<aside> 🧱 Hi, I'm Brick Blair.
I created these pages as part of my own process to figure these things out and to make my life easier, and thought other artists might find them useful.
I'm an indie singer-songwriter who has been making music for many years but only recently started to take its marketing and promotion seriously. In 2021 I released my first song commercially, launched a website, played a live show in an off-Broadway theater, and kicked off a multi-step campaign with video, text, motion graphics, and other elements. I am now in the middle of executing on a long-term plan.
Let me know if you find these useful.
🎸 Spotify 🌐 Website 🤳 IG 📧 Email ⬇️ Permalink
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From Playlists to Press
<aside> 🧱 Outlines an approach I use for figuring out genre and other characteristics of my music for playlisting, pitching, and other purposes.
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Song Genre Classification for Indie Musicians: From Playlists to Press
<aside> 🧱 Breaks down what Spotify Blend playlists are and how Indie musicians could potentially use them for music marketing.
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Spotify Blend Playlists: Evaluating Potential Marketing Value for Indie Musicians
<aside> 🧱 I created this to help me understand the Spotify content ecosystem.
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Spotify Content Map for Indie Artists
https://embed.notionlytics.com/wt/ZXlKd1lXZGxTV1FpT2lKbE1qRXhNMlJpWkdJMU5qUTBNbU0zT0dFeU5HUTFNREptWmpKa01XTmpNaUlzSW5kdmNtdHpjR0ZqWlZSeVlXTnJaWEpKWkNJNkluUXpUamRKTlZsaU5qWm9SVzlMWTJsR05HRXlJbjA9
<aside> 🧱 I created this to help me solve the problem that you cannot see what you need to provide to Spotify when you are pitching editorial playlists until you have an unreleased song in the Spotify ecosystem.
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Spotify Editorial Playlist Pitching Content Map for Indie Artists
<aside> 🧱 I hosted a live Zoom session with some friends to share what I have learned about Spotify streams and playlisting—starting from essentially zero knowledge six months ago. In the last four months I’ve gone from 0 to 50,000 listeners, 85,000 streams, and 4500 followers on Spotify. Also from few hundred to 2000 Instagram followers.
I have some thoughts and experience from going deep into this world the last several months that I’m happy to share. I don’t have answers but I have some data, deductions, observations, and opinions.
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Spotify Streaming & Playlisting AMA
<aside> 🧱 Following up on my Spotify streaming and playlisting AMA, I thought it would be useful for indie artist to see an example of one way that large playlists grow, i.e., via ads on the Meta platform. Building off the point I made there (i.e., given how hard (and expensive) it is to grow a playlist, why would anyone do it for free) this shows part of an apparently commercial model.
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How Do Spotify Listener Playlists Grow? One Example.
<aside> 🧱 Instagram and Facebook are increasing the influence of the recommendation algorithm in relation to the influence of the creator/follower relationship. In other words, Meta platforms are both in form (i.e., what most users are reacting to), and in function, becoming more like TikTok. As an indie artist, you might like this or hate this. Find out why.
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