I’ve been through this process a handful of times now. While I’m not a big fan of the typical process, I understand it. More so, after a few tries, I feel like I really have it dialed in, even if it still requires a back and forth or two to get things over the line with Spotify Artist Support.
I know you can claim an artist profile before music has been released. From my experience with DistroKid (my distributor) you send your music to the services, and claim the profile later.
This is absolutely unnerving, since my music is absolutely earth shattering, and I live in constant fear or somebody else trying to snake my profile. Sarcasm of course. Simply put the process feels backwards, but I’ve had no issues with the process. In fact, I find that having the music out there before starting the process with Spotify to be a good thing, since it allows more opportunities to cross reference.
Okay, so what do I need?
In no particular order, I like to have the following ready to go BEFORE I request to claim my artist:
- An “official” website, ideally with a domain matching your artist name
- A couple of “official” social profiles, same deal, ideally matching your artist name. This tends to be a bit harder due to social network limits on username length and such
I bet you’re thinking “yeah, no crap”, and yeah… no crap. That’s really all you need. But also, it’s not about what you have, and also about how you go about it.
Official artist website
As mentioned, getting the domain that matches your artist name helps. The site itself though, it doesn’t need to have much aside from an artist name, and a few blurbs of text. Specifically, you need to include the same email address you’re using to claim the artist.
I also include a link to the artist on Spotify, which is why it’s actually fine that music gets released prior to claiming your profile. I link to my official social profiles as well.
Since I do this quick and dirty, I just build a quick HTML file, and I deploy it to CloudFlare pages. Free to host, and I already have my DNS out there for my active domains.
Official artist socials
I don’t really do social networking. I also don’t really promote my music on social sites, so there’s really not much of a need to set those things up. My wife on the other hand, set up a BUNCH of stuff for our mutual project. In retrospect, it helped a ton, not just with Spotify, but Apple and Amazon too.
So what’s an anti-social person to do? It’s pretty simple, just setup an X and a SoundCloud account. Try to keep the name as close to your artist name as possible, and set things up from there.
I typically @mention one of the Spotify accounts on X with a “hey, just set this up with you” type message. On SoundCloud, I post at least a track that I’ve released on Spotify, to help cross reference things.
For the profile bios, same as with your website, include the same email address that you’re requesting the artist profile from.
Tie it all together
Since Spotify is looking to see some continuity, it’s good to tie it all together with a nice little bow. Use the same graphics. Post the same tracks. Link the website to the socials. Link the socials to the website. Don’t forget to include the email address everywhere.
I’ve found that doing that little bit will go a long way to getting your artist profile secured. Even with all of the ducks in a row, expect them to hit you up to ask for something. My theory is that they require a human touch in the process. Plus, they only ask for your official website initially, which opens the door to ask for your socials and such.
More to come next week, as I have an artist profile in the process of being claimed. Didn’t want to make any announcement and have any degenerates try to snake it from me 😉
