Searching for greatest practices to get essentially the most out of right this moment’s prime music streaming platforms? Learn on for five actionable suggestions per platform that will help you optimize your presence throughout the streaming panorama.

Introduction

There are such a lot of choices in terms of digital streaming platforms for music. With CD Child distribution, you’ll have entry to over 150+ DSPs per submission. However a profitable streaming technique requires extra than simply maximizing attain. As we speak’s DSPs provide highly effective advertising instruments, information insights, and profile customizations that will help you elevate your profile and drive deeper engagement together with your followers. On this information, we’ll talk about greatest practices for main streaming platforms to make sure you’re getting essentially the most out of the key DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music, and extra.

Spotify Greatest Practices

With a 36% share of worldwide music streaming, Spotify is the main platform for music discovery and streaming. The corporate paid out a report $10 billion in royalties in 2024, retaining the lead for highest-paying retailer globally and bringing its lifetime payout to artists to just about $60 billion. In accordance with Spotify’s Loud & Clear Report 2025, that’s over 10x the contribution of the most important report retailer on the peak of the CD period!

Protected to say, it’s best to add your music to Spotify and create a Spotify for Artists account, the place you possibly can construct a complete and dynamic profile to your followers. Listed below are some suggestions that will help you get essentially the most out of Spotify.

1. Optimize your profile

Your Spotify profile serves as a strong first impression for brand new followers. After claiming and verifying your profile, add the next to customise your web page:

• Photos: Add an avatar picture (portraits work properly, as these photos are circle cropped), a background picture, and a few extra photos to your gallery which followers can swipe by means of and discover
• Bio: Write an artist bio of 1,500 phrases or fewer. Spotify has compiled some bio writing do’s and don’ts right here.
• Social media: Add your social media handles to let followers comply with you proper out of your Spotify web page.
• Artist Choose: Promote your newest launch by making it seem on the prime of your web page inside the Artist Choose slot! Been a bit since your final launch? Plug a playlist of your tunes blended in with a few of your favorites.
• Live shows: Spotify will pull any of your upcoming concert events which might be listed by TicketMaster, EventBrite, SongKick or AXS. 

2. Leverage information insights

Spotify offers information you should use to get extra strategic together with your music advertising. You might have entry to information pertaining to your music, viewers, playlist placements, and extra.

3. Playlist like a professional

Pitch Spotify curators forward of your launch to get your music featured on editorial playlists. You may also create and promote playlists together with your tracks to assist the algorithm place your music. 

4. Add canvases for tracks

Cowl artwork is a strong instrument for attracting followers and canvases make it much more efficient. Give your listeners a further visible expertise whereas they’re streaming your music with Spotify Canvases. Canvases are brief, looping movies that play within the background of a monitor and it’s best to have them for each one among your songs. You possibly can add these to provide your profile a cohesive aesthetic {and professional} really feel.

5. Create a promo card

Gone are the times of printed enterprise playing cards. Create a Spotify promo card for a seamless strategy to share your music hyperlink with followers in an on-brand approach! You possibly can share your promo card instantly out of your Spotify web page by means of social media, direct message, and extra.

YouTube Music Greatest Practices

Like a extra user-centric MTV, YouTube has lengthy been a house for music movies, live performance footage, and recorded tracks. However when YouTube Music formally launched as a music streaming platform in 2018, it rapidly grew to become a dynamic outlet for artists seeking to join with followers by means of multimedia. YouTube claims followers who see a given music video devour 94% extra of that artists’ music.

Listed below are some tricks to benefit from 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 according to a picture, title, deal with, and bio. YouTube permits a profile image in addition to a channel banner, which you should use to tease upcoming releases, merch, tour dates, and extra by together with textual content within the graphic. 

When deciding on a reputation and channel deal with, keep away from further phrases like official, TV, channel, youtube, music, or productions. As an alternative, go together with a reputation you employ throughout different social media platforms as properly to consolidate your promotional messaging. 

Write an outline of your channel and make that first sentence as complete as potential. That’s what YouTube exhibits in abbreviated listings of your profile. Much like your channel banner, you possibly can replace this description often, utilizing the road for necessary bulletins or to tease upcoming initiatives

You possibly can add as much as 14 hyperlinks in your channel dwelling tab so long as they comply with the exterior hyperlinks coverage. Many artists will function hyperlink repositories, an official web site, social platforms, and extra.

2. Make dwelling really feel like dwelling

You possibly can modify your channel structure to type your content material and make your web page really feel extra genuine. Select movies to incorporate in your channel trailer/highlight part! Channel trailers auto-play when somebody involves your channel who is just not subscribed, whereas a highlight video performs for a customer who’s subscribed to your channel. 

You possibly can leverage this function for highlighting latest or upcoming music. 

3. Create playlists

Playlists are one among largest site visitors sources for music viewership on YouTube. Playlists assist manage, curate, and make content material extra accessible to customers. Take into consideration bucketing your content material and creating playlists for interviews, tour content material, album particular content material, authentic content material, and extra. 

4. Join your retailer

Monetize your YouTube web page by connecting your merch retailer. Unlocking the shop tab lets you tag merchandise and preserve a product shelf which you’ll be able to show proper under your movies. 

5. Optimize then monetize your content material

If a tree falls within the forest and nobody is round to listen to it, does it make a sound? Be sure your nice content material is straightforward to seek out! Preserve your video titles brief and succinct and middle them round essentially the most important search phrases: usually your artist title and the title of the songs. Video title formatting doesn’t should be overly formal, however be certain it’s constant throughout movies to enhance readability. Lastly, your video thumbnails ought to precisely mirror the content material of your video.

After getting some top-performers, think about investing in promoting to achieve new followers with this content material. As a most well-liked companion, CD Child makes it straightforward to monetize your music on YouTube.

Bonus: Take a look at thumbnails

The best thumbnail could be the distinction between a person clicking on or scrolling by means of your video. Music movies and visualizers ought to have a compelling, high-quality nonetheless shot from the footage. For any official audio, album cowl artwork works properly. For lyric movies, embody outstanding textual content, demonstrating the video is a lyric visualizer. And for behind the scenes movies, it’s useful to make use of candid photographs to provide the video a stay, uncooked really feel. 

When you’re uncertain of what thumbnail to make use of, YouTube has a thumbnail take a look at, which lets you deploy as much as 3 choices for testing on a proportion of your customers to determine which one is simplest.

Amazon Music Greatest Practices

Amazon additionally gives a platform for its artists, Amazon Music for Artists. Newest information exhibits Amazon has over 80 million customers worldwide, occupying slightly over 11% of the whole world music streaming market. Amazon Music offers some thrilling instruments for musicians to attach with followers in dynamic methods. And as a smaller platform in comparison with Spotify or Apple, Amazon Music rising artists may discover it simpler to face out.

1. Pitch your music

Amazon gives a number of curated channels for artists to push new music. You possibly can attain your current followers and followers with in-app exercise posts, Alexa alerts or prompts, and cell push notifications. However you may also pitch Amazon curators to function a monitor out of your upcoming launch on world curated programming. 

Amazon recommends together with particulars on the next when pitching:

• Fundamentals: Inform the story behind the monitor
• Viewers: Describe your present fanbase and your advertising plan
• Collaborators: Title drop any collaborators
• Placements: Present particulars on any licensing or music movies within the works

2. Run a pre-save marketing campaign

You possibly can create a pre-save hyperlink to construct hype and maximize engagement in your release-day. A fan who pre-saves your new launch will mechanically grow to be a follower on Amazon Music and can obtain push notifications to hearken to your music on launch day.

3. Create a hype deck

Much like the Spotify promo card, the Amazon Hype Deck lets you create customized playing cards you possibly can share together with your followers over socials, emails, and different advertising channels to advertise a brand new launch, playlist, or the anniversary of an older launch. 

4. Leverage X-Ray

Amazon X-ray is a dynamic, enjoyable approach for followers to get to know your story whereas streaming your music. The Amazon Music group pulls collectively details and insights about your music out of your metadata and business press then inserts the highlights into your X-Ray stream, which followers can entry in a single faucet whereas streaming a music. X-ray details may spotlight music credit, associated playlists the music seems on, or enjoyable details and trivia about your artistry.

5. Let your followers sing alongside

Make your lyrics come alive with Amazon’s lyric-sharing function. Add phrase sheets to your music and allow followers to share just a few traces out of your songs on to their social media, direct messages, emails, and extra. This enables your followers to share your music in additional significant and customized methods.

Apple Music Greatest Practices

Apple Music trails simply behind Spotify at slightly over 30% share out there. Apple’s music streaming platform gives distinctive advantages to your followers corresponding to lossless playback and “sing mode,” which permits them to show your music into a non-public karaoke session. Learn on for some tricks to get essentially the most out of Apple Music.

1. Optimize your profile

Reap the benefits of each instrument Apple gives to construct out a personalised and genuine profile web page to your followers. You possibly can submit a photograph, bio, and even a Q&A bit the place you possibly can reply regularly requested questions on your artistry. You may also present the Apple Music Editorial group with extra details about your bandmates, influences, and collaborators — this info received’t be displayed in your web page, however will assist the editorial group get to know you higher. 

2. Present up with Shazam

Shazam is an extremely highly effective music discovery instrument you possibly can leverage to show first-time listeners into followers. Registering your music with Shazam permits new listeners to establish your music simply by asking their iPhone “who’s this?” when one among your songs is being performed within the background.

3. Set your art work in movement

Much like Spotify Canvases, Apple permits artists to add transferring variations of their art work, for which you could find pointers right here. Including movement art work will help elevate your launch aesthetic and provides your profile an enlivening, dynamic really feel which appeals to new followers.

4. Create hype with Pre-adds

Construct hype to your launch and maximize your engagement on launch day with Apple Music Pre-Provides. Obtainable just for full album releases, Apple Music artists can choose a single monitor from their upcoming launch to be made obtainable to followers instantly. On launch day, followers will obtain a notification in regards to the launch being added to their library.

5. Leverage insights

Apple Music is greater than a streaming platform, it’s a strategic instrument for strategic advertising. You possibly can leverage metrics round streaming exercise, geography, playlist efficiency, listener engagement and retention to make smarter choices about touring, promoting, and content material.

TikTok for Artists Greatest Practices

Although TikTok is probably not a streaming platform by title, its function as a music discovery instrument is simple. The corporate simply launched the TikTok for Artists platform, an all-in-one music analytics platform for artists, providing higher insights into

1. Apply for a TikTok Artist Account and add a Music Tab to your profile

You’ll must have a TikTok Artist account to entry the TikTok for Artists web page. Go to the TikTok for Artists homepage and scroll right down to the apply button, which brings up a QR code to scan. It’s potential that you have already got an artist account! You possibly can verify by on the lookout for a music observe image in your profile.

2. Run a TikTok Pre-Save Marketing campaign to your subsequent launch

Some of the thrilling options of TikTok for Artists is the brand new pre-save button, which you’ll be able to allow to your upcoming album or EP (observe that singles aren’t but eligible) instantly by means of TikTok. Beneath the pre-release marketing campaign tab, you possibly can schedule the pre-save hyperlink to go stay on a sure date and followers can save your launch to their Spotify or Apple Music web page.

3. Leverage follower and content material insights

Get to know your followers and leverage demographic insights to higher goal content material and advertising. You may also monitor views, likes, shares, feedback, and completion charges of your content material to grasp what’s resonating together with your followers and plan strategically.

4. Monitor music efficiency

You possibly can monitor the whole view counts, video posts together with your monitor, and creator engagement per monitor by means of the TikTok for Artists dashboard! This will help you gauge a music’s viral potential.

5. Invite your group

The most effective options of TikTok for Artists is it allows you to flip your private web page right into a collaborative hub. You possibly can invite your label, supervisor, agent and extra to entry your analytics to leverage for their very own functions.

Conclusion

As we speak’s streaming options provide followers a lot greater than music playback. These platforms are geared up with instruments that empower artists to create deeper connections with followers and construct digital worlds round their music. We hope this information offers you with some actionable steps to get extra worth out of every platform.

A trusted distributor since 1998, CD Child gives distribution to over 150+ platforms and has helped over 2 million artists similar to you get their music heard around the globe. Get began right this moment!