Types of Algorithmic Spotify Playlists and How to Get on Them

Trying to gain some real success on Spotify? Landing your music on some of Spotify’s best algorithmic playlists will boost those chances.

Let’s Get Featured.

Growing your audience through the exposure of one of these key playlists will help you gain the occasional listeners and die-hard fans that you’ve been looking for. Spotify’s unique algorithm automatically creates and frequently adds tracks to these playlists. “Tracks move up or down on playlists depending on their performance,” says Amelie Bonvalot, Senior Director, Digital Sales & Account Management.

What determines how your track is performing? Spotify’s algorithm is taking note every time people save your music to their queue, library, or their own playlist and also takes into consideration the number of followers you have. All these factors can help you land a spot on one of these playlists. These playlists are a great way to gain more exposure and get your tracks heard by fans, other artists, major record labels, blogs, and more. This increased exposure only ups your chances of getting the publicity you’ve been looking for to propel you to the top of the game.

And of course, the more playlists you can get on, the better.

Which Playlists Are We Talking About Here?

There are 3 main playlists the algorithm can help you get featured on:

Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and Daily Mix.

These are all algorithm sourced playlists that update frequently and harbor great potential for success. However, each one is a little different.

Discover Weekly

If you’re an avid Spotify user, then it’s likely you’re ready for your updated Discover Weekly every Monday. The songs are tailored to the user’s personal listening history and that of other Spotify users with the same taste. When your followers save your tracks to their own library, this generates even more features for you. 

Release Radar

This playlist is curated with up to 2 hours of brand new songs and relevant tracks from artists the listener has been showing a lot of interest in, and is updated every Friday. The cool thing about this playlist is that it captures new releases from artists they follow on the platform and new discoveries based on the user’s listening history. If you’re someone who consistently drops new music or you’re worried about your fans missing your newest hit, getting featured on this playlist is the perfect way to keep your listeners up to date.

Daily Mix

Daily Mix playlists are curated based on the different genres listeners have been into lately. This is really cool because the more styles of music a user listens to, the more mixes Spotify will generate. At most, users can get up to 6 different mixes, each different from the last, yet still all the things they love the most. The more frequently they listen to each mix, the more frequently that mix automatically updates itself. Establishing yourself in your genre can really help you maintain a spot in your listeners Daily Mixes.

So, we’ve talked about how these playlists update themselves pretty often, but how can you keep your tracks circulating through this system?

• Have your fans follow you on Spotify so these followers can have your music automatically added to their respective playlists. “If there is an add to a collection or a save from that playlist, that’s going to contribute to the performance of the track within the playlist,” says Bonvalot.
• Be vocal with your audience! To keep your music on everyone’s radar, your followers need to be saving, sharing, or liking your tracks. Take to other social media platforms and share your songs via Spotify Codes. These codes let anyone scan your song’s unique code and make sharing and promoting your music easier than ever. 
• When more people are following your page, that’s more listeners being updated every time you release a new project. The more people listening to your new track, the better shot you have at more people liking, saving and sharing your tracks.
• Be timely with how you promote yourself on certain playlists. If you’re trying to be featured on a playlist that’s updated every week, you have to be sure to update your fans as soon as possible when it updates. Playlists that are genre based and update themselves less often have more wiggle room as to when you should be promoting everything.
• Because these playlists are driven by an algorithm, the only way to continue being featured is to keep consistently using these tips!
• Remember that nothing worth having comes easy. Once you’ve been added to the playlist you’ve been after, the work doesn’t stop there. Always strive to continue your personal growth as an artist, a brand, and a pro in this ever-changing music scene.