(Hypebot) — “Welcome home, artists,” declared CEO Daniel Ek as he kicked off Spotify’s Stream On event Wednesday. “Spotify is open for business.”
Spotify unveiled a new mobile home feed on Wednesday that “brings Spotify to life” in part by adding short video and audio Previews that encourage music discovery. While comparisons to TikTok are inevitable, Spotify says its design and algorithms will encourage “deep, meaningful and long-lasting engagement” rather than the ephemeral virality that has made TIkTok so popular as a social network.
For Artists and Labels
But most of Stream On was dedicated to new features and tools for musicians and podcasters. Here is want a very busy Spotify For Artists team unveiled.
- Spotify Clips – artists can add 30-second videos to their artist profiles and album pages, so fans can go deeper into their stories while they’re listening
- Countdown Pages – a dedicated space on an artist’s profile and Spotify’s home feed for fans to pre-save albums, see exclusive videos, pre-order merch, preview tracklists, and watch the timer count down to a new release
- Expanded Concert and Merch Discovery tools will add concert listings and merch offerings in more places across the app, including the ‘Now Playing’ view. If a show is of interest, the fan catches can tap a new ‘interested’ button to save the listing to their calendar in the Live Events Feed. Listeners can also adjust their location and browse concerts worldwide, all personalized to their taste.
- Fans First is expanding to more artists so that top listeners receive emails and notifications that give them access to concert pre-sales and merch exclusives.
New Features To Connect Artists and Fans
- Marquee – this a paid full-screen recommendation of a new release focused on reaching listeners who have shown interest in an artist’s music is already available in the U.S. and now adds the U.K. and Australia.
- Discovery Mode – a tool, now directly available for artists on select distributors within Spotify for Artists, that allows artists and their teams to identify priority songs, and Spotify will add that signal to the algorithms that shape personalized listening sessions.
- Showcase – a mobile card on Spotify’s new home feed that will introduce an artist’s music – new release or catalog – to likely listeners. We’re just starting to test Showcase with artists and labels and will make it more widely available in the near future.
MORE: 25% of artists earning $10K+ on Spotify are self-distributed, as total payouts near $40B
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.
