Let’s dive into the ocean of playlists
Over the years, many players in the music field have tried to point out how to identify fake playlists. The truth is that all of them share a BIAS opinion, most of the time because they want to sell you something.
Real facts
It is almost impossible to identify when a playlist has received bots, even Spotify cannot know when their own playlists have been botted. Unfortunately, there are bad play-listers which we understand everyone is aware of. Not going to mention them to avoid conflicts.
The 3 main things you must check before considering a playlist.
1 When the playlist was created: This factor is the most important. This means that even if they have got a bot attack, the playlist is still alive and complains with the Spotify Terms Of Service, nobody had reported it and Spotify hasn’t taken down it’s content. Bad playlists are erased. If they create a new, the playlist will be too young.
2 How many songs a playlist has: Playlists with 24 hours of music must be skipped. Ask yourself a question. Do you ever go to a playlist and listen to 24 hours of music? The answer is no and if all those are unknown artists, a super Red Flag.
3 Which artists do the playlist feature?: If the playlists feature only unknown artists, it is not a good sign, but also depends on the genre. Also, if it is a short playlist and not a commercial genre, that might be legit.
Information to ignore
1 The playlist account followers: The majority of people listen to a playlist and follow it. Nobody goes and follows who created it. Less than 5% of people do that. Unless it is a famous artist, label or someone with strong marketing.
2 The playlist name: there is nothing wrong with a playlist name if someone wants to call a playlist new music Friday or whatever name is not a red flag, it has absolutely nothing to do with a fake playlist. You can market any playlist and the name is not important.
3 Sudden spikes and drops on the playlists: despite it looks suspicious we don’t know which fight someone is fighting, we know many curators under attack on daily basis, maybe a playlist has a good growing, but, is affecting another curator, the curator decides to send bots to attack the competitor, causing such ugly spikes we sometime see. There are additional things to consider on a playlist to make a final judgment. For example, for how long the song was shared on that particular playlist, if it was 24 to 48 hours, it was botted 100%. This is a common practice to call out the artist’s attention.
