I wanted to think of a theme that could encompass all these different artists I enjoy, so I settled on a playlist dedicated to relaxing music. My results were far from a success, but the experience did leave me with a few valuable hints to take along with me on my journey into the music industry.Īs you can see above, my musical taste is quite diverse. Once we put our list together, the following months were to be spent sharing it on social networks with the intention of gaining followers and reaching our own specific audiences. In my Music and Social Media II class this spring, we were challenged to tackle this important ability head-on, but on a much smaller scale.Īt the beginning of the semester, a project was assigned in which we had to create a themed playlist with the immensely popular music streaming service, Spotify. If you’re looking for success in today’s cutthroat music industry, promotion – whether it be of yourself, your music, or your brand – is one of the most vital skills to acquire. I think I could have been more on top of promoting because that probably would have helped my project. I didn’t get as many followers as I had hoped but I really enjoyed making and playing the playlist by myself or around my friends. I used the song in the video to sort of attempt to attract people to the playlist, hoping they liked the song and would want to hear more. The other is a still picture of a video that I posted from the last time I saw Panic! At The Disco in concert.
This picture was taken the day that Panic! put out a new single and I was listening to it myself. I used a picture off of my actual Spotify while I was listening to a song on my playlist and posted it. Here’s a few examples of my promotions of the playlist:įirst being Twitter, I asked a question to my followers and tagged the appropriate to my tweet. #patd, etc” The outlets I used to promote were Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. When I did so, I used tags when I could, tagging things such as “#panicatthedisco, #spotify, #follow. The ways I used to optimize my playlist is that I did my best to promote it on every social media site that I have. My Spotify playlist I made is titled “For The Panic! Fans” and has some of Panic! At The Disco’s top hits.
What do you think? SUGGESTED READING: HOW TO OPTIMIZE A SPOTIFY PLAYLIST PART II We can all learn a thing or two, not just about how to get more Spotify followers, but on how DIY musicians can use social media to promote their music. How’d they do? The students wrote up their results, which shall be shared with you now. Stuck in the middle with you: Kevin & Amanda, and I guess Bobby, although really he was in the back. All of your authors in one place, from L to R: Professor Philp, then on the bottom: Jennette, Amanda, Yasmin & Alexa. But these crazy cats did have to use their creativity and social prowess to promote their playlists and see how many followers they could amass. They had a little over three months to amass at least 10 billion followers. The only rule was they playlist had to include at least 25 songs (although I pushed a minimum of 50 tunes). They were each to open a Spotify account (if they didn’t already have one) and create a playlist around whatever musical topic they chose. That said, the students in our Spring, 2015 Music In Social Media II class were challenged to create Spotify playlists and optimize them. Well, there’s some lecture and discussion, but that can’t be helped in any teaching environment no matter what a critic of higher level education tells you. Here at William Paterson, the University, we strive to have our awesome students learn by doing. Screenshot of Spotify playlist trying to engage with audience