Enaa Mari
As a musician you’re going to want to get your music heard, and one of the most effective ways to do that is by putting it on a music streaming service, and if you’re going to choose a music streaming service then Spotify should be up there because it’s currently the biggest with millions and millions of active users.
Streaming vs owning
Music streaming is now more popular than owning physical copies of music such as CD’s. It is apparent that consumer behaviour has changed and that people prefer the ‘on demand’ services that music-streaming services offer. With this being said, it’s easy to understand why a musician should put their music on Spotify; people are using it, and if people are using it then by using the correct marketing tactics, people will get the opportunity to listen to your music.
Availability
Spotify is available through a mobile app so music lovers can listen on the go, and it’s even available if you don’t have data via the ‘offline’ mode, so there is no chance of ever being without music!
Notifications
Spotify automatically alerts followers when new music is released via push notifications through the app, emails or recommendations in the activity feed. This saves a musician from having to do extra marketing work and leaves more time to focus on their music.
Revenue
Revenue is important, at the basic level it’s why we all work as we all need an income to survive. Making money from music is no different, and it’s important for an artist to know how much Spotify will pay them for their work.
As this is a general overview, further reading will be required, however, at a basic level, Spotify will pay a nominal fee per stream depending on the cost of a subscription in a particular country where the music is being streamed from. Also a stream value will be different if the person streaming is a paying or non-paying customer – a higher revenue will be generated if a paying user streams your music.
The important thing to remember regarding revenue is the more streams you get the more revenue you’ll receive. This can be done by either increasing the number of followers you have on Spotify, or by uploading more music to the platform.
Playing your part in helping to decrease piracy
There is a large amount of evidence that suggests that music platforms such as Spotify help decrease the amount of music piracy, and any artist would, I’m sure, want to play their part in helping the greater good of the music world.
Giving people a chance to listen to your music
If people have never heard of you or your music, it’s very unlikely that they’re going to go out and buy a physical copy of your album. This is where Spotify comes in as it gives people the opportunity to discover you and your music; if they’re already paying a subscription anyway then they’ll benefit from not spending additional money either.
What’s also great about Spotify is that it recommends songs based on the genre listened to by the user, so by getting your tracks on Spotify, it’s highly likely that the service will promote your work and then be listened to by users.
Streaming counts towards the music charts
Artists who are generating large volumes of streams will be pleased to know that these count towards the UK singles chart and the US Billboard charts. It’s important to know how these are counted, so further reading would be required but as a general overview, a song must be streamed for at least 30 seconds to count and streams via YouTube do not count. 100 streams is equivalent to one download or purchased single.
Therefore, in conclusion there are a variety of reasons for artists to get their music on Spotify, from generating revenue to potentially gaining millions more followers. The music industry is worth billions of dollars and if you’ve got great content and market yourself in the right way the world is your oyster!
