How To Use Spotify Playlists to Promote Your Brand And Engage With Your Audience
When thinking of using social media platforms to promote your brand or business, you usually think of Facebook or Instagram first. But what if there was another way to connect with your audience on an emotional level, a platform that allowed you to engage with your community even when they’re working, commuting, at home, or spending time with friends. I’m talking about creating branded Spotify playlists.
The good news is: creating a Spotify playlist strategy for your brand or business is not that hard, not to mention free.
In this article, you’ll discover why it’s the best time to think of joining Spotify and starting sharing playlists and how to go about it.
Why this is the perfect time to create a Spotify account for your business and start sharing playlists?
While not a full-blown social platform, Spotify offers ways for users, including brands and organizations, to curate content and share it with others. With a total of 286 million active users (as of May 2020), Spotify surpasses Snapchat and Pinterest (around 250 million each) and is at the heels of Twitter and Reddit (around 300 million each). Naturally, brands are starting to notice and turn their attention to the potential of the platform.
The playlist creation feature is Spotify best way to engage with your audience. The streaming music service released numbers showing that the average monthly listening time of its users is 25 hours. Of those 25 hours, a third is spent listening to user-generated playlists.
As traditional advertising is becoming less engaging for consumers, curated content has become a way for brands and organizations to break through their indifference. And what better way to connect with your followers than with music?
An advantage of Spotify over Instagram and Facebook is the way in which you can engage with your community though music playlists even when they’re not actively interacting with the platform. People listen to music while they’re working, commuting to and from work, preparing a meal, having friends over, working out, cleaning your house, and various other activities. Offering context-based or activity-focused playlist is a great way to offer quality content to your followers while passively engaging with them throughout their daily activities.
It would be impossible not to mention the effects and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. For many businesses, it’s had negative if not catastrophic consequences on their bottom lines. We’re thinking of the restaurant business, the brick-and-mortar retail sector, the arts and culture sector, and many more. For Spotify however, it resulted in a 31% growth of their monthly active users. And putting together a playlist strategy is a great way to leverage this popularity and remain in touch with your clients during lockdown and beyond.
Did we mention it’s free? While we recommend signing up for a Premium account ($9,99/month) to unlock all the features if you’re going to be using the account to actively listen to music, you can very well create a free account to start creating and sharing playlists.
How to launch a brand Spotify account in 6 steps
Convinced you want to start leveraging Spotify’s potential to engage with your audience but not sure where to start? Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting on the right track (no pun intended).
Step 1. Set up your account
This might sound obvious but the first step is to sign up for a Spotify account. Although a Premium account will unlock some cool featured, a simple free account will do to start creating and sharing playlists.
When creating your account, you’ll notice that Spotify gives you a randomly generated username composed of a string of numbers. Fear not, you’ll be able to change your display name to your brand/company name by editing your profile later.
On the desktop Spotify app, you’ll also be able to assign a profile picture. You can, for instance, choose to upload your logo to ensure your audience can find you easily.
Step 2. Define a brand playlist strategy
Before jumping into creating playlists, it’s a good idea to take some time to think about a playlist strategy. When it comes to branded playlists, there are plenty of avenues you can take. Defining the type of playlists you want to share, the number of songs in each playlist, the playlist titles, the type of cover art and the frequency of updates are all aspects that should be thought-through.
It’s important that the type of playlists you create is aligned with your brand. For instance, a gym or active wear brand might choose to create playlist to work out to, while a car maker might opt to offer the ultimate road trip playlists. Here are some of the most common playlist types:
IN-LOCATION PLAYLISTS
Brick-and-mortar businesses often choose to share a selection of the music that’s playing in their locations. It’s an easy way for their customers to discover music and recreate the mood of that business where ever they are.
SEASONAL PLAYLISTS
We see some brands and organisations decide to create playlists based on season. A summer playlist might have a sunny, light and fun feel while a winter one might feel warm and comforting.
THEME-BASED PLAYLISTS
With this approach, sky’s the limit. There’s an endless amount of possibility. Pick a theme that’s relevant to your brand or industry and start compiling songs.
ACTIVITY-DRIVEN PLAYLISTS
The idea with this one is to offer a soundtrack to different activities. Music to work out, to drive, to entertain guests. Again, there are countless options.
GENRE-BASED PLAYLISTS
Another popular type of playlists are ones that revolve around a certain genre or style of music.
NEW RELEASES PLAYLISTS
If it’s relevant to your business, you could also consider playlists focusing on the best new music.
While picking a playlist strategy that’s on-brand and susceptible to resonate with your audience is the most important factor, it’s worth noting that some type of playlists tend to perform better than others. The people at Chartmetric who tracked over 1 million Spotify playlists have broken them down into two main groups: content-based playlists created around a genre, a language or geographical boundaries and context-based playlists created around an activity (running, dinner, etc.) or a time (Christmas, Women’s History Month, etc.). Of the two, context-based playlists have the higher median number of followers per playlist. What’s more, they found that mixing both content and context purposes into hybrid playlists (think Latin Dance Cardio or Throwback R&B Party) performs even better with an even higher median follower count per playlist.
What type of playlists best suit your brand’s identity and your marketing goals? Make sure to ask yourselves those questions before committing to curating playlists.
Step 3. Curate brand playlists
Now that you’ve established a playlist strategy, it’s time to start compiling songs into playlists. Here, Spotify is your friend as it will make the music research process so much easier. While you don’t want to copy other playlists, it’s perfectly fine to dig through existing playlists to find songs to add to your own playlists.
One thing to keep in mind is that your playlists will be competing against 4 Billion other playlists on the platform. You read that right, that’s 4 billion with a B. So the idea is to stand out. Forgo ubiquitous top 40 playlists in favour of more niche content that’s in line with your brand and susceptible to appeal to your followers.
Spotify recommends that brands and organisations avoid including several songs from the same artist in their playlists, as it might suggest that this artists is somehow affiliated with the brand. They also suggest your playlist should contain at least 20 songs. With think 30 to 50 songs is the sweet spot.
Pro Tip: If you want to step up the quality of your playlists, get in touch with Catalogue, our music curation agency. We will help you put to together memorable playlists that will truly stand out form the mass and speak to your audience.
Step 4. Design playlist cover art
You’ve defined a playlist strategy, compiled music, chosen titles and written descriptions for your playlists, now it’s time to design a cover image for them. Just like a music album, Spotify offers the choice to add a cover image to your playlists. It’s a good opportunity to choose a visual that evokes the music found in the playlist. You can also include the title of the playlist and don’t forget your logo.
Step 5. Share your playlists across your social media channels
Congratulations! You’ve almost completed your Spotify playlist strategy. Now it’s time to let your community know about your new playlists. Obvious channels to share your playlists are your website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Spotify even includes integrated ways to share your playlists on these platforms.
Pro tip: When sharing a playlist from the mobile app, Spotify allows you to share it directly to your Instagram stories, which lets the user access it with a single click from within your story.
Step 6. Update your playlists or create new ones
Now that you’ve launched your Spotify account, shared your playlists and garnered some followers, it’s not time to drop the ball. Indeed, it’s good practice to either periodically update your playlists with new songs (as well as removing old ones) or to create brand new playlists to add to your collection. That way, you’ll keep your followers interested and engaged.
Brands That are Killing it on Spotify
Urban Outfitters
With 68,000 combined followers on their 55 playlists (as of May 2020), retail chain Urban Outfitters is a playlist powerhouse. Their playlist strategy is far reaching but always on brand. It includes theme playlists (ex: Poolside Vibes), guest playlists, in-store music and event-driven playlists (ex: New Year’s Eve). The playlist art work is consistent with an old vinyl sticker inspiration. And the execution is flawless with a music selection appealing to their target demographics of Gen Z and younger Millennials.
Nike Women
With 15 playlists, one of which gathering over 550k followers (as of May 2020), NikeWomen has a strong Spotify game. Their playlist strategy is simple and focused: providing the soundtrack to your various workouts and physical activities. From running to HIIT work outs to post-workout recovery, they’ve got you covered. As you would expect from a giant like Nike, the execution and covers are high quality with professional photo shoots.
Are you ready to harness Spotify to drive your brand forward and connect with your audience?
With Spotify gaining popularity and becoming the main player in music streaming, not many brands have figured out how to leverage Spotify to increase their reach. Now is a great time to get ahead of the curve and start building a Spotify strategy for your brands and organisation.
At Catalogue, our team of curators has been active on Spotify for years and we’ve developed knowledge and insights on how to it right. We can help you navigate this platform, from creating an account, to defining a branded playlist strategy, to curating playlists and sharing them across your social media channels.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our services.