Optimising your Spotify Bio to Engage New Listeners
As an artist, you should be taking advantage of every opportunity to engage with new listeners! An often overlooked avenue is your Spotify bio
When done correctly, this can enhance the listening experience and turn the average listener into a fan who keeps coming back for more. In this blog, we’ll explore simple yet effective methods and variables to consider when crafting the perfect artist bio.
- The Do’s and Don'ts
- Building Credibility
- Generating Interest That Creates Long-Term Listeners
- How Your Genre Affects Your Bio-Style
The Do’s and Don'ts
Successful artist bios can be crafted using a generalised formula - within a 3-paragraph narrative, with no more than 4 substantive sentences in each paragraph, you’ll be able to reference everything important without losing your listeners' focus.
The Do’s
Your artist bio is the first place you will introduce yourself to new listeners. Currently, the music industry has an incredibly saturated market, meaning it is more important than ever to establish your personal brand.
- A good way to approach your artist bio is by referencing each step of your career. Start with when you were first introduced to music, walking through what inspired you or who you played your first song to. By weaving in these anecdotes, your fans will get a better essence of who you are and where your music comes from.
- Introduce your musical genre and subject matter. If you specialise in songs about heartbreak or sounds that will get people moving, write it down! This can further cement a listener's interest in your music, giving them something to expect once pressing play.
A good example of a great bio is pop artist Florrie. She talks to the reader, uses emojis to make the large chunk of text less intimidating, which adds personality and discusses her musical journey concisely making the whole piece very digestible.
The Don'ts
Unlike the many different qualities that make up a good artist bio, a bad artist bio can usually be due to the same four mistakes. You would be surprised to know how frequently these mistakes happen, even amongst some of the biggest names in the industry.
- The easiest way to classify your bio as ‘bad’ is with poor grammar, misspellings, and syntax errors. Given the elementary nature of these mistakes, it can be annoying for a reader to try and decipher.
- Make sure to update your bio. It’s good to use your bio to tease new music, or announce a new release but an out-of-date bio can create the idea that you’ve taken a step back from music, making listeners less interested in checking back in.
- A different way to end up with a bad bio is by losing focus, whether on the purpose of the bio or the persona you’re trying to produce. A common way people start to stray is by focusing too strongly on their past collaborations and achievements.
Building Credibility
A big barrier to entry for emerging artists is a lack of credibility, which is why getting placed on playlists and having people review your tracks is so important, but there is a fine line between listing your success and losing the interest of your audience.
While it may not be best practice to list out every previous collaboration, achievement, or playlist placement, you can still reference it to make an impact.
This can be seen with the artist Young Combo, who highlights his work with MØW while simultaneously alluding to other notable collaborations.
What if you don’t have a long artist history? If you are newer in the industry, you can still build credibility and interest. This can be seen in Mercer Henderson’s bio. Henderson is an emerging artist who considers herself inspired by the likes of Lizzy McAlpline, Gracie Abrams, and Tate McRae. By mentioning them, Henderson taps into the three artists' established fan bases while simultaneously explaining what her music sounds like.
If you think that your sound is in between different genres, don’t hesitate to choose artists that sound nothing like each other. As long as they can be clearly compared to you, that is all that matters.
In a way, matching up vastly different artists can generate curiosity among listeners, thus driving your streams up. On the same note, it is not worth it to name a random artist with a large following. It’s more important to stay authentic to build a valuable audience.
Generating Interest That Creates Long-Term Listeners
Here are two quick ways that you can use your Spotify profile to leave your listeners wanting more.
Answer their questions
An interesting and unique approach to finding listeners is by promising the answer to essential questions. An artist who does this very well is Abbie Ozard, whose bio states that she “embraces knotty questions - should we be happy and content with the small things that bring us joy, and are we being spoiled by wanting more? Or are we meant to work as hard as possible to achieve our 'dream life'?”
Be a tease!
Keep your fans curious by promising there is something new around the corner. Early marketing can include writing in dates for your next release, but if that isn’t set in stone, don’t be afraid to soft launch your next track's existence.
Take Joel Corry, for example. The last line of his bio reads “He never stays still: constantly evolving, hitting milestone after milestone in pop and dance music, and is always hungry for more.” This kind of writing lets his fans know that he’s never that far away from releasing something new.
How Your Genre Affects Your Bio-Style
The last topic to consider when writing your artist bio is how your genre affects your final product. Bios are not one-size-fits-all, and despite the personal aspects of it, some methods work better for different audiences.
Pop/Indie
Pop and Indie bios work well when the artist leans into the narrative style, giving their fans more information about where they are writing from. Indie artists tend to benefit from stylised bios with a greater focus on what they're writing about, enhancing their artist persona.
Hip-Hop/EDM
If you’re lucky enough to find a hip-hop artist with a Spotify bio, you will see that their content is very limited. A common practice within the hip-hop genre is having journalist coverage or a professional bio in place of a first-person one.
The only difference with EDM artists, is the necessity to establish a genre, such as DJ or house, with an emphasis on collaboration highlights.
Rock
Rock bios are extensive, traditionally breaking the 3 paragraph structure. Similar to hip-hop, but they go much more in-depth into the historical narrative of the group.
Country
For songs that tell such vivid stories, you may be surprised to find out that country bios don’t have the same extreme emphasis on personal anecdotes in the way that pop bios do. Country artists tend to focus more on their collaborations and their geographical location, leaving the lyrics to tell the rest.
See It All Together?
An engaging artist bio is Hozier, highlighting each step of his career despite being one of the largest artists in the world. Below you can see how the mix of his professional successes and personal experiences built him up as a down-to-earth, indie artist who broke out onto the scene.
As said before, bios are not one-size-fits-all. The most important thing is to remember the overall purpose of your bio - establishing your persona in a way that generates interest to turn listeners into fans. It may seem like a lot to consider, but pick and choose what feels right for you!
If you have a release coming up and want to ensure it has maximum impact, join un:hurd music! If you're looking to work with our team you can contact us today.
Written by Zoe Kofsky
