MCO and I are working on finalizing our new song. We have an 8-track project coming at some point and this time around I want to do promo right. We’re talking all kinds of short form video content to flood the Gram and Tok.
During one of my last releases I saw something happen that told me perhaps it was time to end our salacious run it up efforts. We got a joint up over 2200 spins in like 2 days. It’s short and we focused our run it up energy. The next day it had lost like 800 spins. Clearly someone was cracking down on something.
Lately something happened that had Chris and I excited, but after watching this video I am a little concerned. It looks like bots got a hold of our music. I think running stuff up has to be different than the flagrant way we approached it once upon a time.
We basically emulated bot forms
Clap Those Hands and Mary Go Round got some algorithm love. About 10-15 of us ran up these songs, spinning them on repeat overnight at 2% volume, preferably on a playlist, and inflated the numbers.
I do this for aesthetic reasons. I learned on YouTube people prejudge when they see numbers. I wanted all my songs in th top 10 songs for my artist profile to be over 1000 spins. Realistically a single person can accomplish in 2 weeks, so any artist that has no spins on a song, couldn’t be bothered to play their own music.
Yes, I know this was cheesy. However what happened next was that the song got algorithm love and was shown to a lot more people. In the last 12 months, Clap Those Hands was heard by 572 people. Mary Go Round had 110 listeners. I have not promoted either of these songs over the last year. This is just automatic actions that take place in the backend of Spotify that still shows these songs to people.
If “faking” some views gets you all kinds of organic attention later on, is it really such a big deal? From a branding perspective, no, not at all. Spotify was paying me for all those spins however.
Now Spotify is apparently on the hunt for botting. While I’ve never used a bot one time, I have in principle done what bots do, but with humans. Kind of like what pop stars and famous people do. I’m proud I was able to get over 10 people to run up my music overnight. Apparently a surprising amount of music is still at 0 spins. None of my music is… on Spotify lol. It also may be risky.
Not all playlists are good playlists
There is something you can do to ruin your opps’ musical day. Go spend like 100$ and bot their song on Spotify. They will feel so cool when they get their numbers up. They will have not done this, so in their mind it’s finally going to be happening. This is the dream, the big moment. Then Spotify will remove the track for botting, and they will be crushed.
They will also have no idea you did it.
That being said, apparently Distrokid has been exposing us to bot playlists. The video I linked before showcased the beef between Distrokid and Spotify. It’s interesting, and they focus a lot on how they are managing botting.
One of the things they point out is that a lot of playlisters, especially ones that want money, are using bots. Once the botted spins hit your song, it gets pulled down. In the middle of it, they reveal WAVR.AI is actually a botted playlist. Now this caught my attention because, take a looksie at this list of people who playlisted me recently:
Damn son, we got added to this playlist by the AI botters only 2 days ago. They allege in the video it was participating in the fake Wheel of Fortune Distrokid playlist game I once participated in, that exposed us to the bot world of fake streams.
Playlisting is about good curation
Being added to a curated, well crafted playlist is a blessing. When that happens, you get real listeners. Lately I got a bunch of followers. Probably because of these random playlists I got added to. Are they real? From what I can tell there are a solid 50-100 people who play my songs here and there. I don’t see any increase in spins given the 50 new followers that hit my account.
I know a lot of people chase getting added to playlists. It’s really similar to a modern day DJ. In theory they place your song thoughtfully among a bunch of others. Then the people who follow those playlists will be excited and follow you.
I don’t really know anyone at the smaller level where that has paid off for them. Even if you never pay for it, there is a lot of time that goes into it getting added to playlists. If you want to sift through playlists, look for free ones that make sense for your music. Listen to the vibe of the list, and submit a song that would sound bless among those ones. If the vibe is all hardcore gangsta rap and you are attacking pickles, that song may not fit so well.
The main takeaway is don’t get excited if playlists add you. It could lead to Spotify, or Distrokid, nuking your song.
I’m going to play with TikTok & IG
That’s right. We recorded a bunch of content. The homie Chris Chrome is going to edit that content. We are looking into finding people to play producer roles and we are going to content farm ourselves instead of stream farming ourselves.
I think I’m going as far as to clear my IG of most of my old content. Archive it for the future. I want to take this artist thing seriously. To do that I need to make sure I am presenting myself in the best possible light.
I feel Spotify is, and always has been, a valuable marketing tool. It was never how you were supposed to “sell” music. I also think people’s perceptions on how to make money in music are really warped. Most of us that I know, make money to make music.
At least in my city, when I hustle music in the streets, 9 times out of 10 the person opens Spotify. Perhaps this has created a perception bubble for me that has blinded me from other opportunities. Maybe there is more power in focusing on cooler monetization funnels than run it up streaming.
That being said, tech adoption is hard. I’m not here to change how people consume music. My music will stay on DSPs for the people that use them. My fans and their preferences come first. I even added my stuff to Soundcloud for one person.
Anyway that video made me think and I realized that we were on a botted playlist, so here we are with today’s blog. Let me know what you think.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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