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In this episode I walk you through what Spotify Canvas is and how to use it. According to Spotify, adding a short looping video to your tracks can increase traffic to your Spotify profile page 9%, increase the chances of a track being playlisted 20%, and boost your shares on the track 145%!!!
You’ll Learn
- Requirements for Spotify Canvas
- DIY and pro resources
- Tips for content
- Marketing ideas
Resources
- Spotify Canvas
- DIY Options:
- Hitfilm Express – Free video editor I really love
- Hitfilm Basics
- Envato Elements
- Hire a Pro:
- Chipstep Dreamz and Ven Pa’ Ca on Spotify – two examples I’ve created using clips from an existing music video and then a “rebound” stock footage loop respectively.
Transcript
What’s up Heroes, welcome to episode 52 of the producer life podcast. Happy holidays to everyone out there listening… I hope you’re all healthy and happy despite the pandemic.
The last couple of weeks we’ve had a series of amazing guests, including Julian Gray, RIP Kenney, and Zeb Lego. If you missed any of those episodes, visit ProducerLifePodcast.com and check those out… and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. After those longer interviews though, I thought I’d return to a shorter episode and offer a quick, actionable marketing idea to help get your music heard more in 2021.
What if I told you there was something you could do in less than an hour would increase traffic to your Spotify profile page 9%, increase the chances of a track being playlisted 20%, and boost your shares on the track 145%? Oh…. and it’s free.
That’s what we’re talking about in this episode: what it is, and how to get started… but first, cue the intro music.
Spotify Canvas gives artists the ability to add short looping visuals to each track you upload. They add visual appeal and increase the interest and sharability of your tracks, and it’s completely free.
It’s really easy to get started. Go to Canvas.spotify.com for ideas and a walkthrough. Canvas videos are 3-8 seconds each, and the site shows several different ideas for canvas formats including using 2D and 3D graphics, mixed media, or video.
Lets talk technical specifications. The video needs to be a 9:16 ratio, at least 720 pixels, an MP4 file, and 3-8 seconds long. Their upload page will let you know if the file format is wrong, and it will also show you a preview. 9:16 is a vertical orientation on a cell phone, so if you’re used to shooting footage horizontally… widescreen style… you need to shift your thinking a little. Let’s talk about footage and editing.
Footage for your videos could come from existing music videos, stock footage, or videos you’ve taken from your mobile phone. Nearly every phone today will shoot at least 1080p video these days. I’ve used Envato Elements for the last year for stock photos, videos, and After Effects templates and really like it. They’ve got a huge selection and licencing is easy. One downside to Envato is that nearly all of their templates are for Adobe products, they hardly have anything for Hitfilm or other video editing software… which I’ll talk about in just a moment.
I’ve currently added canvas videos for two of my songs and will be adding more prior to my big Spotify push in 2021. One of my videos features highlights from my Chipstep Dreamz video which is on YouTube, the other uses stock footage from Envato Elements to try to tease a sexy romance story in an 8 second loop for my latin track Ven Pa ‘Ca.
As you’re planning your content first remember it needs to look good vertically. Second, with only 3-8 seconds you have very little time for storytelling; don’t leave your audience hanging! Loops look good if you can have the same starting and ending point, although an easier option is to create a rebound video where the video plays forward for the first half then backwards for the second half. Try to avoid multiple rapid cuts and Spotify also suggests avoiding footage with talking, singing, or rapping which won’t sync with the music.
Another thought: try to connect stylistically with the rest of your Spotify profile. Think about how your video will look in the context of your header, other album artwork, or your logo. If you’re producing trance, techno, dubstep, or instrumental music you may be able to leverage some of the abstract VJ loops you use in your performances, just double check the licencing to ensure you’re OK to use in this manner. Using VJ loops would allow the videos to easily and logically tie in with your branding and the feel of the music.
Also think about ways to creatively use frequent Canvas uploads. You could reveal a story over a few hours or days, 3-8 seconds at a time, to encourage your fans to listen to the song over and over. You could also encourage fans to submit their own Canvas video clips and rotate through those, sharing the new creation and tagging the artist each time.
A few content don’ts: make sure you have the rights to the content. If you created it or you purchased it, you should be fine. Second, no hatful, abusive, pornographic, threating, or obscene content… that should go without saying. Also note that Spotify doesn’t want you driving traffic outside of their platform, so no URLs… and avoid text in general unless it is relevant to the specific track and doesn’t distract from the artwork. It’s also redundant to add song titles or artist name because they’ll already be seeing that with the Now Playing view on the Spotify app.
Once you’ve got footage, you’ve got to edit it down to the right format and length. I really like Hitfilm for video editing. Their baseline software is free, it combines editing and compositing into one package so you don’t need to hop between Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects, AND they’ve got plenty of effects built into their free package. I wound up upgrading to Hitfilm Pro about two years ago, and still prefer that to the Adobe products for nearly everything.
So, if you don’t already have a video editor you like go to Fxhome.com and pick up a copy of Hitiflm. Create a new project, and set your project settings and export setting to match the requirements of a spotify canvas. I’ve got screenshots of those settings on the shownotes page. Save that as a new spotify canvas template, because you’ll probably be using it a lot.
Next, drag in your footage for your first video and start editing. I’ll also link a hitfilm quickstart guide in the shownotes if you have no experience in video editing… but it won’t take you more than an hour even if you’ve never done this before, and over time that will save a ton of money if you learn to do this yourself. Also, you don’t have to worry about audio… so that makes things a little easier. Don’t stress too much about this if you’ve never edited a video before. Unlike a music release which is harder to pull back, you can swap out videos every hour… so if you decide your canvas could be improved later, it’s super easy to post a new canvas.
Another option is to just hire a professional. Spotify has a link to Soundbetter.com giggs for visual artists who will create your canvas for you. I’ve talked about Fiverr multiple times on this podcast, and searching there for “Spotify Canvas” gives 71 different giggs as of today… so that another option ranging from about $5 to $70 per track.
Once you’ve got your video created, uploading is super easy. Just head over to your artist account on Spotify at artists.spotify.com, select Music at the top of the screen, then click on the track you want to use with your Canvas video. From there you’ll see a blue button in the upper right corner that says Add canvas…. Just follow the prompt from there!
Now… share away!
I really like Spotify canvas, and in future it’s going to become a part of my release strategy as much as cover art is. If I could offer one suggestion to the people at Spotify: I’d love to have an easy way to A/B test multiple different video, much like Facebook offers the ability to test different graphics and text in your ads. I think it would be awesome to create 3 or 4 different videos, upload them all, have Spotify randomize delivery to your listeners and then see which of the videos is getting the most plays and shares.
I’m going to have a bunch of links in the show notes page, so make sure to visit ProducerLifePocast.com and check out episode 52. If you’ve got a minute, share the podcast with another producer who isn’t taking advantage of Spotify canvas and might appreciate this episode… thanks so much!
Until next week, this is the House Ninja reminding you to be somebody’s Hero today.
