Should you pay to get on playlists?

Should you pay to get on playlists?

Of course you shouldn’t.

But why not?

Because it doesn’t work.

I get it, you see someone with a high stream count or a huge number of monthly listeners and think that’s what “success” as an artist looks like.

But is that success?

If you’re pursuing music artistry as a career, that means you’re building a business.

That means you have to have a relationship with your audience like any business has a relationship with its customers.

So does having more monthly listeners equate to that?

Are you able to communicate with them effectively?

We know the answer is no.

If you’re like me, you have loads of playlists mostly filled with tracks made by artists whose names you still can’t even recall.

That’s not a relationship.

And the proof is in the pudding.

Artists pay the price to get on playlists, which does indeed boost their monthly listeners…for a month!

But then it’s back to square one once they have dropped off those playlists.

Which just goes to show that there isn’t really a meaningful long tail from this pursuit, especially when you consider the cost!

So what should you do instead?

Market to your ideal audience directly.

Photo by Fixelgraphy on Unsplash





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