SPOTIFY TESTS STORIES FOR INFLUENCERS

Spotify has become the latest platform to adopt the Stories format (yes…you read that correctly!) The music platform is testing the feature with a select group of influencers, enabling them to share ‘Stories’ – short video clips which introduce playlists to their followers – alongside their public playlists. The Stories will be discoverable via an icon displayed at the top of the influencer’s playlist and the format will be similar to the ‘tap through’ Stories format which is available on other social media networks. Spotify is hoping that this will ultimately aid music discovery.

Users are certainly not short of Stories platforms – with Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube all offering their own version. As data shows that more and more users are moving away from engaging with on-feed content and are more interested in Stories and video content, it’s a smart and interesting move from Spotify. It also poses the question as to whether Spotify is hoping to become more than just a music platform. According to the platform itself, it is hoping to focus on helping music discovery and harnessing influencers’ existing social media following to bring more followers to the platform. 

Spotify has said it will be rolling out the feature to notable names in the lifestyle, entertainment and music industries. It won’t, however, be made available to artists as it does not want the feature being used as a promotional tool. It’s likely that Spotify want to drive user engagement with the format, but as there’s no ‘discover’ tab to find the Stories, influencers who have tested it have linked to their Spotify playlists through other platforms to get the word out to their followers. Whilst this is a test for now, it’s no secret that we love music here at Splendid HQ, so we can’t wait to see where this goes and which artists our favourite influencers recommend.