Spotify has several playlists on its platform that can help artists gain more exposure and streams from listeners. These playlists include editorial playlists curated by Spotify editors that one can pitch to be featured. Additionally, there are algorithmic playlists that are auto-generated for each user based on their listening history and preferences. While you cannot pitch to algorithmic playlists, they can still help you reach more audiences and gain streams and followers.
Some of the most relevant algorithmic playlists on Spotify include Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and Radio playlists. Other personalized playlists, such as On Repeat, Repeat Rewind, and Daily Mix, can also help you gain visibility and get more streams.
However, all algorithmic playlists are just pieces of a larger puzzle: the Spotify algorithm. Understanding the Spotify algorithm can help you comprehend how these playlists work and how they affect one another.
Today, I will focus on how to trigger the Spotify Radio playlist. I will review how the Spotify algorithm works, what sets Spotify Radio apart from other algorithmic playlists, and how you can leverage that knowledge to improve your performance on the platform.
Let’s dive in!
What is the Spotify Radio Playlist?
Spotify Radio is a feature that allows users to discover new music based on what they are already listening to. It makes Spotify users more engaged and active in finding new music, which keeps them spending more time on the platform.
Spotify users can start a Radio station from a song, an artist, or an album, and it will bring up playlists with 50 songs and over 2 hours of new music. You can save these playlists to your library and download them (if you’re a Premium user) or save single tracks.
Until last year, you could also start a Radio from one of your playlists, but that feature was removed in March 2023, which upset many of its users, including myself. However, the Radio feature is still available for artists, albums, and tracks.
Starting a Radio Playlist
To start a Radio playlist, go to an artist page, an album, or a song that you want to use as a starting point. Click on the three dots at the end of a song or under the artist and album name to display the menu and select “Go to Artist/Song/Album Radio.” The Radio playlist will have 50 songs to listen to, but you can continue playing similar music after the 50 songs are over if you enable Autoplay in your settings.
With Autoplay enabled, Spotify will add songs it thinks you will like at the end of a radio playlist, but it will also start a radio station when you finish listening to an album or track.
Radio is not only helpful for Spotify users; it’s also one of the many tools artists can use. Spotify Radio can help you reach more listeners who might appreciate your music and become fans.
Let’s review a few things about how the Spotify algorithm works to ensure we’re on the same page before diving more into how Radio works and how to trigger it.
The Algorithm Behind Spotify
Think of the Spotify Algorithm as an AI whose main job is to deliver the best music to its users, “the best,” meaning music they don’t know yet but will probably like, based on their listening habits.
This algorithm has to learn what each user likes to listen to in order to recommend more music to keep them using Spotify. But how does it do it? Simply by analyzing your behavior when you’re using Spotify.
Spotify’s algorithm studies the artists you follow, genres you listen to, which tracks you save and which ones you skip, and the playlists you follow. Then, it analyzes that data from you and compares it with another user with similar activity. It will then pick songs from the other users you haven’t listened to yet and recommend them to you, along with other songs from its database that coincide with what Spotify considers “your taste in music.”
It probably happened to you that a friend sent you an album to listen to. Something in a genre you don’t usually listen to, and suddenly, you start seeing music of that genre recommended to you. That’s because Spotify saw that, and now it thinks you may want to listen to more songs like that one.
This is what happens in general behind every algorithmic playlist like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, Daily Mixes, and Radio.
How the Spotify Algorithm Curates Radio Playlists?
What makes Radio playlists different from other algorithmic playlists is how you can launch them and decide, in a way, what to listen to, and Spotify will quickly generate a new playlist for you, unlike Discover Weekly and Release Radar, which updates every Monday and Friday, respectively. It kind of gives the user a feeling of control over what they want to hear rather than repeatedly listening to traditional Radio or playing the same playlists.
While Release Radar shows you the new releases from artists you follow and Discover Weekly music you haven’t listened to yet that you may like, with Radio Playlists, you can tell Spotify: “I want to listen to more music like this” be it an album, a track or a specific artist, and it will provide you with new music in a flash. Spotify has enough data to create a playlist for each track, song, or artist you request.
What I love about Radio is that if you’re exploring new genres and artists, you don’t have to wait for Discover Weekly and Release Radar to find new music for you. It can also help artists be discovered by users interested in their genre but who have not come across their tracks before.
Spotify Radio playlists update regularly to remain fresh as new music is released. So, if you have yet to be featured in a radio playlist, you still have a chance as long as you keep releasing new music and listeners continue interacting with it positively.
How to Trigger Spotify Radio Playlists for Artists
Now the question remains: how can your music be featured in a Radio playlist? There is no quick way to get on Spotify Radio Playlists in the same way as it’s not easy to get on any of the algorithmic playlists available on Spotify.
One common aspect is that algorithmic playlists can affect each other. The steps to trigger Spotify Radio Playlists will eventually help you get into other algorithmic playlists and vice versa.
In order to get your music featured on a personalized playlist, you need to be active on Spotify and encourage users to listen to your works. If you can do this effectively, Spotify will reward you by featuring your music on their playlists.
It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved. Spotify gains more users, users discover new music, and artists reach legitimate fans and build a community. While it may not be easy, and the landscape is constantly changing, having a general understanding of how radio playlists work can help you create an action plan.
Building a Strong Spotify Presence
Achieving popularity on Spotify requires more than just releasing music – you must also maintain a strong presence on the platform.
While this may seem obvious to some, this aspect is often overlooked. To help enhance your visibility on Spotify, consider the suggestions below.
Edit your Artist profile.
A genuine and compelling bio, high-quality photos, and a diverse music catalog can help you attract users who land in your profile. Not all users click on the artist’s page when they find your music, but you can link to your Spotify profile on your social media platforms. People following outside of Spotify can become interested in your music, and that’s the best way to present your music.
Release New Music.
Your priority as an artist is creating music, so make sure you produce the best you can with the highest quality. Get help from an engineer for mastering or use an online mastering service.
The next step is to have a release schedule and plan. Most artists now release their music as singles or EPS, so they can constantly release new music instead of larger works every year or two. Though I have mixed feelings about this practice, it’s clear this approach can help you stay on the Release Radar playlists of your listeners.
Drive Traffic to Your Songs
You can make Spotify notice you by driving traffic to your songs from other places like social media platforms, ads, websites, etc. Such promotion can be achieved in many ways, with running ads being the most common. You can use Facebook ads to target possible listeners or use other services that offer music promotion.
Creating Organic Content
You can also attract listeners with organic content. Start promoting organically, then use the posts with more engagement to run ad campaigns. Here is a brief list of content ideas you can use:
- Share your Spotify songs on social media.
- Create Promo Cards and post them online with a link to your music.
- Share a snippet of your new song with a link to your profile.
- Post sneak peeks of your production process to create expectations of your new song and encourage followers to follow you on Spotify, too.
- Ask your fans to stream your music and create a Radio playlist based on your music.
Running ad campaigns and promoting with organic content is a safer way of driving natural streams than user-generated playlists, which have a reputation for using bots to create false streams. If that ever happens to you, Spotify will delete all those illegal streams, and you can risk losing your account.
What is Spotify’s Popularity?
There is a hidden stat in which Spotify measures a song’s popularity on Spotify. The more popularity you have, the more chances you have to be featured in Radio and other playlists. Since you can’t see your popularity score on your Spotify for Artists, you must rely on other platforms like Musicstax and Songstats.
Based on other artists’ experience, if a song has at least 20% in popularity, you have more chances to appear on Radio and Release Radar. With over 30%, your chances increase for Discover Weekly and over 50% to 60% for Editorial playlists.
That’s why it’s so important to use the pre-save campaigns and pitch your releases to the editorial playlists to ensure your songs are added to your followers’ Release Radar, so they’re listened to on release day by as many people as possible and help you boost your popularity in the platform.
Which Spotify Playlists Should You Prioritize
One valid strategy is to start by boosting your popularity on Release Radar on the publication day. This approach can signal to Spotify that your music is high-quality and could be recommended to more users who may enjoy it.
Eventually, your music may start appearing on Discover Weekly playlists and even become part of another artist’s, song, or album’s radio playlists. However, it’s important to note that there is no surefire formula for success.
Some artists have found success by being featured first on Radio, then Discover Weekly, with varying levels of popularity. To increase your chances of success, you could pitch your new releases (only new releases) to editorial playlists, which can help ensure your songs are added to the Release Radar of users who follow you and start building your presence.
Read Your Spotify for Artists’ Stats
From Spotify for Artists, you can monitor all your results, which playlists you’re featured on, your song’s performance, the source of your streams, and data from your audience, among other things.
Make it a habit to visit these sections to see what information you can obtain to use in your favor. Data from your song streams can help you decide which song to promote, data from your audience will help you accurately target your music to the right people, etc.
Spotify for Artists has promotion features running within Spotify, like Marquee and Showcase, which every artist can use.
Final Thoughts
Remember that every artist’s journey is different, so try not to compare others’ success to yours.
Focus on your music, build a community that supports your art, release as frequently as possible without affecting the quality of your work, stay active on the social media platforms you regularly use, and don’t hesitate to ask your fans for help.
Let them know sharing, liking, and streaming your music helps you. That’s one of the reasons creating a solid community is better than having a boost of streams every once in a while.
Good luck!
