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First off, I want to thank you all for your support over the last few years. My YouTube channel crossed 100,000 subscribers, and I am so proud of the community we have built. Our member-only feed keeps on growing, and this newsletter seems to be the fastest growing newsletter in the entire music business. Pretty wild!  

One of the things that gets missed in the endless drivel on Reddit discussing how to promote your music is some ways are effective in that they build on solid ground and then some ways are easy and dumb that are like building a house on quicksand that's just going to sink. Sadly, because this discussion happens on the Internet, the loudest and stupidest and particularly most controversial voices often get pushed up instead of the smarter ones. This particularly happens when discussing how to grow your music with Spotify playlists. But if you read the comments of the people who do this strategy the right way, you often see them growing, not to mention growing without having to constantly pour money into the process.

But we should talk about the details since that's where the fun is. By the end of this article, you'll understand exactly how to make Spotify Artist Playlists to promote your music.

"This Won't Work For My Genre"

So you might be thinking "Jesse I’ve heard you go on and on about these artist playlists for promotion and I even watched you talk to that dance producer Jend about how this helped build him up to 3 million monthly listeners… but I make Incel Metal - you know the type of stuff Matt Bacon listens to….How the hell is this gonna help me?? I don't see any of the cool bands like The Black Orchid Massacre do this."

First off just cause you aren't seeing artists in your genre do it, it shouldn't be a deterrent. Honestly, most of the artists who blow up steal an idea from another genre and bring it into theirs…. and then are considered geniuses for it. I have yet to see an artist who goes in on this properly not experience growth. But let's get into exactly what I am talking about here: promoting your music with artist playlists.

What These Playlists Look Like

On many artists' pages, you'll see a playlist where they feature something they have in common with other artists. Most often it's a micro-genre like "Fresh Artists Dungeon Rap," sometimes it's a micro-genre mixed with a location like "West London Tech House." It can even be all songs about a certain video game character since I talk to you all on consulting calls, and some of you are indeed that type of nerd (and, honestly, go off). Anyway, we make those playlists, including ones that are introductions to your music or full discographies, and then we use these to share our music.

Training The Algorithm To Find Your Fans

What we're really trying to do here is find smaller artists whose fans are most likely to like you - artists with fans who are hungry to discover new music in your genre. This trains the algorithm to recommend you to those artists' fans in algorithm-generated playlists or radio. This strategy gets your songs into various algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly and Daily Mix if people are repeatedly playing your tracks in your curated playlist.

If we design this playlist well, it'll become a destination for people who like that micro-genre, leading them to continually play your music since you're always featured in this playlist. They'll become fans while you're simultaneously building algorithmic connections to other songs, which gets you recommended to people who don't even listen to the playlist but are likely to enjoy your music. Pretty sick, right?

How To: Find The Right Artists/ Music

Target Artists Just Above Your Level

But what should be on these playlists? Ideally, the playlist should run 1-4 hours since that's the duration listeners are accustomed to. If you're creating one for workouts, err on the longer side (3-4 hours), but if you make weird experimental music in a tiny micro-genre, you can keep it shorter (1-2 hours).

What should be included is a bunch of songs from artists just slightly bigger than you in audience size. If you have 0 monthly listeners, target artists with 10-20,000 monthly listeners. If you've grown to 20k monthly listeners, artists up to 60k work great. Once you've crossed 100k, you can even include artists smaller than you while also adding some that are up to four times your size. The more relevant artists you can find with listenable tracks, the better - these create algorithmic connections that get your music recommended to their listeners.

Community Connection Is Essential

If you've been smart and done your community work, you should already have relationships with many of these artists. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should definitely watch what I consider my most important video about building artist communities - it helps you grow your fanbase way faster and it's linked in my description. But we don't just want to include those smaller artists in our strategy.

Use Unchartify to Find Bangers

As you can imagine, if someone stumbles upon your playlist and it's nothing but tiny artists, odds are a lot of these tracks are gonna be mid at best. To keep listeners coming back, we need to find some genuine bangers. This is where Unchartify comes in.

First off, sign in with your Spotify login, otherwise, the data's gonna take hours to load since this site is literally Spotify data visualized in a helpful way. Next, search for your micro-genre. If you don't know yours, search for similar artists, click on their genres, then check out the list - it shows the top songs in each category on Spotify for each year.

Create Strategic Mixes

You can have Unchartify make you a mix of songs - just a few, many, or even full albums. Listen around and see what matches your vibe. And no, I promise this isn't a commercial for Unchartify - they're free and I didn't get paid by them. I just genuinely like it and use it all the time for exploring music.

Fine-Tune Your Genre Focus

When you've found the right genre, any songs you think match your vibe that are also popular are likely to appeal to people who would listen to your playlist. You can sub these tracks in and out of your playlist from time to time. You can also explore these artists' other songs to find hidden gems and add those occasionally.

Build A Banger Bank

One trick I really like is making a private playlist that contains every song that could potentially go on your public playlist. This becomes your "banger bank" - a canvas of songs to swap in and out so your playlist stays fresh each week. You can add tracks from the current year, even some from the previous year, and keep them ready to substitute as you regularly update your playlist.

How To: Optimize For Maximum Impact

Strategic Song Placement

So now you have some obscure songs and some bangers. But where should you put your song? I'd put your song first if not third (for those of you more humble) so you are getting plays right away. Then hit listeners with a banger that's high on Unchartify, followed by the best of your obscure songs. Every 3rd or 4th song, add a banger to keep people interested - tracks you know have performed well on Unchartify.

Pro Tip: Use a link builder to create a deeplink that brings listeners straight to your song within your playlist and has it play automatically.

Also, positioning your songs after bangers can often help them get heard since listeners are less likely to hit skip after hearing a track that performs well. Include 4 or 5 of your songs early in the playlist, and after 50 tracks (if you're going that long), sprinkle them in more randomly.

Adapting For Local Community Playlists

The strategy can be similar if you're making a playlist for your local music community, though those artists are often harder to find. Search through SoundCloud using location tags to find emerging artists. Browse Bandcamp by location and genre to discover local talent. Then use Spotify's related artist suggestions to expand your search even further. Yes, you'll have to wade through some rough tracks, but finding those gems is worth it.

How To: Appeal To Your Genre

Create An Attention-Grabbing Cover Image

Let's optimize this strategy further with a good cover image that includes visual cues to your micro-genre. Go back to Unchartify and notice design trends in your genre's artwork, then make your graphic design reflect those elements. Remember, this isn't primarily your art project - we're just trying to get people in the door with an attractive exterior that signals the right genre cues to potential listeners.

Real-World Example: Bleakgaze

But for art direction, here's how to grab a clue: check the page on Unchartify for your micro-genre. Let's use Bleakgaze as an example.

Looking at Bleakgaze visuals, we notice there's a lot of black and white with pink accents and those completely illegible logos. Not just stylized text - I mean real Incel Metal illegible logos. Incorporate these visual elements into your playlist cover. Next, title it something that would get genre fans excited like "Best Underground Bleakgaze" or "New Bleakgaze Dirges" - whatever vocabulary resonates with your target audience.

In the description, use keywords that will help it show up in search. For example, Anti-pop, hyperpop, and bubblegum bass are all used interchangeably by people who have no idea what genres mean (which is basically everyone), so include those terms and say something like "all the best new bubblegum bass, hyperpop, and anti-pop jams."

Pro Tip: If you want submissions put an email for people to send them (but note this can get annoying fast you may want to make a new email you check from time to time).

Keep an Update Schedule

Now here's the trick - we need to regularly update this playlist, which isn't difficult. Swap out some of the bangers from time to time and change the song order to keep things fresh. Every 2-4 weeks, check if those smaller artists have released new material or have other good songs you can add.

Additionally, explore the "Fans Also Like" sections of these artists on Spotify to discover similar acts that might fit your playlist. This regular maintenance keeps your playlist relevant, helps the algorithm continue making connections, and ensures listeners have reasons to come back.

How To: Promote Your Playlist

Now it’s time to promote the playlist. Start by following and tagging some of the smaller artists featured in it, then post about it on your Instagram story. Let them know you’ve added their song—many will likely share it with their followers, giving your playlist instant exposure.

If they don't share it the first time, don't get discouraged. Often, your first message gets hidden in their request folder without generating a notification. Try a second time with a friendly message - persistence pays off here.

Push Through The Initial Challenges

Remember, most of your favorite artists' promotional efforts worked very poorly at first. What separates successful artists from the rest is that they push through and keep going despite early disappointments. If you don't believe me, this is one of the main things I teach on my member feed every single week.

Consistency and persistence with this playlist strategy will gradually train the algorithm to connect your music with listeners who enjoy similar artists, creating sustainable growth without constant financial investment.

Cross-Platform Promotion Strategy

Leverage your playlist across multiple platforms. Make Instagram stories, and post on all short-form text apps while tagging the featured artists. You can also create clever reels, shorts, and TikToks - "If you’re into Bleakgaze you NEED this playlist" Just make sure to position the playlist link prominently in your bio.

Meta Ads..??

Now, let’s talk about another promo method—Meta ads. If you’re a regular viewer, you’re probably thinking, “Bruh, what happened? I saw that pic with Andrew Southworth—did he slip you something?” But hear me out. I’ve been saying this for nearly two years. If you’re running Meta ads to get your song heard, this is one of the few times I actually recommend it.

Normally, Meta ads send low-quality listeners straight to your song, which messes up your algorithmic connections. But when you drive traffic to a playlist instead, it helps teach the algorithm who to recommend your music to. It’s a smarter approach, though I still think there are better ways to spend that money. But hey, it’s your call—choose your own adventure.

Reddit Ads

I've also experimented with Reddit ads, getting some great results and some that were absolutely awful. I'm still analyzing what works as people experiment with them and I review the data. I'll be back once I've properly vetted the information since I don't post until I'm confident in my recommendations.

But between those promotion methods, you should have plenty of strategies to get these playlists heard. Most importantly you need to do your community building before anything.