You may not know it, but your album artwork is just as critical as Spotify playlist placement. (Excuse the shameless advertisement)

No seriously, it's the first thing listeners engage with and is ultimately the visual aspect of your art.

People notice stand out artwork that conveys strong emotions, and the listener will have a clearer understanding of you as an artist way before they even listen to the track. It may persuade an erring listener into finally giving your record a play— and that's precisely what it should be designed to do.

If you successfully assault the listener on two fronts—sounds harsh but it's true—you are twice as likely to convert them into a fan.

What is Canvas?

It gives creators the ability to create their own looping visuals in the "Now Playing" view on mobile devices. It ultimately lets the musician provide some visual stimulation.

Spotify says, "Adding a Canvas can help keep your listeners hooked; we've seen that adding a high-quality one to a track can increase streams, saves, artist profile visits, and shares."*

By adding visual textures to your music, it will help you express your emotions and the meaning of the song in a new way. It's a way to stand out from the crowd and it's a fact that video is literally the content king.

However, the feature is currently in Beta testing and only a select group of followers can use the feature, so we don't know how far-reaching this new feature could be.

Could it be an effective way to promote Spotify playlists?

Who knows? No matter what the final product looks like It is already proving successful and is virtually guaranteed to be rolled out across the rest of the platform in 2020.

I always talk about the importance of having a robust music marketing plan, and Spotify promotion should be part of that plan. As a new artist, you should plan your artwork and visuals thoroughly with striking imagery and colours. Your branding should be unique and identifiable across all platforms. If you follow that simple advice, you will increase your Spotify monthly listeners.