Being one of the most widely streamed music platforms in the world, Apple Music has seen a significant amount of growth in recent years.
Apple Music not only boasts of an impressive 60 million songs in its library but it also helps to offer users exclusive access to customization features that make the platform a generally hot choice for music streaming.
The music streaming platform is currently the default music app for all iOS devices, while still available for Android devices to use.
With the massive inflow of new users and music uploads to the platform comes competition. There needs to be a way to separate good music from the low-performing ones, thus the need for a more efficient way to rate music on the platform.
What Does the Star Mean on Apple Music?
Apple Music has different ways of rating tracks on its platform. One of these includes placing a star just by the side of the track for users to see.
Apple, itself, has previously explained what the star on its Apple Music platform is meant for, however, that doesn’t seem to satisfy most users.
This is most likely because Apple as a company has only offered its users a brief statement claiming that the Star on its platform simply represents hot tracks.
Ideally, a star icon is attached to the side of a song on Apple Music to relate to the performance of the song on the platform.
This has to do with the level of popularity the song has attained on the platform and if it’s the most played track on an album.
The feature also allowed users to rate other creatives’ tracks and albums on the platform, but unfortunately, the feature was later removed by Apple.
When Apple Music launched initially, it introduced the star binary rating system that allowed users to choose how much they loved a certain track on the platform.
In addition to rating a track on the platform, users can also choose to flag a track that they don’t like.
Now, the older version of the iTunes 12.5 and iOS 10 by default saw the removal of this star rating icon on the platform, and if you right-clicked to try and rate a track, you’d get a contextual menu that looks like this:
If you wanted to make use of the star rating feature, you’d have to check the option in your General Preferences setting that says, “Show Star Ratings”.
So, is Apple trying to totally get rid of the star rating icon on all its devices? Or is this just a temporary update to the software?
How to Rate Tracks on Apple Music?
Apple introduced a new star icon that now helps users to better identify all the most popular tracks in their various libraries on the platform.
To enable the star icon rating feature on your iOS device, simply go to Settings and tap on Music.
Click on the option that says Show Star Ratings.
Once this is done, you can now get to the Rate Song menu of your app by first opening a song of your choice to play on the platform. Then, tap on the three (3)-dotted (ellipsis) icon at the bottom right of your screen.
Navigate down the few available options to where it says “Rate Song”. Choose the star rating option of your choice and tap on “Done”.
If you’re streaming tracks on Apple Music on your PC, you can add a star rating on that track by simply clicking the stars located close to the song or album.
Apple Music also offers a new dedicated section for users to discover the most-played songs on the app.
The service is known as the “Apple Music for Artists” and it allows users a more detailed insight into the total number of times a song has been played, along with all related purchases related to the track.
You also get to see all the average daily listeners on the track on the platform.
How to Get More Star Ratings on My Song on Apple Music?
Yea, this may seem a bit complicated, but once you get it right, the benefits are endless.
Improving your star ratings on Apple Music is a pretty good way of building your fan base on the platform and getting real human listeners on your app music track.
Thus, some key factors to consider when publishing tracks on Apple Music to get better star ratings on your track include:
- Only publish quality tracks
- Your cover art
Now, once you have really good cover art and your music sound is good also, the next step to getting more positive star ratings on your track involves actually getting people to listen to the track.
This can be done by advertising your track on the platform.
Advertising your song on Apple Music can be done either paid or organically.
Organic advertisement on Apple Music simply means sharing links to your track on the platform to family and friends to go and listen to and rate it.
On the other hand, you can also choose to pay Apple to give your track a broader reach amongst its many users, which in turn is one of the most effective ways of getting more users to listen to your track on the platform daily.
Remember, the more people that listen to your track, the higher the chances of you getting better positive ratings on that track, thus, a broader fan base, and higher earnings for yourself as an artist.