SPOTIFY NEW UPDATES
Recently, Spotify had its “2023“ stream in–event, where the DSP giants gave updates on the DSP and new features added. In this write–up, we will highlight the summary of the event, new features, and its implication for artistes. First, Spotify has over 10 million creators. This indicates that more and more individuals are becoming creators on Spotify. This is great for Spotify and fans (as this means many more options for them to listen to), but it also indicates more competition for artistes. The more creators we have, the more content will be out there, competing for the ears of the listeners.
Conversely, Spotify has surpassed half a billion monthly listeners across 184 countries and over 200 million subscribers. This is good news for all (both Spotify and artistes). For one, it means many more listeners can listen to your music and many fans for the artistes to reach through the platform. Increasing paying subscribers implies that the artistes can make more money through streams. This is because the streams generated by paying subscribers
are higher than the streams generated by a freemium account etc.
To buttress this, Spotify estimates that the 50th thousand most streamed artists on the platform generate more than $50,000 across all recorded revenue sources. Undoubtedly, more money is good news for the artistes. Also, this increase is not limited to artistes alone. Podcasts have also benefited from this. Five years ago, Spotify had just 10. Million podcast listeners. Noe, they can boast of over 100 million listeners. That is tremendous. One of the most significant updates announced by Spotify is the new tools and features that help artistes create a profitable career and grow their monthly listeners. Spotify aims to deepen connections between listeners and creators. One of the updates allows artistes to add 30–second videos to their pages, target superfans with special releases, and give higher-profile placements to merchandise and gig tickets. With this, artistes can now, through the platform, give their listeners more insight into their lives and crafts. Ultimately, it’s left for the artistes to utilise this creatively, but at least Spotify has given artistes the chance/platform. When properly used, artistes can create a world around their music and deepen connections with listeners, thereby developing long–term engagements with the fans.
Another significant addition is the countdown feature/page, which builds excitement around a pre–save on Spotify. The new feature allows artistes to set a timer counting down to their latest release and other momentum–building features to prompt a pre–save. It automatically reminds listeners about the release of new music. Spotify’s back–end data shows that 80% of users who pre–save a release stream the album within the first week. The countdown page allows fans to pre–save the music, pre–order merchandise, and preview the track listing. Through the countdown page, artistes can further promote new releases by creating hype for the release. This, in turn, pushes/increases the streams of the album in the first week of the release. The more streams the new album gets, the more the algorithm further promotes the songs, which leads to a higher increase/reach the song will get.
