term ‘wrong audience’ can mean followers of a Spotify playlist who don’t care about your genre. Still, somehow your music got playlisted on the playlist or listeners from a particular region (let’s say France) who discovered your song (originally written in Portuguese) with the aid of a ‘misinformed’ Spotify algorithm. Either way, it’s never a good thing to be discovered by Spotify users who cannot relate to your music.

On the other end of the spectrum, if your song is getting skipped because it is not good enough, you may need to up your game as first impressions last longer. A disappointed listener might not give your music another chance in the future.

What is Spotify Skip Rate?

Spotify ‘skips rate’ or ‘skips count’ is a metric that indicates the number of times a user skipped a song on a playlist. The user must have listened to the track for more than 30 seconds for a listener’s stream to count. When a listener gets off a track within the first 30 seconds, Spotify counts the action as a skip.

Daniel Breitholtz, Spotify’s Nordic head of shows and Editorial, confirms that editors at Spotify consider the skip rate while shopping for new music. However, he stated that this metric is one of many factors and should not blow it out of proportion. In line with Daniel’s revelation in the Music Ally interview, the most potent factor is the Spotify save rate.

How to check my Spotify skip rate

The Spotify skip rate is only visible to Spotify playlist editors. The tool used is said to be burdensome and not available to the general public. The Spotify for artist site provides real-time data such as the number of streams, top cities, top countries, listener’s age, and source of streams; however, the skip count section is missing.

How to reduce my Spotify skip rate 

According to a renowned music blogger, yclept Paul Lamere, a 24.14 percent probability that a Spotify listener would skip a song in the first five seconds. His report suggests that the likelihood of skipping a track on Spotify in the initial 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and at the ending part of a track are 28.97%, 35.05%, and 48.6%, respectively. This study infers that you have just 5 seconds to impress your listeners. A good rule of thumb for impressing your early listener is to start your track with the chorus or the catchiest part of the track. That way, you can create a great first impression.

For experimental artists in their approach to making music, the Spotify study is not just scary but also discouraging. If you knew your song would get skipped by new listeners for not following the conventional way of arranging music, you might feel tempted to follow the crowd. It is important to state that Lamere’s finding is only true for singles as listeners tend to be more patient when listening to albums. When releasing singles independently, you may not want to go against the grain except if you have a huge fanbase or trust your gut.

Reduce your Spotify skip rate and increase your track’s replay value by following the three steps below.

Only use playlists in your niche

Adding a rap song to a rock and roll playlist will get the track skipped. People tune into different playlists based on their moods. For example, there are playlists created exclusively for working out, meditating, working, and partying. Playlist listeners punish misplaced tracks by skipping them. Do not pay to put your song on a Spotify playlist that aligns with your music genre or mood.

Help the algorithm define your potential audience

Nothing is perfect, and the Spotify algorithm is not an exception. In a bid to get your track out there, the algorithm can expose your track to uninterested ears that might skip it as soon as it starts playing. However, using collaborative filtering and natural language processing, the algorithm tries to understand each track and push it to the best audience.

The algorithm uses its natural language processing to shop for information about a track on search engines, articles, and blogs. That way, the Spotify algorithm can know more about the track. Also, the information you provide Spotify when pitching your song can help the algorithm decide what audience would love your music.

You can assist the Spotify algorithm by making press releases and updating your social media pages/personal website with information about the track before the release date.

Know what listeners want

The most successful artists in every genre know what their audiences want and deliver at the appropriate time. Rap fans want hard-hitting bars, while afrobeat fans love danceable beats. If you do not know what your fans and potential fans want, there is no way you can grow a dedicated fanbase. Streams from a loyal fanbase can mitigate the effect of skip counts from few uninterested Spotify users.

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.

6 Pro Tips for a Raving Spotify Fan Base

6 Pro Tips for a Raving Spotify Fan Base

by | Jun 30, 2021 | Spotify, Tips

Some songs become earworms, while some others fail to impress and push listeners to skip them immediately. Music enthusiasts are often on a quest to find their next favorite song that will lead to a new favorite and another one.

You and I need to admit that our music taste has evolved since we became Spotify users. Because most of us, in our streaming journey, found that one unknown band who stayed forever in our ‘Heavy Rotation,’ the remarkable artists of whom we became huge fans of, or maybe that groovy beat we played on repeat during the whole summer. These songs often lead us to another artist who takes us to a third one, and when we realize, we are emerging in a new musical style.

These experiences result from Spotify’s algorithm matching music lovers and music they will love. At the same time, it helps us expand our musical knowledge and evolve our taste every day.

However, growing a fan base and standing out on the most popular streaming service in the world are not easy tasks. Independent musicians from all over the globe are fighting for the same ears, developing strategies to

leverage Spotify’s algorithm and get more exposure and organic traffic. In order to help your music stand out and expand your fan base on Spotify, we listed six precious tips that will help you find your fans on the platform. Check them out!

1. Submit Your Music To Playlists

The best way to reach out to new fans and increase the number of people listening to your music is to submit it to playlists on Spotify. Most streaming services  base their music discovery system on playlist engagement, and Spotify is no different. A large percentage of the universal streams on the platform come from the most popular playlists, being those Algorithmic – created automatically by the app and tailored to our music taste; Editorial, the ones curated by a team of Spotify curators; User-Curated, the ones curated by the users. Even though editorial playlists tend to be more significant as Spotify highlights on the platform, user-curated playlists can also have a broad reach. Some of these playlists – curated by brands, artists, influencers, and regular users – fall into the category. 

There are three main possibilities for getting your music featured on Spotify playlists:

A – Submit your track to Spotify editorial playlists via the Spotify for Artists app. The process is smooth and quick, but you need to submit your songs at least six weeks prior to the release. (essa frase ta incompleta)

b – Look for appealing user-curated playlists. Search for curators online and find ways to get in touch. There are services such as curators databases and playlist pluggers if you prefer to have professional help.

C- You could use services like IndieMono, Submithub, and Soundplate. Some of these are free to use.

2. Create Pre-Save Campaigns

Pre-Save campaigns are a great way of generating awareness and creating expectations prior to your music release. These campaigns help artists build momentum before a new music campaign, keeping them warm and ready for more.

When a listener decides to pre-save an album, they receive a notification on Spotify as soon as the expected single, EP, or collection is out so that they can listen to it immediately. Amazing, right? 

3. Create Your Own Playlists

Creating your playlist and highlighting it as your “artist’s pick” on Spotify can bring positive results when promoting your music and fostering fan engagement. Your music selection will also help your audiences to have a deeper connection with your work.

By presenting your music to your fans through a well-curated selection—side-by-side with different artists from the same genre—you can set a great mood and shape your fans’ perception of building the proper branding around your work. When curating your own playlist, add some of your songs together with music from similar artists, your influences, and inspirations. Promote this playlist on your social channels and send a message to the artists you featured so that they might do the same.

But remember: keep your playlist fresh, with constant updates and constantly add new songs. Regularly sharing a list of songs will direct more attention to your music and increase listeners’.

4. Make Sure You Have Some Budget for Online Ads

Integrated digital marketing campaigns are vital for the success of any independent musician. You have to reach new fans where they are hanging out, and it’s most likely this place as social media.

If you are a starting musician without a substantial audience yet, or already an established performer with several thousands of fans, creating paid ad campaigns on social media might be a no-brainer. These campaigns are perfect to immediately boost your reach when thinking about promoting your releases and starting a conversation with your listeners.

5. Use a Download Gate Strategy

Download gates are link aggregators that allow you to give away a downloadable gift in exchange for a requested action, usually social platforms interaction such as follow, like, or subscribe. This tool is often accessible via a website. It allows artists to rapidly accelerate their fan base growth when offering something as the download of an unreleased track in exchange for one or a few actions.

Follow-to-Download Links or simply download gates foster two important dynamics; expanding the reach of your music and improving the quantity and the quality of your following. Most gateways will allow you to add multiple gating steps, such as combining two or more of these social interactions.

In other words, you can make that secret recording available for your fans and only deliver it to those who agree to follow your profile, save your album, or like your playlist on Spotify. These actions can even work together with interactions on other social media channels, such as following your Instagram, subscribing to your YouTube channel, or liking your Facebook page.

6. Share your music with QR Codes

QR codes can be an excellent way of promoting your music both online in the physical space. When aimed at a cellphone’s camera, they are quick response codes that can direct the user to specific addresses on the internet. In this case, drive people to listen to your music! You can send them on emails, post them on your social media channels, print them on your flyers, your promo CDs, or your business card… The possibilities are endless!

Wrapping it Up

Spotify is the leading music streaming platform in the world. Therefore, gathering listeners, attracting followers, and fostering a fan base on the platform is essential for any music artist. The advantages of having your fans on your reach are enormous. The more people play, like, share, and engage your music through your music, and the more people will see your music recommended exponentially.

We hope these six pro tips for building a Spotify fan base will help you create this virtuous cycle and take you to the next step in your music career.

Spotify Popularity Index: A Little Secret to Help You Leverage the Algorithm

Spotify Popularity Index: A Little Secret to Help You Leverage the Algorithm

by | Jun 8, 2021 | Highlight, Spotify, Tips

In a digital age where independent artists are trying to break through the barriers installed by putative gatekeepers of the music industry, the golden key to becoming a successful artist is data. Without data, successful campaigns cannot be recreated and the unsuccessful ones cannot be learned from.

Spotify for Artists only gives  basic information regarding listeners’ demographics and track performance. The information displayed on the artist dashboard only includes the number of streams, listeners, followers, top playlists, and top songs.

This approach, however, fails to take into account other key factors for measuring your songs’ performance. From track attributes – such as danceability, liveness, positiveness, key, loudness, energy – to data regarding how listeners interact with your music. Yet, these hidden indicators are used by the algorithm to rank, recommend, display, and playlist songs on the biggest music streaming platform.

But keep in mind: when it comes to the Spotify algorithm, no song is rated in isolation. 

What is Spotify’s Popularity Index?

The Spotify Popularity Index is a 0-to-100 score that ranks how popular an artist is relative to other artists on Spotify. As your numbers grow, you’ll get placed in more editorial playlists and increase your reach on algorithmic playlists and recommendations. Some say that the magic number is 50!

The Index can be used to monitor and influence the progress of new releases. Each track has its own SPI calculated influencing the artist’s overall index. Yet, while the Popularity Index is majorly determined by recent stream count, other factors like save rate, the number of playlists, skip rate, and share rate can indirectly bump up or push down a song’s popularity index.

How to Influence the Popularity Index in your Favor

To successfully influence your Spotify popularity index, you need to understand that every stream, save, share, like, and playlist recommendation counts. All ways lead to Rome.

Do not forget that the algorithm is the major player here and the index is just one of the factors it considers when recommending booming songs to Spotify’s ever-demanding listeners. 

Spotify Algorithm - BART

Running a pre-save campaign weeks before the release days would give your track all the juice it needs to appeal to your first listeners. The algorithm will have no other choice than to keep recommending your songs to your perceived audience and lookalike audience. If your campaign success is consistent during the first week, there is a great likelihood that you will be placed on several algorithmic playlists.

Your pre-save campaign can give you all the traction you need to “convince” the algorithm to give you a playlist boost. According to Chartmasters: 

“A song is not successful because it is a part of a large playlist. It only gets into large playlists when it’s successful”.

You do not have to leave the fate of your track in the formulaic hands of the Spotify algorithm since you can also appeal to tastemakers by pitching your music to editorial playlists.

Although Editorial playlists give your tracks more exposure compared to algorithmic playlists, songs fall off the editorial playlists easily and quickly unlike algorithmic playlists. You can remain on algorithmic playlists for months.

How to check Spotify Popularity Index

There are several tools you can use to check your Spotify Popularity Index, namely; Musicstax, Chartmetric, Songstats, and Spotify for Developers. The first three tools are the simplest while Spotify for Developers can be confusing to users with no coding skills.

Musicstax is a simple music analysis tool that allows you to check the popularity score by searching for the artist’s name or song. The free tool can also be used to analyze features of a song such as loudness and danceability. The only disadvantage of using Musicstax is its inability to provide real-time metrics, meaning the database is not always up-to-date.

Chartmetrics provides market-level data to artists who want to up their game and understand their growing fanbase. You can get a panoramic view of how many people are discovering your songs on playlists, popularity rating, and growth over a long span of time, conversion ratio, and playlist reach to followers ratio via Chartmetric.

Songstats is an amazing tool that provides artists with the data needed to effectively manage their campaigns. It lets you observe the impact of your campaign strategy and growing popularity index on your track performance.

Conclusion

  • Improve your understanding of your fanbase using advanced tools to crawl data from your Spotify page. Tools like Chartmetric, Songstats, and Musicstax make it super easy.

  • Monitor your popularity growth in the first week of release and make informed decisions using real-time metrics.

  • Use the popularity score as a currency to bypass the gateways of algorithmic playlists.

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