Best Ways To Get Followers On Spotify

You’re on Spotify. You’ve created a killer playlist. You want, nay, need the world to see your musical genius and prowess. But you have all of 6 followers and one of them doesn’t count because it’s your grandma for whom you set up the account and followed yourself. You need help.

Well, we here at Appamatix are here to clue you in and offer some friendly advice on how to get those followers you are looking for. Because let’s face it, Spotify is more than just a means of listening to music (if that was all you wanted, you could always use the superior Songza).

Spotify is also a social network, and you want to use that social network to the fullest. That means gaining Spotify followers who will… erm… follow you… on Spotify. Sorry, I felt much better about that sentence before I started it.

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, “I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.” — Eminem (Marshall Mathers)

Get More Followers on Spotify

If you’re here reading this article, you probably already have a Spotify account. Perhaps you’re a student who’s taken our advice on getting a student discount on Spotify. But just in case you don’t or you’re just starting out and wanna get in on the fun, here’s a brief overview of Spotify and why you might want that thing I just said.

Spotify is a Swedish commercial music streaming app. It launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB. Over the years, Spotify has amassed over 75 million active users with 20 million paid subscribers (as of June 2015). Spotify users can browse or search by artist, album, playlist, genre, or record label. Premium users (paid subscribers) enjoy music ad-free, at a better sound quality, and have the ability to download music for offline listening.

The ability to download is one of the features that sets it apart from one of its closest competitors, Pandora. Also setting it apart is the social aspect of Spotify — you can do more than just listen to music, you can also engage with your social network communities to share what you’re listening to, get exposed to new bands, and just generalfly bond over music. A subscription cost $10 a month.

Sounds simple enough, right? So, perhaps you’re eager to really build up your Spotify profile. By this, I mean you want to make the most out of Spotify’s ability to hook into a community, to follow people you really like and respect, and to gain followers yourself. First, let’s just make sure you’re getting the most out of your Spotify account. Well, you sign up and you start listening and that interface is looking a bit befuddling. What do I do next? How do I make a playlist? How can I get my money’s worth out of this? Well, here a few hacks to help you get the most out your Spotify experience.

Getting the Most Out of Your Spotify Account

Below are a myriad of things you can do with your Spotify account.

1. Get your (new) groove on! As in, discover new music. Best way to do this is to try different discovery apps (Pitchfork [managed by the folks behind Pitchfork Magazine], We Are Hunted, Blue Note, and Hype Machine). Check out the “related artists” when you like a particular band and every Tuesday be sure to catch the “What’s New” tab on Spotify, and start customizing your radio favorites with the likes and dislikes thumbs-o-happiness or doom.
2. As previously mentioned, if you are a paying subscriber, you can download music to listen offline. A lot of people overlook that. Do it. You need it for your commute. Or if you’re going on a long road trip or cruise with your family. What else are you going to do, talk to them?

1. You can click “Play Queue” and go to “History” and check out what you listened to at the gym last Saturday.
2. Probably one of the best and underused hacks: advanced search modifiers. Ex.: type “year:1999-2003,” and find a multitude of songs between those years. If you’re adventurous, get crazy specific (e.g., “genre:techno”). Note the absence of spaces after the colons.
3. Organize your frickin’ playlists! Folders, dude, folders. Click File, then New Playlist Folder, and rename, drag and drop at will. Now you’re organized (like a boss) and don’t have to spend twenty minutes tooling through multiple playlist icons to find the specific one you wanted.
4. You can import MP3s from your computer! Go to File, then Import Playlists, and you’ll be walked through the rest. It might take a hot minute depending on how much you are trying to import. But boy is it nice to have everything in one place and Spotify doesn’t always have that one random song you love by Ukulele Ike.
5. You can share on more than Facebook. You can embed songs in your blog, website or vlog. Simply right click on a song you want to use, highlight, copy embed code and put that baby to bed.
6. If you want to share a specific part of a song (like the awesome guitar riff that’s 2 minutes and 14 seconds in), right-click on the track, click Copy HTTP link, and paste to the URL the minutes and seconds you want the song to start playing.
7. Preferences! Set ’em! Permanently! Your Facebook friends can no longer mock you when they see what you are listening to when you’ve forgotten to start a private session every time. You’ll want to go to Preferences, “Activity Settings” and uncheck the two share settings listed below the “Privacy” tag. Take that Mandy! I can listen to all the ABBA I want and you can’t do anything about it because you don’t even know!
8. Find lyrics with the Tunewiki app within Spotify. Find it in the app finder and click “Add.”

Now that you’re a pro and a “power user,” let’s get those followers!

Playlists: A Strategy for Followers

Listen, you gotta have a knack with the playlists. I mean you have got to craft an easy and seamless stream of tunes which speak to a theme, a mood, a genre. Think of those who came before you. In the 80s and early 90s, it was the mix tape. It was the singularly best way to make friends and to tell your crush you would do anything for them including run a lawn mower over their evil grandma.

Then CDs were a thing and we burned CDs for the same reasons. Then magically, we could share MP3s without a physical thingie. Spotify is now the thingie. I am def getting tired. Here’s a couple of hints on how to curate a well-crafted playlist. And the more you make, the better you get.

First, let’s be sure you know how to make a playlist:

1. If you’re super-new to it, start with collaborating. There is a setting for every playlist, “Collaborative,” and by switching a playlist to this setting, you can earn the title of “Mix Apprentice” (I just made that up, there’s no official title). You can find “Collaborative Playlist” by right-clicking on the chosen playlist.
2. You’ve got a few playlists under your belt and someone other than you enjoys them. Great! Pick a theme or a mood or a genre, even a word. And let the music flow. Make sure you don’t cross-pollinate weird genres; Beethoven doesn’t belong with Cee-Lo.

1. A friend of mine who has a masters degree in music and is a pretty badass mix master says the key of a song matters. Certain keys flow nicely into others . If you don’t know anything about keys or key changes, just listen to see if when a song ends it sounds like a natural progression into the next song. They shouldn’t all be in the same key, obviously, that’s boring; but they should flow.
2. Remember: no playlists should have a bagillion songs. An hour, a couple hours, tops, is what I say. But to be sure there are playlists with 500 songs on them. I guess that’s great for someone who always has music going and needs to drown out the sorrows of their lives so they don’t have to actually listen to the thoughts in their heads. Or if you want a really long playlist so you can put it on shuffle while you run and don’t have to worry about annoying repeaters. Yeah, that’s probably a better reason.

Fast-forward (do you kids even know what that means anymore?) to you are the master of playlist-making. A few friends have followed you out of kindness (or pity) but you want more, I tell you, more! Whoa. Calm down. Here it is: how to get more followers on Spotify.

8 Quick Guidelines for Gaining Spotify Followers

1. Share your playlists! Seems obvious, but you gotta put it out there, or people won’t know.
2. Follow artists you like to let people discover who you’re listening to.
3. Share across social media and encourage conversation when you share (i.e. “What track do you really love?”)
4. If you have a website, add the Spotify Follow Button so you are click away from new followers.
5. Add Spotify links to YouTube videos. I can’t emphasis sharing enough, but don’t over do it.
6. Ask others which playlists they follow. Networking. Remember, who is going to be willing to listen to you if you aren’t willing to listen to others?
7. Tell your friends, family and co-workers about your playlists.
8. If you are so inclined you can visit http://www.smexpt.com/music/spotify/ and buy Spotify followers.

Really, just make a good playlist and follow people. Those who use Spotify love it and love music and are always looking for the next thing. Make good playlists, share them and move on with your life.

If there’s anything that you’d like to add to the above, or if you’d like to make a pitch for Spotify followers, feel free to mention it down in the comments!