Is your community radio station wanting to create a presence on Spotify? A playlist may be the way to go.
Playlists are curated selections a community radio station, program or DJ can share with a wider global audience. Playlists are not limited to Spotify premium subscribers. You can still create a playlist, even if you’re on a free Spotify account. Just create an account and you’re ready to go.
Here is how to make a Spotify playlist for your community radio station or program.
- Click New Playlist in the app or desktop version of Spotify.
- You see a dialog box with several areas to complete.
- Name. Give your playlist a name. It helps to have a name someone might search for, such as your call letters or genres.
- Image. It is highly recommended to have or create an image for your playlist to make it stand out.
- Description. What’s in your playlist? Your playlist is likely to show up in more searches if you use keywords in the first sentence.
- Once you’ve added everything, hit Save and you’re finished. You can go back and edit later, too.
You can start adding tracks by searching for artists and clicking the ellipsis by the track name. To add, click Add to Playlist. Spotify will track the number of songs and the length of the playlist for you.
Once you’ve added all your tracks, you will need to click the ellipsis next to the Play button to choose Make Public. This will make your playlist live and searchable on Spotify.
How do you share it? if you click the same ellipsis, you will see Share, and many options. Choosing Copy Playlist Link will be your easiest option. Unfortunately, you’ll get a long, ghastly URL from Spotify, but never fear – a URL shortener like Bit.ly can give you a tidy, short one.
Here are two other Spotify tips. First, don’t abandon your playlist! You should update it regularly so people have a reason to subscribe and tell others about it. A user can see how long it has been since items were added. Second, the Spotify user that creates the playlist will have her/his name listed as associated with the playlist. Depending on the privacy settings used, anyone can click that user’s name and see her/his recent Spotify activity. Spotify is intended in many ways as a social network, so this may be fine for some users, but if the curating user doesn’t want that information public, privacy settings should be set appropriately and checked often. For these reasons, a station Spotify account may be best (remember, you still can’t broadcast Spotify streams, of course).
Spotify is a way of connecting with your listeners. And it never hurts to experiment to see if it works for you.
