While Spotify started as a simple music streaming app, it has ambitions to be much more. It has recently launched social media features to combine the world of social media and music. Let’s take a look at how they’re doing it.
Spotify
As mentioned above, Spotify is a music streaming site and is arguably the most popular place to find music worldwide. It has over 450 million active users, with more than half of those members subscribing to the Premium service.
There’s plenty to listen to on Spotify, no matter your tastes, with over 82 million songs on the platform. They provide every genre and artist you can think of, from pop music by Taylor Swift to R&B by Drake. Spotify has genres you may not have heard of, such as afro, desi, and ambient music.
Apart from a selection of genres, Spotify offers endless playlists which are specifically curated for particular events or activities. Whether it’s upbeat music for an intense workout, a calm and soothing jazz playlist for studying and working, or even the ‘casino radio’ to put you in the mood when playing your favorite casino games such as roulette or the Eastern Emeralds slot game.
Social features within the platform
Even before this recent shift in focus to social media, Spotify had many features that allowed people to share music. The most popular were Spotify playlists, where people could create their playlist and share it with their friends, who could then add their own songs.
You could even share playlists created by Spotify, so you could show your friend the best of what that band had to offer. You could also follow your friends on Spotify to see what they’ve been listening to. They even had the option to create Spotify codes, which gave users a quick and easy way to share content online.
Spotify’s “Listening Together” campaign
Spotify launched its Listening Together campaign in May 2022, aiming to bring people together based on their music tastes. They saw that every second around 30,000 people press play on the same song. So whenever you listen to a song on Spotify, you could be listening in sync with someone on the other side of the world! This fact highlights how music connects us no matter our creed, color, or where we are in the world.
To help bring people together, Spotify has created a website that visualizes their connection. A rotating, virtual 3D map of the world displays the name of the song and the country and city where the connection is taking place. You can watch connections happen in real-time and see what track brought people together.
Music has been a source of inspiration and hope for many during the tough times we’ve faced over the past couple of years. Dolly Parton, one of the first artists featured on Spotify’s Listening Together playlist, echoed that sentiment. She said, “Listening to music brings me such hope and joy, even during these hard times.” Thanks to campaigns like Listening Together, we can all be closer.
The integration with other social media
As well as launching its own social media features, Spotify integrates well with other forms of social media. Users can integrate their existing Facebook and Twitter accounts to make it easier to find their friends on the platform.
It also allows users to share Spotify content on their other social media platforms, giving people a way to connect over music. You can even share Spotify content directly to your Instagram stories and include a clickable link that directs people to Spotify.
What’s next for Spotify?
Spotify has set out to have one billion active users by the end of 2027, a lofty goal considering they currently have around 450 million. To increase the number of users, we expect Spotify to launch more campaigns and features that bring people together over their love of music.
One feature that users most want to see is an easier way to share songs internally on the app. And Spotify has been working on something similar with their Group Sessions feature. There’s no doubt that Spotify has the potential to be a massive social network platform as long as it can continue to provide a positive user experience.
Conclusion
While many people don’t consider Spotify a social media platform, it’s about time that changed. Many of the features it has implemented over recent years have signaled a change in intent from Spotify. It won’t be long before they’re spoken in the same breath as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
