In this article, we’re going to go over the 3 best ways you can grow your stream counts to your catalog of music on Spotify.
The 3 best ways to increase Spotify streams to your Spotify catalog are to:
- Grow Your Spotify Catalog Size With Monthly Singles
- Get “Free” Spotify Streams With The Waterfall Method
- Get More Streams To Your Spotify Catalog With Ongoing Facebook Ads
Although there are other ways you can grow streams to your Spotify catalog, these are the 3 ways that I find most effective and what I would recommend to any artist.
Grow Your Spotify Catalog Size With Monthly Singles
So the number one way to increase the number of streams your Spotify catalog gets is to grow your Spotify catalog size with monthly releases.
The idea is to release a brand new song every 28 days so that you can take advantage of the Release Radar algorithmic playlists.
Every time you release a brand new song, you can pitch it to the Spotify editors as well as get it in the Release Radar playlist of all your Spotify followers for the first 28 days.
Because you can only pitch 1 song to Release Radar at a time, it does not make sense to release EPs or albums (unless you use the 2nd method I’m about to mention).
However, it is important that you run Facebook Ads for musicians because if you can increase the key streaming metrics…
Then you have a better chance of triggering the Release Radar algorithm to push that song out to thousands and thousands of similar listeners to the ones that you already have.
P.S. Although ads are my favorite tactic, any kind of proper Spotify promotion will do here. 🙂
In addition to the overall boost and streams from the Release Radar algorithm, your new release will drive more attention to your Spotify profile in general which can result in fans digging into your back catalog.
This new listening behavior of a fan actually listening to YOUR song can also then trigger the Spotify algorithm to start recommending more of your back catalog into their other algorithmic playlists, like Discover Weekly and Spotify Radio.
So, in addition to just people going over to your profile and starting to listen to your music, the Spotify algorithm can start also triggering in other ways as well (which is huge for your back catalog).
Get “Free” Spotify Streams With The Waterfall Method
The second way that you can get more streams to your Spotify catalog is by getting free streams by using the “waterfall release strategy”.
The idea here is that instead of releasing an album or EP of 5 songs, you release the 1st song in month 1, and then in month 2 release the 2nd song as a “mini-EP” with the 1st song after it.
You continue this process month after month, using the previous songs’ ISRC codes each time you release a “mini-EP” so that the stream counts and data carry over.
There are 2 main reasons that I like the strategy:
1. Maximize The Release Radar Algorithm With The Waterfall Release Strategy
You can only pitch one new song to the Release Radar algorithm at a time. So if you release a full album, then you’re only gonna be able to pitch one song and all the rest of those songs.
Releasing your music in this way completely wastes the potential of all of the songs that you are not pitching to the Release Radar algorithm.
So by using this strategy, you get to take advantage of that Release Radar algorithm pitching process and also get to slowly build up to having a full album or EP.
Essentially this is a fantastic compromise where you can take advantage of the release rate or algorithm, but then also build up to that epic body of work that you want to do.
2. Get Extra Streams From Your New Release With The Waterfall Release Strategy
If you’re not too into the whole idea of having albums or EPs, you can still use this method to simply get exposure to your older songs and boost the stream counts to your back catalog.
Instead of just releasing a new single, you can turn it into a “faux EP” that includes a bunch of songs from your back catalog in it.
This way, when a fan goes to hear your new release, they will be automatically lead down a path of listening to some back catalog releases of your choosing right after.
Ultimately, this is a simple way to maximize that release in a way to get more streams than you otherwise would’ve.
Get More Streams To Your Spotify Catalog With Ongoing Facebook Ads
The third way that you can get more streams to your Spotify back catalog is by running ongoing Facebook advertising campaigns to a Spotify playlist that you own.
Although you could set up a campaign where you’re running an ad to one of the songs in your back catalog, I personally think this is a waste of money and isn’t great big bang for your buck.
You see, the main reason that I recommend running Facebook ads to your new releases is that you can trigger the Release Radar algorithm to then get a significant amount of more streams for “free”.
The number of Spotify streams you get directly from a Facebook Ad without getting a boost of streams from the Spotify algorithm, simply put, is awful.
When it comes to promoting your Spotify back catalog, what I’d recommend instead is running an ongoing Spotify playlist campaign so that the fan can then dive into several songs from your catalog instead of just 1.
To learn more about Spotify playlist campaigns, check out my article called 5 Reasons To Use Spotify Playlists To Grow Your Streams. 🙂
The Spotify Catalog Explained
Want to learn more about what the Spotify catalog is and the 2 main reasons your Spotify catalog is SO important to growing your Spotify streams, monthly listener counts, and your overall Spotify profile?
Check out this YouTube video:
