Looking for best practices to get the most out of today’s top music streaming platforms? Read on for 5 actionable tips per platform to help you optimize your presence across the streaming landscape.
Introduction
There are so many options when it comes to digital streaming platforms for music. With CD Baby distribution, you’ll have access to over 150+ DSPs per submission. But a successful streaming strategy requires more than just maximizing reach. Today’s DSPs offer powerful marketing tools, data insights, and profile customizations to help you elevate your profile and drive deeper engagement with your fans. In this guide, we’ll discuss best practices for major streaming platforms to ensure you’re getting the most out of the major DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
Spotify Best Practices
With a 36% share of global music streaming, Spotify is the leading platform for music discovery and streaming. The company paid out a record $10 billion in royalties in 2024, retaining the lead for highest-paying retailer globally and bringing its lifetime payout to artists to nearly $60 billion. According to Spotify’s Loud & Clear Report 2025, that’s over 10x the contribution of the largest record store at the peak of the CD era!
Safe to say, you should upload your music to Spotify and create a Spotify for Artists account, where you can build a comprehensive and dynamic profile for your fans. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of Spotify.
1. Optimize your profile
Your Spotify profile serves as a powerful first impression for new fans. After claiming and verifying your profile, upload the following to customize your page:
- Images: Upload an avatar image (portraits work well, as these images are circle cropped), a background image, and some more images for your gallery which fans can swipe through and explore
- Bio: Write an artist bio of 1,500 words or fewer. Spotify has compiled some bio writing do’s and don’ts here.
- Social media: Upload your social media handles to let fans follow you right from your Spotify page.
- Artist Pick: Promote your latest release by making it appear at the top of your page within the Artist Pick slot! Been a bit since your last release? Plug a playlist of your tunes mixed in with some of your favorites.
- Concerts: Spotify will pull any of your upcoming concerts that are listed by TicketMaster, EventBrite, SongKick or AXS.
2. Leverage data insights
Spotify provides data you can use to get more strategic with your music marketing. You have access to data pertaining to your music, audience, playlist placements, and more.
3. Playlist like a pro
Pitch Spotify curators ahead of your release to get your music featured on editorial playlists. You can also create and promote playlists with your tracks to help the algorithm place your music.
4. Upload canvases for tracks
Cover art is a powerful tool for attracting fans and canvases make it even more effective. Give your listeners an additional visual experience while they’re streaming your music with Spotify Canvases. Canvases are short, looping videos that play in the background of a track and you should have them for every one of your songs. You can upload those to give your profile a cohesive aesthetic and professional feel.
5. Create a promo card
Gone are the days of printed business cards. Create a Spotify promo card for a seamless way to share your music link with fans in an on-brand way! You can share your promo card directly from your Spotify page through social media, direct message, and more.
YouTube Music Best Practices
Like a more user-centric MTV, YouTube has long been a home for music videos, concert footage, and recorded tracks. But when YouTube Music formally launched as a music streaming platform in 2018, it quickly became a dynamic outlet for artists looking to connect with fans through multimedia. YouTube claims fans who see a given music video consume 94% more of that artists’ music.
Here are some tips to make the most of your Official Artist Channel (OAC) on YouTube Music.
1. Optimize your Official Artist Channel (OAC)
Create an artist channel and make your profile identifiable and consistent with an image, name, handle, and bio. YouTube allows a profile picture as well as a channel banner, which you can use to tease upcoming releases, merch, tour dates, and more by including text in the graphic.
When deciding on a name and channel handle, avoid extra words like official, TV, channel, youtube, music, or productions. Instead, go with a name you use across other social media platforms as well to consolidate your promotional messaging.
Write a description of your channel and make that first sentence as comprehensive as possible. That’s what YouTube shows in abbreviated listings of your profile. Similar to your channel banner, you can update this description regularly, using the line for important announcements or to tease upcoming projects
You can add up to 14 links in your channel home tab as long as they follow the external links policy. Many artists will feature link repositories, an official website, social platforms, and more.
2. Make home feel like home
You can adjust your channel layout to sort your content and make your page feel more authentic. Choose videos to include in your channel trailer/spotlight section! Channel trailers auto-play when someone comes to your channel who is not subscribed, while a spotlight video plays for a visitor who is subscribed to your channel.
You can leverage this feature for highlighting recent or upcoming music.
3. Create playlists
Playlists are one of largest traffic sources for music viewership on YouTube. Playlists help organize, curate, and make content more accessible to users. Think about bucketing your content and creating playlists for interviews, tour content, album specific content, original content, and more.
4. Connect your store
Monetize your YouTube page by connecting your merch store. Unlocking the store tab allows you to tag products and keep a product shelf which you can display right below your videos.
5. Optimize then monetize your content
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Make sure your great content is easy to find! Keep your video titles short and succinct and center them around the most significant search terms: typically your artist name and the name of the songs. Video title formatting doesn’t have to be overly formal, but make sure it’s consistent across videos to improve readability. Lastly, your video thumbnails should accurately reflect the content of your video.
Once you have some top-performers, consider investing in advertising to gain new fans with this content. As a preferred partner, CD Baby makes it easy to monetize your music on YouTube.
Bonus: Test thumbnails
The right thumbnail can be the difference between a user clicking on or scrolling through your video. Music videos and visualizers should have a compelling, high-quality still shot from the footage. For any official audio, album cover art works well. For lyric videos, include prominent text, demonstrating the video is a lyric visualizer. And for behind the scenes videos, it’s helpful to use candid shots to give the video a live, raw feel.
If you’re unsure of what thumbnail to use, YouTube has a thumbnail test, which allows you to deploy up to 3 options for testing on a percentage of your users to decide which one is most effective.
Amazon Music Best Practices
Amazon also offers a platform for its artists, Amazon Music for Artists. Latest data shows Amazon has over 80 million users worldwide, occupying a little over 11% of the total global music streaming market. Amazon Music provides some exciting tools for musicians to connect with fans in dynamic ways. And as a smaller platform compared to Spotify or Apple, Amazon Music emerging artists might find it easier to stand out.
1. Pitch your music
Amazon offers multiple curated channels for artists to push new music. You can reach your existing fans and followers with in-app activity posts, Alexa alerts or prompts, and mobile push notifications. But you can also pitch Amazon curators to feature a track from your upcoming release on global curated programming.
Amazon recommends including details on the following when pitching:
- Basics: Tell the story behind the track
- Audience: Describe your current fanbase and your marketing plan
- Collaborators: Name drop any collaborators
- Placements: Provide details on any licensing or music videos in the works
2. Run a pre-save campaign
You can create a pre-save link to build hype and maximize engagement on your release-day. A fan who pre-saves your new release will automatically become a follower on Amazon Music and will receive push notifications to listen to your music on release day.
3. Create a hype deck
Similar to the Spotify promo card, the Amazon Hype Deck allows you to create custom cards you can share with your fans over socials, emails, and other marketing channels to promote a new release, playlist, or the anniversary of an older release.
4. Leverage X-Ray
Amazon X-ray is a dynamic, fun way for fans to get to know your story while streaming your music. The Amazon Music team pulls together facts and insights about your music from your metadata and industry press then inserts the highlights into your X-Ray stream, which fans can access in a single tap while streaming a song. X-ray facts might highlight song credits, related playlists the song appears on, or fun facts and trivia about your artistry.
5. Let your fans sing along
Make your lyrics come alive with Amazon’s lyric-sharing feature. Upload word sheets for your music and enable fans to share a few lines from your songs directly to their social media, direct messages, emails, and more. This allows your fans to share your music in more meaningful and personalized ways.
Apple Music Best Practices
Apple Music trails just behind Spotify at a little over 30% share in the market. Apple’s music streaming platform offers unique benefits for your fans such as lossless playback and “sing mode,” which allows them to turn your song into a private karaoke session. Read on for some tips to get the most out of Apple Music.
1. Optimize your profile
Take advantage of every tool Apple offers to build out a personalized and authentic profile page for your fans. You can submit a photo, bio, and even a Q&A section where you can answer frequently asked questions about your artistry. You can also provide the Apple Music Editorial team with more information about your bandmates, influences, and collaborators — this information won’t be displayed on your page, but will help the editorial team get to know you better.
2. Show up with Shazam
Shazam is an incredibly powerful music discovery tool you can leverage to turn first-time listeners into fans. Registering your music with Shazam allows new listeners to identify your music just by asking their iPhone “who’s this?” when one of your songs is being played in the background.
3. Set your artwork in motion
Similar to Spotify Canvases, Apple allows artists to upload moving versions of their artwork, for which you can find guidelines here. Adding motion artwork can help elevate your release aesthetic and give your profile an enlivening, dynamic feel which appeals to new fans.
4. Create hype with Pre-adds
Build hype for your release and maximize your engagement on release day with Apple Music Pre-Adds. Available only for full album releases, Apple Music artists can select a single track from their upcoming release to be made available to fans immediately. On release day, fans will receive a notification about the release being added to their library.
5. Leverage insights
Apple Music is more than a streaming platform, it’s a strategic tool for strategic marketing. You can leverage metrics around streaming activity, geography, playlist performance, listener engagement and retention to make smarter decisions about touring, advertising, and content.
TikTok for Artists Best Practices
Though TikTok may not be a streaming platform by name, its role as a music discovery tool is undeniable. The company just launched the TikTok for Artists platform, an all-in-one music analytics platform for artists, offering greater insights into
1. Apply for a TikTok Artist Account and add a Music Tab to your profile
You’ll need to have a TikTok Artist account to access the TikTok for Artists page. Visit the TikTok for Artists homepage and scroll down to the apply button, which brings up a QR code to scan. It’s possible that you already have an artist account! You can check by looking for a music note symbol on your profile.
2. Run a TikTok Pre-Save Campaign for your next release
One of the most exciting features of TikTok for Artists is the new pre-save button, which you can enable for your upcoming album or EP (note that singles are not yet eligible) directly through TikTok. Under the pre-release campaign tab, you can schedule the pre-save link to go live on a certain date and fans can save your release to their Spotify or Apple Music page.
3. Leverage follower and content insights
Get to know your fans and leverage demographic insights to better target content and marketing. You can also track views, likes, shares, comments, and completion rates of your content to understand what’s resonating with your fans and plan strategically.
4. Track song performance
You can track the total view counts, video posts with your track, and creator engagement per track through the TikTok for Artists dashboard! This can help you gauge a song’s viral potential.
5. Invite your team
One of the best features of TikTok for Artists is it enables you to turn your personal page into a collaborative hub. You can invite your label, manager, agent and more to access your analytics to leverage for their own purposes.
Conclusion
Today’s streaming solutions offer fans so much more than music playback. These platforms are equipped with tools that empower artists to create deeper connections with fans and build digital worlds around their music. We hope this guide provides you with some actionable steps to get more value out of each platform.
A trusted distributor since 1998, CD Baby offers distribution to over 150+ platforms and has helped over 2 million artists just like you get their music heard around the world. Ready to get your music heard?