Creating your own Spotify playlists isn't just fun — it's a strategic tool for discovery. Here's how to build playlists that grow your profile and attract new fans.
TL;DR
Curating themed playlists on Spotify positions you as a tastemaker, attracts listeners who share your sonic taste, and creates a natural context for your own music alongside artists you admire. Update regularly, promote across platforms, and include your music naturally among complementary tracks.
Why Artist-Curated Playlists Work
When you create a playlist that people follow, you become a tastemaker rather than just another artist promoting their music. Listeners trust curators who demonstrate good taste, and that trust transfers to your own music when it appears naturally within a well-curated selection.
Playlists also create context for your music. Placing your track among complementary artists positions it exactly where your target listener would expect to find it. A listener who loves the other tracks on your playlist is predisposed to enjoy yours — the playlist itself serves as a recommendation.
From an algorithmic perspective, playlists that generate engagement (followers, saves, repeat listens) increase the visibility of every track on them, including yours. Spotify's algorithm learns that listeners who enjoy the other tracks on your playlist also enjoy yours, which feeds into your Discover Weekly and Radio placements.
Building a Playlist With Purpose
The best playlists have a clear theme or mood rather than being generic 'good music' collections. 'Late Night Drive Through the City' is more compelling than 'Cool Songs.' 'Sunday Morning Coffee with Guitars' is more specific and searchable than 'Chill Vibes.' Think about the moment, mood, or activity your playlist soundtracks.
Include 50-100 tracks for a substantial playlist that offers real listening value. Start with 40-50 tracks and add regularly to keep it fresh. Place your own music naturally within the flow — not as the first track (too obvious), but where it genuinely fits the playlist's mood and energy.
Curate around your genre and sonic world. If you make dreamy indie pop, your playlist should contain other dreamy indie pop alongside related sounds — dream pop, shoegaze, ambient folk. This creates a coherent listening experience and attracts exactly the audience most likely to enjoy your music.
Growing Your Playlist's Following
The playlist title and description are crucial for discoverability. Include keywords that people actually search for: mood words (chill, energetic, melancholic), activity words (workout, study, driving), and genre terms. Spotify's search surfaces playlists based on these terms, and a well-titled playlist with a keyword-rich description will attract organic followers.
Promote your playlist across all your social media platforms. Share individual tracks from it with commentary about why you love them — this provides content for your social media while driving traffic to the playlist. Tag the artists you include; they may share the playlist with their own audiences.
Update the playlist regularly — at least bi-weekly, ideally weekly. Add new discoveries, remove tracks that no longer fit, and rotate fresh music in. Regular updates signal to Spotify that the playlist is actively maintained, which improves its visibility in search results. Active playlists also give followers a reason to return.
Leveraging Playlists for Networking
Including other artists' music on your playlist is a genuine compliment and a natural networking opportunity. When you add someone's track, let them know — a quick DM saying 'love your new single, added it to my playlist' opens a conversation that could lead to collaboration, mutual promotion, or simply a valuable professional relationship.
Playlists also demonstrate your taste to industry professionals. A well-curated playlist tells managers, labels, and collaborators what you listen to, who you see as peers, and where you position yourself sonically. It's a non-verbal way of communicating your artistic identity and aesthetic values.
Some artists create collaborative playlists with other artists in their scene, sharing curation duties and cross-promoting to each audience. This builds community, distributes the curation workload, and creates a playlist with broader appeal than any single artist's curation could achieve.
Measuring Success and Iterating
Track your playlist's follower growth and per-track performance through Spotify for Artists (which shows data for your own tracks on any playlist). If your track on your own playlist is getting disproportionately low saves or skips, it might be positioned poorly — try moving it to a different point in the playlist where the energy level matches better.
Pay attention to which tracks your followers engage with most. This tells you what your audience responds to and can inform your own creative direction. If the dream pop tracks on your playlist consistently outperform the electronic ones, that's useful data about your listener preferences.
Don't obsess over numbers — a playlist with 200 genuine followers who listen regularly is more valuable than one with 2000 followers who never return. Quality of engagement matters more than quantity of followers, and a deeply engaged playlist audience converts to genuine fans more reliably than a large but passive following.