Searching for greatest practices to get essentially the most out of as we speak’s high music streaming platforms? Learn on for five actionable suggestions per platform that can assist you optimize your presence throughout the streaming panorama.
Introduction
There are such a lot of choices on the subject of digital streaming platforms for music. With CD Child distribution, you’ll have entry to over 150+ DSPs per submission. However a profitable streaming technique requires extra than simply maximizing attain. At this time’s DSPs supply highly effective advertising and marketing instruments, information insights, and profile customizations that can assist you elevate your profile and drive deeper engagement along with your followers. On this information, we’ll focus on greatest practices for main streaming platforms to make sure you’re getting essentially the most out of the main DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music, and extra.
Spotify Greatest Practices
With a 36% share of worldwide music streaming, Spotify is the main platform for music discovery and streaming. The corporate paid out a document $10 billion in royalties in 2024, retaining the lead for highest-paying retailer globally and bringing its lifetime payout to artists to almost $60 billion. In accordance with Spotify’s Loud & Clear Report 2025, that’s over 10x the contribution of the biggest document retailer on the peak of the CD period!
Secure to say, it’s best to add your music to Spotify and create a Spotify for Artists account, the place you’ll be able to construct a complete and dynamic profile in your followers. Listed here are some suggestions that can assist you get essentially the most out of Spotify.
1. Optimize your profile
Your Spotify profile serves as a strong first impression for brand new followers. After claiming and verifying your profile, add the next to customise your web page:
- Photographs: Add an avatar picture (portraits work effectively, as these photographs are circle cropped), a background picture, and a few extra photographs in your gallery which followers can swipe by way of and discover
- Bio: Write an artist bio of 1,500 phrases or fewer. Spotify has compiled some bio writing do’s and don’ts right here.
- Social media: Add your social media handles to let followers comply with you proper out of your Spotify web page.
- Artist Choose: Promote your newest launch by making it seem on the high of your web page throughout the Artist Choose slot! Been a bit since your final launch? Plug a playlist of your tunes combined in with a few of your favorites.
- Live shows: Spotify will pull any of your upcoming live shows which are listed by TicketMaster, EventBrite, SongKick or AXS.
2. Leverage information insights
Spotify supplies information you should use to get extra strategic along with your music advertising and marketing. You have got entry to information pertaining to your music, viewers, playlist placements, and extra.
3. Playlist like a professional
Pitch Spotify curators forward of your launch to get your music featured on editorial playlists. You can too create and promote playlists along with your tracks to assist the algorithm place your music.
4. Add canvases for tracks
Cowl artwork is a strong software for attracting followers and canvases make it much more efficient. Give your listeners an extra visible expertise whereas they’re streaming your music with Spotify Canvases. Canvases are quick, looping movies that play within the background of a monitor and it’s best to have them for each one among your songs. You may add these to offer your profile a cohesive aesthetic {and professional} really feel.
5. Create a promo card
Gone are the times of printed enterprise playing cards. Create a Spotify promo card for a seamless method to share your music hyperlink with followers in an on-brand method! You may share your promo card instantly out of your Spotify web page by way of social media, direct message, and extra.
YouTube Music Greatest Practices
Like a extra user-centric MTV, YouTube has lengthy been a house for music movies, live performance footage, and recorded tracks. However when YouTube Music formally launched as a music streaming platform in 2018, it shortly grew to become a dynamic outlet for artists seeking to join with followers by way of multimedia. YouTube claims followers who see a given music video devour 94% extra of that artists’ music.
Listed here are some tricks to benefit from your Official Artist Channel (OAC) on YouTube Music.
1. Optimize your Official Artist Channel (OAC)
Create an artist channel and make your profile identifiable and according to a picture, title, deal with, and bio. YouTube permits a profile image in addition to a channel banner, which you should use to tease upcoming releases, merch, tour dates, and extra by together with textual content within the graphic.
When deciding on a reputation and channel deal with, keep away from further phrases like official, TV, channel, youtube, music, or productions. As an alternative, go together with a reputation you utilize throughout different social media platforms as effectively to consolidate your promotional messaging.
Write an outline of your channel and make that first sentence as complete as attainable. That’s what YouTube exhibits in abbreviated listings of your profile. Much like your channel banner, you’ll be able to replace this description recurrently, utilizing the road for necessary bulletins or to tease upcoming initiatives
You may add as much as 14 hyperlinks in your channel residence tab so long as they comply with the exterior hyperlinks coverage. Many artists will function hyperlink repositories, an official web site, social platforms, and extra.
2. Make residence really feel like residence
You may regulate your channel structure to type your content material and make your web page really feel extra genuine. Select movies to incorporate in your channel trailer/highlight part! Channel trailers auto-play when somebody involves your channel who is just not subscribed, whereas a highlight video performs for a customer who’s subscribed to your channel.
You may leverage this function for highlighting latest or upcoming music.
3. Create playlists
Playlists are one among largest site visitors sources for music viewership on YouTube. Playlists assist manage, curate, and make content material extra accessible to customers. Take into consideration bucketing your content material and creating playlists for interviews, tour content material, album particular content material, authentic content material, and extra.
4. Join your retailer
Monetize your YouTube web page by connecting your merch retailer. Unlocking the shop tab means that you can tag merchandise and maintain a product shelf which you’ll show proper under your movies.
5. Optimize then monetize your content material
If a tree falls within the forest and nobody is round to listen to it, does it make a sound? Ensure your nice content material is straightforward to seek out! Maintain your video titles quick and succinct and heart them round essentially the most important search phrases: usually your artist title and the title of the songs. Video title formatting doesn’t need to be overly formal, however ensure that it’s constant throughout movies to enhance readability. Lastly, your video thumbnails ought to precisely replicate the content material of your video.
Upon getting some top-performers, think about investing in promoting to realize new followers with this content material. As a most popular accomplice, CD Child makes it straightforward to monetize your music on YouTube.
Bonus: Take a look at thumbnails
The precise thumbnail might be the distinction between a consumer clicking on or scrolling by way of your video. Music movies and visualizers ought to have a compelling, high-quality nonetheless shot from the footage. For any official audio, album cowl artwork works effectively. For lyric movies, embrace distinguished textual content, demonstrating the video is a lyric visualizer. And for behind the scenes movies, it’s useful to make use of candid photographs to offer the video a dwell, uncooked really feel.
Should you’re uncertain of what thumbnail to make use of, YouTube has a thumbnail check, which lets you deploy as much as 3 choices for testing on a proportion of your customers to determine which one is best.
Amazon Music Greatest Practices
Amazon additionally affords a platform for its artists, Amazon Music for Artists. Newest information exhibits Amazon has over 80 million customers worldwide, occupying somewhat over 11% of the full world music streaming market. Amazon Music supplies some thrilling instruments for musicians to attach with followers in dynamic methods. And as a smaller platform in comparison with Spotify or Apple, Amazon Music rising artists may discover it simpler to face out.
1. Pitch your music
Amazon affords a number of curated channels for artists to push new music. You may attain your present followers and followers with in-app exercise posts, Alexa alerts or prompts, and cell push notifications. However you too can pitch Amazon curators to function a monitor out of your upcoming launch on world curated programming.
Amazon recommends together with particulars on the next when pitching:
- Fundamentals: Inform the story behind the monitor
- Viewers: Describe your present fanbase and your advertising and marketing plan
- Collaborators: Title drop any collaborators
- Placements: Present particulars on any licensing or music movies within the works
2. Run a pre-save marketing campaign
You may create a pre-save hyperlink to construct hype and maximize engagement in your release-day. A fan who pre-saves your new launch will robotically grow to be a follower on Amazon Music and can obtain push notifications to take heed to your music on launch day.
3. Create a hype deck
Much like the Spotify promo card, the Amazon Hype Deck means that you can create customized playing cards you’ll be able to share along with your followers over socials, emails, and different advertising and marketing channels to advertise a brand new launch, playlist, or the anniversary of an older launch.
4. Leverage X-Ray
Amazon X-ray is a dynamic, enjoyable method for followers to get to know your story whereas streaming your music. The Amazon Music group pulls collectively details and insights about your music out of your metadata and business press then inserts the highlights into your X-Ray stream, which followers can entry in a single faucet whereas streaming a tune. X-ray details may spotlight tune credit, associated playlists the tune seems on, or enjoyable details and trivia about your artistry.
5. Let your followers sing alongside
Make your lyrics come alive with Amazon’s lyric-sharing function. Add phrase sheets in your music and allow followers to share just a few strains out of your songs on to their social media, direct messages, emails, and extra. This permits your followers to share your music in additional significant and personalised methods.
Apple Music Greatest Practices
Apple Music trails simply behind Spotify at somewhat over 30% share out there. Apple’s music streaming platform affords distinctive advantages in your followers resembling lossless playback and “sing mode,” which permits them to show your tune into a non-public karaoke session. Learn on for some tricks to get essentially the most out of Apple Music.
1. Optimize your profile
Reap the benefits of each software Apple affords to construct out a customized and genuine profile web page in your followers. You may submit a photograph, bio, and even a Q&A bit the place you’ll be able to reply continuously requested questions on your artistry. You can too present the Apple Music Editorial group with extra details about your bandmates, influences, and collaborators — this data received’t be displayed in your web page, however will assist the editorial group get to know you higher.
2. Present up with Shazam
Shazam is an extremely highly effective music discovery software you’ll be able to leverage to show first-time listeners into followers. Registering your music with Shazam permits new listeners to determine your music simply by asking their iPhone “who’s this?” when one among your songs is being performed within the background.
3. Set your art work in movement
Much like Spotify Canvases, Apple permits artists to add transferring variations of their art work, for which you could find tips right here. Including movement art work may also help elevate your launch aesthetic and provides your profile an enlivening, dynamic really feel which appeals to new followers.
4. Create hype with Pre-adds
Construct hype in your launch and maximize your engagement on launch day with Apple Music Pre-Provides. Obtainable just for full album releases, Apple Music artists can choose a single monitor from their upcoming launch to be made accessible to followers instantly. On launch day, followers will obtain a notification in regards to the launch being added to their library.
5. Leverage insights
Apple Music is greater than a streaming platform, it’s a strategic software for strategic advertising and marketing. You may leverage metrics round streaming exercise, geography, playlist efficiency, listener engagement and retention to make smarter choices about touring, promoting, and content material.
TikTok for Artists Greatest Practices
Although TikTok is probably not a streaming platform by title, its position as a music discovery software is simple. The corporate simply launched the TikTok for Artists platform, an all-in-one music analytics platform for artists, providing higher insights into
1. Apply for a TikTok Artist Account and add a Music Tab to your profile
You’ll must have a TikTok Artist account to entry the TikTok for Artists web page. Go to the TikTok for Artists homepage and scroll all the way down to the apply button, which brings up a QR code to scan. It’s attainable that you have already got an artist account! You may examine by in search of a music word image in your profile.
2. Run a TikTok Pre-Save Marketing campaign in your subsequent launch
One of the thrilling options of TikTok for Artists is the brand new pre-save button, which you’ll allow in your upcoming album or EP (word that singles are usually not but eligible) instantly by way of TikTok. Underneath the pre-release marketing campaign tab, you’ll be able to schedule the pre-save hyperlink to go dwell on a sure date and followers can save your launch to their Spotify or Apple Music web page.
3. Leverage follower and content material insights
Get to know your followers and leverage demographic insights to raised goal content material and advertising and marketing. You can too monitor views, likes, shares, feedback, and completion charges of your content material to grasp what’s resonating along with your followers and plan strategically.
4. Monitor tune efficiency
You may monitor the full view counts, video posts along with your monitor, and creator engagement per monitor by way of the TikTok for Artists dashboard! This may also help you gauge a tune’s viral potential.
5. Invite your group
Among the best options of TikTok for Artists is it allows you to flip your private web page right into a collaborative hub. You may invite your label, supervisor, agent and extra to entry your analytics to leverage for their very own functions.
Conclusion
At this time’s streaming options supply followers a lot greater than music playback. These platforms are outfitted with instruments that empower artists to create deeper connections with followers and construct digital worlds round their music. We hope this information supplies you with some actionable steps to get extra worth out of every platform.
A trusted distributor since 1998, CD Child affords distribution to over 150+ platforms and has helped over 2 million artists identical to you get their music heard world wide. Get began as we speak!
