Verifying your artist profile is the most important thing you can do on Spotify
That’s a bold statement, but it’s true. Getting verified on Spotify allows you to access Spotify for Artists, which is an essential step to growing your audience and succeeding on one of the most important streaming platforms in the world.
To be clear: Few artists who’ve seen success on Spotify have done so without first verifying their artist profile.
Why should I verify my artist on Spotify?
For starters, that slick blue checkmark proves to listeners, playlisters, and Spotify’s editorial team that you actually give a damn. Plus, becoming a “Verified Artist” on Spotify allows you to better understand your fans, brand your artist profile, and even sell merch or concert tickets.
Once you’ve become a verified artist on Spotify, you can:
- Share playlists directly with your fans
- Update your artist bio on Spotify
- Customize your artist profile image(s)
- Access analytics for all your songs
- Pitch your songs to Spotify’s editors for playlist consideration
- Pin songs, albums, playlists, or events to the top of your profile with a custom photo
- List tour dates
- And more
How do I verify my Spotify artist page?
To become a verified artist on Spotify, you must:
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- Distribute music to Spotify
- Confirm the music has been delivered to Spotify
- Apply for artist verification, which CD Baby helps expedite for you!
Or, if you’d prefer to verify your artist profile with Spotify directly you can do that here.
There’s an app for that
Spotify makes it convenient to log in to your artist account whether you’re in front of a computer or on your phone. There are two ways to access your Spotify for Artists account:
- Desktop site — A fully featured web page complete with guides, an FAQ, and even a blog for news and updates.
- Mobile app — A minimal but no less helpful application where you can track your stats, see information on listeners and manage your profile. The Spotify for Artists mobile app is available on iOS and Android.
How to customize your Spotify artist profile
Within your Spotify for Artists account, you can customize your:
- Artist bio — Introduce yourself and your music to your audience. This is your chance to connect with followers and potential new fans on an artistic and personal level, so write from the heart!
- Artist photos — These aren’t just important for your fans to know what you look like; your artist photos are also used in Release Radar emails, playlists, and other kinds of content that Spotify may share with listeners. So make sure they can actually put a face to the name in that tiny circle!
- Links to social media profiles — You can post links to your profiles on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even Wikipedia. Those will appear in the About tab on your artist profile.
Spotify continues to add a bevy of ways to make your artist profile yours. We’ll keep this article updated with any new features.
The dos and don’ts of customizing your Spotify artist profile:
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DO write your bio in the first person. Be casual and update it often, as if you’re giving your fans real-time info.
DO NOT paste your formal bio or press release and leave it there for years. No 3rd Person!
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DO upload multiple new photos so Spotify has visual ammo to help your music go further.
DO NOT upload the same photo for your header, profile image, etc. and then leave it there for years.
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DO change your Artist Pick every 14 days or less.
DO NOT always make your Artist Pick your own music; share the love.
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Pitch your music to Spotify playlist curators
There’s a formalized process for submitting your music to Spotify playlist curators, and you can do it right inside your Spotify for Artists account! This same process also guarantees that your new music will be added to your Spotify followers’ Release Radar playlists.
Check out the full list of instructions on how to submit for Spotify playlist consideration.
Amplify your music on Spotify with an Artist Pick
Artist Pick is a feature where you can select a song, full album or even a playlist to add to the top of your artist profile. This shines a spotlight on music you’re currently enjoying or promoting. You can either pick music from another artist OR you can select your own song, album or custom playlist to highlight for your listeners. Since your latest release will also be displayed at the top of your profile, the Artist Pick section gives you a chance to showcase other music or a playlist that provides additional context for your latest release.
To add an Artist Pick to your profile, log in to your Spotify for Artists account and click Profile. From there you can search for what you’d like to add.
Promote live streams and in-person shows (when those return) from your Spotify profile
Spotify uses the platform Songkick to pull virtual live stream events (and hopefully eventually actual tour dates again) and add them to artists’ profiles. If you’re actively creating live streams like concerts, jam sessions and Q&As (and you should be!), Songkick is indispensable for telling fans where and when you’ll be playing a venue near them.
Just head to Songkick and log in to your account (or create one) and add your live stream dates. They’ll automatically be synced with your Spotify for Artists profile in 24 to 48 hours. AND you can even add them to your Artist Pick for extra promotion, as shown in the photo above from Gabriela Bee’s profile.
List merch on your Spotify profile
Merchandise double dips for you: you make money when you sell it and you bring in more potential fans when those who buy your merch wear it out in public. You should be making merch for your music, and Merchbar can be a great way to sell physical product because they also integrate with Spotify.
One thing to keep in mind is that Merchbar is pretty exclusive. Like any sort of curated partnership, they only accept a small amount of applicants. But it doesn’t cost anything to apply, so why not give it a go?
Add a playlist to your profile
Like an Artist Pick, this is an opportunity to showcase what you’re currently into. You can add any playlist you like, so it can be one your music has been added to, one you’re enjoying, or even one you’re curating yourself.
To add a playlist to your artist profile:
- Log into Spotify for Artists
- Go to Profile and scroll down to Artist Playlists
- Select Edit, then + Add Playlist
- Search for the playlist, or copy and paste the playlist’s Spotify link in the search field
Tip: To copy the link to a Spotify playlist, right-click it (or tap the three dots on mobile), choose ‘Share,’ then C’opy Link.’
5. Click Save.
Add a virtual tip jar to your Spotify profile
Being an indie artist is tough any time, but especially right now during a global pandemic. That’s why Spotify added a fundraising feature in Spotify for Artists, so fans can tip their favorite artists directly.
To add a Fundraising Pick, follow these steps:
- Log into Spotify for Artists on the web
- Go to Home
- Click Get started in the banner at the top
- Fill in the COVID-19 support form and click SUBMIT
Upload looping videos with Spotify Canvas
Spotify Canvas allows you to upload 3-8 second looping videos for each of your songs on Spotify. This simple addition of visual branding has shown to increase virtually all stats by significant percentages for artists who’ve used it.
While Spotify Canvas is still invite-only, it doesn’t hurt to add your name to the waitlist so you can use the feature sooner than later.
View advanced analytics
You can view quick, basic details of your music’s performance on Spotify in your Spotify for Artists account. But you can also see advanced data that can be extremely valuable in finding where your audiences may be clustered, or information that improves the targeting of your promotional efforts.
With Spotify for Artists, you can view in-depth stats like:
- Streams, listeners, and followers over the past seven days, 28 days, and all-time
- Real-time listeners
- Top songs
- Top playlists
- Source of streams for your songs
- Regions where your songs are streaming
- Demographics like gender, age and location
- What artists your listeners also liked
How do you view these? Easy! There are two headers at the top of your Spotify for Artists profile: Music and Audience. Each provides different types of information:
Music:
On this page, you’ll see your music split out into four sorting methods:
- Songs, which shows your stats by individual song in your entire catalog
- Releases, which organizes your stats into each standalone release
- Playlists, where you can see which Algorithmic, Editorial and Listener playlists your streams are coming from
- Upcoming, which shows releases you’ve finalized and sent to Spotify but are not yet released
Audience:
This is where Spotify breaks data into graphs by three categories: Listeners, Streams and Followers.
But the big information is the next section, which shows where your streams come from. This is broken out into the following categories:
- Your profile and catalog, which are streams directly from your artist profile
- Listener’s own playlists and library, which are streams from listeners’ personal playlists or saved library
- Other listener’s playlists, which are streams from a listener playing (and likely discovering) your song from another listener’s playlist
- Spotify algorithmic playlists, which are streams from the automatically generated playlists, usually specific to a genre or mood
- Spotify editorial playlists, which are streams from playlist curated by Spotify’s editorial staff
- Other, which are streams that come from any other place that is not the traditional desktop site or app
Be sure to keep close watch over the playlists your songs appear on, and reach out to any playlisters who’ve featured your music. A little thanks can go a long way the next time you drop new tunes.
What’s the difference between a Spotify for Artists account and a Spotify Songwriter Page?
If you write and perform your own songs (or write songs with and for other artists), you’ll not only have a Spotify artist page, but also a page for your songwriter credits.
Spotify Songwriter Pages (and corresponding “written by” playlists) are a way for songwriters to get public credit for their compositions and for any listener interested to search for other songs written by that songwriter.
Do you write songs in addition to performing? Fill out this form with Spotify to create your Songwriter Page!
What if I’m a manager claiming more than one artist profile?
Spotify thought of this too! In each Spotify for Artists account there’s a Manage Team section. To access this, the artist clicks the arrow next to their name. There they can add the email addresses for bandmates, managers or anyone else they want to have access to their profile.
There are three levels of access an artist can select for people they add, according to Spotify’s blog article:
- Full Access: These users have complete access to all Spotify for Artists features. They can edit your artist profile, view your stats, and invite new team members. They can also go to the “Team” section to get an overview of everyone with access, change anyone’s access at any time, and view email addresses for everyone on the team. This level might make sense for a band member, or a manager.
- Edit Access: These users can update your profile and see your stats. They can also invite new team members, but only for edit or view-only access—not full access. They can visit the “Team” section to get an overview of everyone who has access, but they can’t see team emails. This level might be right for a booking agent, for example.
- View Access: These users can only view your artist stats, but they can’t change your profile or any of your settings. They don’t have access to the “Team” section of Spotify for Artists either, which means they can’t invite new team members or see the names or email addresses of anyone on the team.
As you can see, there are TONS of options in Spotify for Artists for customizing your artist profile, viewing stats and earning more money from streams and elsewhere. Verifying your Spotify artist profile is just the beginning, and it only takes a few minutes. So do it!