Spotify announced it will soon test a new feature that lets artists promote their songs on the platform. Spotify will tweak its algorithm to push the song chosen by the artist so the discoverability improves.
Spotify is big on recommendations, and it suggests songs based on your listening history. There are top charts as well, and playlists based on different genres that users can discover on Spotify. With the new feature, Spotify will push the song that artists want to promote in the personalised playlists for users. Promotion will however work only if the song actually receives more streams.
Spotify will keep songs that do well in similar sessions, and if they don’t perform well then Spotify will stop promoting them. This is quite tricky as artists will have to choose songs that they have potential to go viral, and hit it with listeners. Spotify said it won’t charge artists for this feature but the royalty rate for streams will go to labels or rights holders.
“To ensure the tool is accessible to artists at any stage of their careers, it won’t require any upfront budget. Instead, labels or rights holders agree to be paid a promotional recording royalty rate for streams in personalized listening sessions where we provided this service,” Spotify said in a blog post.
Spotify will start pushing songs in its radio and autoplay formats. Spotify says these are the most popular formats where people discover new music. Based on how the feature works, Spotify will expand it to more areas on the platform.
