What I have learned after a year on Spotify to see organic growth (No ads, no paying for placements, just 100% free organic marketing:

1) If you're a relatively unknown artist you want to take 15 minutes to fill out your artist description for SEO purposes.

I see so many artists that leave this blank or just have it say something like "This me, ugh" or something trying to be cool. This isn't helping you. For me, I saw I was getting compared to certain artists and sounds, and so I put those in the description. And low an behold, I began to get added to playlists that talked about those genres, sounds, and artists. Why? Because Spotify used the keywords to recommend my tracks and the people that made those playlists heard them and added me to them.

2) A lot of big and up and coming playlists will list their email, Instagram handle, twitter name etc. and you can send them your track to be considered.

This is exactly what I did and it got me on the #10 spot for one of the largest Jungle playlists on Spotify which netted me a ton of listens.

3) Don't pay for placements, don't pay for streaming farms.

They are scams, and it's super obvious when you do this to both listeners and the Spotify algorithm when you do this and it can get you banned if you're not careful.

4) Keep your name consistent and have all of your platforms linking back to each other.

This makes its easy for people that follow you on one platform to follow you/listen to you on another.

All of my main channels list the other ones out consistently and this has been pretty crucial for getting more views/plays.

You can even use something like Linktree to list them all on one link.

This is mine: https://linktr.ee/i9incher

I have also seen and know SO many artists that start to build some kind of traction, and then they decide they don't like their artist name so they change it and they lose all that momentum because they confuse people. Just look at my own user name. You don't think I ever wanted to change it? But I didn't because then it would be too confusing for people. However It IS a name that people will recognize.

Which brings me to my other point, DON'T name yourself after an artist song, a comedy bit, etc. Chances are people trying to find you online won't be able to because the song title, comedy bit, tv show etc. will come up WAY more often in search results. Trust me, I had a band that was the same name as a comedy bit on Family Guy. Guess which one comes up all the time while the other one is buried in obscurity?

5) If you're not on TikTok get on it.

I had a 30 second clip of one of my songs go semi viral due to a trend (over 30k plays on TikTok) and I saw a huge spike in plays and subscribers across all of my platforms because of it.

6) Sometimes you just have to accept that not only will it take time to grow organically, but depending on what genre you are in your potential for growth will be limited.

Some of my favorite artists that I personally listen to have fewer than 10k listeners a month on Spotify. And unless you were one of the first in a genre that isn't "mainstream" chances are you're not going to be raking in a million listeners a month soon if EVER. But that's ok, just do what you love.

7) When making your tracks, try to go after a specific emotion. And no, this shouldn't be an emotion like "Love" or "Wanting to party." There are already a ton of songs that do this, you want to be unique.

For me, a lot of my tracks focus on the feeling of running, racing, energetic, etc. In fact, this lead me to one of my favorite reviews that I still think about to this day:

This has made me stand out and got me picked up on a lot of animations, games, front page features, and has helped build me a fan base (which I'm grateful for).

If you haven't followed me on Spotify yet, feel free to give me a listen and if you like what you hear feel free to follow:

i9incher Spotify