Tag: algatorial

5 Ways Spotify Playlists Help Your Songs Reach Fans Around the World

March 8, 2023

Today at Stream On, artists, songwriters, producers, podcasters, and authors from around the world joined for the latest announcements and hands-on demos of the new tools and resources coming to our platform. We also hosted our companion event, Play On, which featured a series of talks and interactive sessions that inspired and educated creators about how they can leverage the full potential of our platform.

Among these sessions was a Spotify for Artists Masterclass on playlists and music discovery hosted by Spotify Head of Artist and Industry Partnerships International Bryan Johnson, with panelists including Spotify Global Head of Editorial Sulinna Ong, Spotify Creative Director and Head of Urban Music Carl Cherry, and Spotify Head of Global Hits J.J. Italiano. Over the course of the talk, they dove into the ways artists can use—and maximize—the power of Spotify playlists to help grow their careers.

In recent years, streaming has helped music, and culture at large, cross borders across the world. And one of the main ways fans are discovering new artists is through playlists. 

Spotify playlists fall into one of three categories:

  • Made by Editors: Curated by our team of editors at Spotify, these playlists consist of beloved global and regional playlists, including Today’s Top Hits and Pollen.
  • Made for You: These algorithmically driven playlists—like Discover Weekly and Release Radar—are tailored to each Spotify listener based on their taste profile and on a range of different signals.
  • Made by You: These playlists are created by fans who aren’t just sitting back waiting for new music; they’re leaning into artist discovery and actively finding tracks to share with other fans.

So how do these playlists drive artist discovery, exactly? There are five key factors:

1. Spotify playlists are global

Spotify exists in more than 180 markets around the world, and that has allowed us to develop a connected ecosystem of playlists across many different genres and regions. Along with our global offerings, we have thousands of playlists like African Heat, MANSIÓN REGGAETÓN, and K-Pop ON! (온) that help spotlight music coming out of regional and local scenes.

Together, these form our Playlist Pyramid, which starts with our more local and niche playlists, and filters up to our global playlists. Sitting at the top is Today’s Top Hits, which is the biggest and most popular playlist.

For many artists, their Playlist Pyramid journey will start with local or regional playlists. These are often streamed by highly engaged fans who are looking to discover new music, and they give artists a solid platform for building their audience. But from there, an artist can take many paths up the pyramid. When a song starts to perform well, it will be placed in the region’s larger playlists, and it may even be tested in other markets to see how it’s received by an international audience. If the song continues to resonate with fans, the artist can take the next jump up the pyramid, appearing in global playlists like Rap Caviar, Viva Latino, and Mint. And for artists whose songs really hit globally, they could earn a place in Today’s Top Hits.

The rise of Ghanaian singer and rapper Black Sherif is a great example of how this journey can unfold. His lyricism and unique blend of drill, Ghanaian highlife, and trap caught the ears of our editors in Sub-Saharan Africa, which led to his being playlisted in popular local lists like +233 Bars, Asakaa, Ghana Party, and more. As Black Sherif started to perform well on these playlists, he was placed in the region’s top flagship lists—Hot Hits Ghana, No Wahala, and African Heat—which further accelerated his popularity. 

Eventually, our hip-hop editors took note of his growing audience, which was starting to cross borders, and supported him across various playlists, including our global flagship playlist for drill, City to City. He has since become an emerging name outside Sub-Saharan Africa and was selected as one of our six RADAR artists in 2022.

2. Spotify playlists are curated

Placements on our editorial playlists are driven by a combination of the cultural knowledge, passion, and expertise of our editorial teams, and the variety of data insights we gather from Spotify’s audience. Crucially, music submitted via the playlist submission tool is the starting point for all songs, and Global Curation Groups, which are tapped into the latest trends and discussion points, can also determine the outcomes of where a song’s journey continues in the editorial ecosystem.

If you’re an artist who wants to better understand the pitching process, the panelists shared a few best practices to get you started:

  • Do pitch your music before it’s released: Using our playlist submission tool on Spotify for Artists is the most effective way to pitch new music. To give your track the best chance of getting playlisted—either editorially or algorithmically—we recommend pitching your song at least seven days in advance of its being released. 
  • Do provide as much info as you can: Our editors love having context when considering a song for placement. Who made it with you? When was it made? Where did you make it? It is also helpful to include any press, music video plans, release schedules, and promotions, as well as the social media accounts linked in your artist profile. If there’s an interesting story around you and/or the song, definitely let us know. 
  • Do think globally: When you pitch a song for placement, it’s visible to our entire team of editors around the world. They’re also constantly sharing their discoveries with each other. So if there are markets or regions outside of your own where you think your song will attract fans, be sure to include those suggestions when you pitch.
  • Do engage your audience: While you can’t pitch your music to us post-release, our editors still look at signals from our broader data to see which songs are resonating. Engaging with your audience and encouraging them to stream your tracks can help build momentum and catch our editors’ attention.
  • Don’t pay for playlist placement: You cannot pay to get on an official Spotify playlist. If someone or a third-party company is offering placement on a playlist in exchange for money, this is a streaming manipulation service that goes against Spotify’s guidelines for music promotion. Additionally, we routinely remove user-generated playlists that claim to offer this, so it won’t benefit you in the long run.
  • You can only pitch via Spotify for Artists: This is the place where ALL editors go to look for new music, and it’s your route to get your music in front of our editors. 

3. Spotify playlists are personalized

Personalization is one of Spotify’s most loved features, drawing upon a multitude of signals to connect the right song to the right ears at the right time. Personalized playlists include not only the aforementioned Discover Weekly and Release Radar, but also playlists like Blend and Daily Mix. They also include playlists like Beast Mode and Songs to Sing in the Shower, which are personalized for each listener but are based on a larger pool of potential tracks chosen by editors. 

One-third of all new artist discoveries on Spotify happen in these personalized sessions, which also help to drive future streams from new fans. Submitting a pitch at least seven days before release day via the playlist submission tool also helps ensure that an artist’s new release shows up in their listeners’ Release Radar.

4. Spotify playlists are driven by fans and artists

The majority of Spotify streams come from active streams, where fans are seeking out the music they want to hear by visiting album pages, artists profiles, or liked songs. This also includes streams from listener playlists. These can help signal to Spotify (and to other fans) that we should be paying attention to a particular song or artist. Artists can also engage fans by creating playlists that feature their music, or tracks by other like-minded artists that they’ve worked with and are inspired by. This can not only help to catch the eye of editors when they’re looking at streaming data, but could also lead to visibility on other artists’ profiles.

5. Spotify playlists are timeless

Spotify playlists are composed of the hottest tracks of the moment, as well as classics from the past. That’s because catalog music—or music that is more than 18 months old—maintains a large presence on Spotify. According to our Catalog Fan Study, roughly 75% of active streams consist of catalog music. Furthermore, catalog music has become increasingly popular with younger audiences who are discovering artists from previous generations for the first time.

While artists can’t pitch catalog music, our editors are always looking at the data to see if a catalog song is a good fit for one of our editorial playlists. And if an artist’s catalog song happens to go viral on a playlist, the benefits are sizable: On average, artists can see a 70% jump in streams for the rest of their music. 

As you can see, playlists are vital to how fans connect with new artists and how artists engage those new fans. And we’ll continue to use our ecosystem of playlists to support artists as their musical journey unfolds.

Are you an artist looking to get your track on Spotify’s playlists? Visit Spotify for Artists to pitch our editors.

Responsibly Balancing What Goes Into Your Personalized Recommendations

March 6, 2023

Every month, tens of billions of discoveries happen on Spotify. Personalized recommendations play an important role in our ability to match listeners around the world with the right content, tracks, artists, or creators at the right moment. Behind the scenes, we combine human editorial expertise with a multitude of signals and systems with the aim of providing every listener with a unique and safe experience. 

At Spotify we focus on delivering recommendations that are relevant, encourage diversity in listening, and provide the opportunities for artist and creator discovery. We spoke with Henriette Cramer, Director of Algorithmic Impact, and Amar Ashar, Head of Algorithmic Policy—both members of the Trust & Safety team—for a deeper look at algorithmic impact and safety. 

Why focus on algorithmic impact? 

Henriette: Algorithmically programmed experiences like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and Made for You Mixes, or even Search, provide opportunities for artists and podcast creators to grow their fan bases. But while machine learning and algorithms enable these really important opportunities, we know we have a responsibility to mitigate unintended harms, ensure we represent a very wide range of global creators on our platform, and understand our impact.

Understanding our algorithmic impact requires extensive internal and external collaboration, and we approach this space through three channels: research, product engagement, and collaboration with external partners. It’s an ever-evolving field, and we’re proactively working with Spotify teams and external stakeholders to continuously improve our approach as we continue to learn. 

What makes Spotify unique, from an algorithmic perspective? 

Amar: People often talk about the “Spotify Algorithm,” but that’s an oversimplification. In fact, Spotify’s personalization is a combination of a variety of algorithms, along with editorial and data curation teams, all contributing to a unique experience for each listener.

Spotify editors play a crucial role within this space by using their expert judgment to curate playlists and help artists find new fans. They also work with algorithms to create highly situational and personalized experiences. We call this “algotorial”—bringing both the editorial and algorithmic worlds together. This collaboration is critical to the Spotify experience. Think of it this way: Algorithms don’t go out to concerts, people do, which is why human expertise is an essential ingredient in our recommendations. 

We just released a new AI DJ that delivers a curated lineup of music alongside commentary around the tracks and artists. How are teams at Spotify working together to make sure the safety of recommendations is prioritized?

Henriette: In general, ensuring we approach Spotify recommendations responsibly requires close coordination between lots of teams across product, policy, legal, and research. We work with each of them to provide guidance that’s reflective of our algorithmic equity and safety goals, and we use various tools, such as algorithmic assessments, that help us identify and solve problems before they happen. 

Spotify’s DJ takes a unique approach by combining Spotify’s personalization technology, generative AI in the hands of music editors, and voice technology. The expertise of our editors is something that’s really important to our philosophy. As we launch new features, we aim for appropriate safety measures and processes to be in place. The product has been tested in a closed environment for a while, and now that we have launched this product as a beta, we’ll continue to study and improve the experience. 

How does your team work with external partners to improve Spotify’s personalized experience?

Amar: Engaging with research communities outside of Spotify is imperative to do our work. That’s why we also continue to share our findings with the wider community, collaborate across sectors, and ensure, as an industry, that we keep learning and evolving existing practices. 

We also work closely with external partners through Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council, which includes an interdisciplinary group of experts who advise us on safety topics and bring expertise on recommendations, responsibility, and safety from a global perspective.

What’s your go-to playlist?  

Amar: Discover Weekly, not only because it’s consistently a great playlist that has introduced me to new artists and genres, but also because I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with the team that’s built this flagship product.   

Henriette: So many! I love editorial playlists like Techno Bunker, Queens of the Blues, or New Orleans Brass to really get into a genre. Since I worked on voice projects in the past, it’s been really nice to play with the new DJ beta and see editorial, tech, and design work shine together as we continue to study how we can use new techniques responsibly.

Adding That Extra ‘You’ to Your Discovery: Oskar Stål, Spotify Vice President of Personalization, Explains How It Works

October 13, 2021

Mondays and Fridays are eagerly anticipated by music lovers on Spotify who are looking to uncover new artists. Each Monday, Discover Weekly, a playlist that serves listeners with tracks they might like based on their past listening histories, is updated. Friday is Release Radar day, when the playlist refreshes with brand-new songs from a user’s favorite artists. And there’s even more personalization happening daily on Spotify across playlists our editors curate and playlists users create. 

In fact, personalization begins right within the home page, shortly after a new user downloads and signs up for Spotify. New users are prompted to select a few of their favorite artists. From that moment on, the app begins to spin up creators a listener might love based on those they’re already familiar with. “But that only accounts for a small portion of how we personalize the Spotify listening experience,” said Spotify’s Vice President of Personalization, Oskar Stål, in an interview with For the Record.

How personalization came to life

Personalization is what it sounds like: It ensures that the content you receive on Spotify is tailored to you based on the audio you love. It’s now regarded as key to the Spotify experience—but Spotify did not always focus there. Spotify was originally created 15 years ago to function more like a library, where you could go and play the songs you were interested in that you already knew about. But over time, our engineers realized that “you enjoy Spotify more if you discover more, and most people don’t have time to discover on their own,” said Oskar.

“Perhaps you’re a 46-year-old dad with three kids and no time to discover music by yourself,” Oskar joked, gesturing to himself, “or a student looking for inspiration. It’s most helpful when you’re served something up and know it will be a mix of what you like and what you might like. Then you’ll stay for more.”

Personalization, he explains, was an empowering experience for listeners who didn’t have the time or knowledge to create endless unique playlists for every dinner party or road trip. It opened up discovery on a broader level, enabling hundreds of artist discoveries per person per year. And most important, personalization helps create a better app experience because it ensures that people want to be on the app—but not spend all their time there. Spotify’s approach is to ensure listeners have a “fulfilling content diet.”

“If we really wanted to make you stay on the app three more minutes, we would play your favorite song,” Oskar explained. “All we’d ever have to do is play your favorite 20 songs on a loop. But that would mean you’re not discovering anything, and you’d eventually get tired and bored of the audio experience.” 

Spotify operates several personalization features within the app for listeners to enjoy beyond the classics like Discover Weekly and Release Radar. Earlier this year, we debuted Spotify Mixes sorted into genres, artists, or decades with music a listener loves or will love. Just last month, we introduced Blend, which merges two listeners’ taste profiles, creates a playlist that combines both of their favorites, and allows them to share the results on social media. And most recently, we launched Enhanced playlists, a feature users can toggle on or off that allows Spotify to suggest new songs that might fit in well to a user’s custom-made playlist.  

All this is in addition to what we call our “algotorial” playlists: sets of songs our editors put together to evoke a certain mood or moment that are also tailored to the individual user. “Songs to Sing in the Car might not look personalized, but it is,” said Oskar. “Each person is seeing music that fits that categorization, but that is also in line with what they enjoy listening to. In fact, there isn’t just one Spotify experience. There’s more like 365 million different experiences—one for each user—that’s deeply personalized to their wants and needs.”

How does personalization actually work? 

The answer is machine learning, a complex code-based system with thousands of inputs, all laddering up to one song recommendation, done faster than the blink of an eye. But Oskar broke it down:

“Imagine you and another person have similar music tastes. You have four of the same top artists, but your fifth artists are different. We would take those two near-matches and think, ‘Hmm, maybe each person would like the other’s fifth artist’ and suggest it. Now imagine that process happening at scale—not just one-on-one, but thousands, millions of connections and preferences being considered instantaneously, and always updating. Every day, half a trillion events, whether they are searches, listens, or likes, take place on Spotify, powering and guiding our machine learning system.”

Machine learning technology has raced forward as Spotify has matured, with enhancements we only once only dreamed of now becoming reality. This reality, too, affects where we can go with personalization and what we can serve up to listeners. “Breakthroughs in machine learning have really allowed us to rethink how we can help users discover new audio content. While in many instances machine learning has remained focused on solving for the immediate click—‘You like this song. Let me offer you more of the same kind of music’—we’re now able to better understand content and the ways listeners and creators relate to it.” 

The future of Personalization at Spotify

Podcasts, in particular, pose a significant opportunity, in part because of user input: It takes a bit longer to determine whether you like a particular show or episode or not—much more so than the 20 seconds most people take to pass judgment on a song. But as Oskar points out, we already had a great head start helping you discover podcasts on Spotify: “We’re investing heavily in developing the world’s best-recommendation algorithms to power connections between podcasters and listeners. We already have a really good system in place thanks to over 10 years recommending music, and it turns out that we can even predict what kinds of podcasts a listener might enjoy based on their taste in music.”

The impact—and potential—of personalization spreads even further. As enjoyable and relevant as personalization can be for listeners, it’s vital for creators who are looking to grow a fan base. Spotify machine learning has been trained to identify potential matches across artists, genres, and even countries. 

“Personalization is really a two-way street,” said Oskar. “The insights we’ve gathered allow us to see that there might be a Finnish artist who has music that would be a hit in Latin America. And we have the opportunity to bring that music to those listeners in Latin America through our personalization channels. This then introduces the artist to a more global audience that might not have been able to discover them on their own.”

Just as Spotify didn’t begin with the personalization capabilities listeners come to expect now, the personalization story also doesn’t end here. “Personalization is essential to the listening experience,” Oskar reminds us. “What we’re really working towards is creating a more holistic understanding of listeners by optimising for long-term satisfaction rather than for short-term clicks, offering them a more fulfilling content diet. Listeners are on a journey of discovery, and we want to help them have the best experience as they discover the millions of audio content available on Spotify.”