**Guest post by Andrei Kryssov, founder of Modern Guitar Hub, a site that publishes concise guitar-related articles and lessons for guitar players who have busy schedules. A guitarist for over 20 years, Andrei has recorded and performed with various Rock and Jazz bands.

"For an indie artist, Spotify Playlists are a very effective way to increase awareness of your music and grow your fanbase. As a musician with limited recognition, I've found getting added to Playlists on Spotify to be one of the best ways to promote my band's music.

Remember, placement on the right Playlist could change your music career! But how do you start? How do you find these Playlists? In this post I’ll discuss four tactics that you can use to find Playlists on Spotify that are accepting music submissions.

Please note, these tactics are for finding Playlists that are not owned/created by Spotify the company. Here is an example of a Spotify (the company) created Playlist. These are not the types of Playlists we are looking for. Spotify doesn’t provide contact information or instructions regarding how to get placement on their Playlists, so I suggest ignoring them. You’ll want to focus on user-created Playlists that are accepting music submissions.

+How To Get The Most Out Of Spotify

Let’s dive into the tactics!

Tactic 1: Spotify Search

This is a great first tactic for finding Playlists that are accepting submissions. Open Spotify and navigate to Search (I suggest doing this on either the Desktop application or on the Web application using your computer). Remember, Spotify has millions of Playlists so you’ll need to get creative with your search queries. For example, try a search query like “(genre name) new”. So “rock new”, “indie new”, “electronic new”, etc. I’ve also discovered great Playlists using these search queries: “(genre name) upcoming” or “(genre name) fresh”.

After running your search look for the Playlists carousel in the search results page. Click “See All” in order to see all Playlists that match your search query. Next, click into all of the non-Spotify owned Playlists and read the Playlist description. If the Playlist owner is accepting submissions, they will write their contact information in the Playlist description. Here is an example of a Rock Playlist that is currently accepting submissions. I found them while writing this post using the search query “rock new”.

Tactic 2: Websites that curate Spotify Playlists

There are websites (unaffiliated with Spotify) that specialize in connecting musicians with Playlist owners. The downside is you’ll have to pay to use these sites, but the upside is you’ll save a lot of time by having access to a curated list of Playlists that are accepting submissions. Here are three websites to get you started.

Submithub

Submithub lets you buy credits and then use those credits to submit your song to Spotify Playlist owners that are seeking submissions. 1 credit is $1 and a single submission can cost between 1-5 credits. If your song is accepted, the Playlist owner will add your song to their Playlist. If your song is rejected, the Playlist owner will provide a brief note as to why they rejected your song, which can have some useful feedback! In my experience I’ve had a 10-20% success rate in having my songs accepted and added to Playlists.

Playlistmap

Playlistmap is essentially a curated version of the “Spotify search” strategy. I ran a search for “rock” and was presented with 9,557 Playlists. I can quickly scroll through the results list and identify the most relevant Playlists. And every Playlist includes the owner’s contact information. You can send your pitch directly from the Playlistmap website using their customizable email templates. It’s a very efficient tool to get your song pitched to hundreds of Playlists in a short amount of time. Pricing is based on a monthly fee + credit purchases.

Playlist Parrot

Playlist Parrot is very similar to Playlistmap. After running your search you’ll be presented with a table of Playlists including the follower count and last updated date. Each Playlist will include the owner’s email address or Social handle. Playlist Parrot doesn’t have email pitch templates that Playlistmap has, but their pricing model is simpler, with just a monthly or annual fee.

+How To Get On Playlists: The Top Three Methods

Tactic 3: Spotify Discovered On

This is another free tactic using Spotify. Again I recommend doing this using Spotify’s Desktop or Web application on your computer. Come up with a list of artists that are in your genre. Once you have your list, go to each artist's Spotify homepage. Scroll down and look for the “Discovered on” carousel. Click “See All” to see various Playlists that the artist appears on. Look through each of these Playlists and see if any of them are accepting submissions.

Tactic 4: Twitter & Google

You will be able to find Spotify Playlists using Twitter and Google, but this tactic is the most time-consuming and I suggest saving it until you’ve tried the previously discussed tactics.

On Twitter you can search for hashtags such as #playlist or #spotifynew. You can also search for keywords such as “new music” or “fresh tunes”. Try to find Twitter accounts from blogs or music review sites and see if they have created Spotify playlists.

On Google I suggest searching for Blogs, Internet Radio stations or Music Review sites that curate Spotify playlists. The advantage here is the website will likely have a Contact page where you’ll be able to submit your pitch. Also try Googling for some variation of this search: "best upcoming Spotify (insert genre here) Playlists". This may return various “best of” or “top 10” blog posts with some solid Playlist recommendations.

+6 Marketing Strategies Which Are Helpful for Music Promotion

Closing

As you discover Playlists to pitch your music to, I recommend keeping track of them in a document or spreadsheet. It’s important to stay organized so that you can track which Playlists you’ve contacted, and which Playlists your music has been added to! Remember, the more Playlists that you submit your music to the more chances you’ll have in getting your music discovered. Good luck!"

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