How to Spot Fake Spotify Playlists: A Guide For Artists
As an artist, getting your music featured on Spotify playlists can be a game-changer, but not all playlists are created equal. In recent times, there has been a rise in fake playlists that can negatively impact your music’s performance and even violate Spotify’s terms of service. This article will guide you on how to spot fake playlists and keep your music promotion legitimate.
Key Metrics to Track for Your Spotify Playlist
To identify fake playlists, you need to monitor certain key metrics. While it is normal for a playlist to show a spike in streams for a month and then drop back down, this does not necessarily indicate a fake playlist. However, if the engagement metrics such as save rate and playlist adds are consistently high, this could be a red flag.
Another indicator of a fake playlist is if the stream per listener account is extremely high and consistent, suggesting that bots are looping your music repeatedly.
Dead Giveaways of Fake Playlists
There are some dead giveaways that a playlist is fake, including:
- A high “other” category in stream stats: This category is only for smart TVs and watches, and it should never account for more than a few percentage points.
- Streams coming from just one country: Even if the streams are from the United States, it is still suspicious, as the country is known to have a high bot traffic.
- Streams coming mostly from small cities: This is suspicious because playlisting should be either organic or promoted with ads.
Using Spotify for Artists and artist.tools to Check for Fake Playlists
Spotify for Artists provides key metrics such as save rate, playlist adds, and stream per listener account to help you identify fake playlists. On the other hand, artist.tools is a handy tool that makes it easier to check for fake playlists and analyze your music’s performance. With artist.tools, you can look up a playlist’s monthly listener estimate and its growth over the last seven days.
Checking a Good Playlist
For example, a playlist from Moonstrive Media showed a high-quality monthly listener estimate and healthy growth over the past seven days, indicating that it is a legitimate playlist. Artist.Tools is an affordable alternative to Chart Metrics, providing more data for analyzing playlists.
Checking a Bad Playlist
On the other hand, a playlist called Pop Rising by Craft Playlists was flagged as suspicious by artist.tools. The playlist had less than 100 monthly listeners, but a staggering 75,000 followers. This inconsistency, along with binary follower data, suggests fraudulent behavior.
Conclusion
In a world where fake playlists are on the rise, it is crucial for artists to be vigilant and use tools like Spotify for Artists and artist.tools to analyze playlists and ensure their music promotion is legitimate. By following the tips provided in this article, you can safeguard your music and grow your audience organically.
