Spotify Wrapped is a brilliant piece of marketing. It’s brilliant for Spotify, it’s brilliant for the featured artists and it’s brilliant for music. But here are three ways it could be improved for independent artists.
Good for Spotify
Spotify Wrapped is a genius piece of earned marketing. Every year artists and fans voluntarily share the Spotify name and content across their social media profiles. For any non-Spotify users, the FOMO (fear of missing out) is off the charts. While for any existing Spotify users, it’s a reminder to listen again.
Good for featured artists
The biggest challenge facing independent artists is being heard. If you are included on a fan’s Spotify Wrapped you are getting free, third-party endorsement and promotion. It’s essentially saying, your music is good and you should listen.
Good for music
Can you think of another day when music is so front and central in your newsfeed? And it’s not just about a couple of artists like The Brits or The Grammy’s when Spotify Wrapped is released thousands or even millions of artists get to share their name and be shared.
Here are three ways Spotify Wrapped could be improved for independent artists:
1. Call out your most listened-to independent artists
Did you know that ¼ of all Spotify streams in 2022 came from independent artists? Wouldn’t it be great if Spotify created a specific card in their Story Reel specifically calling out your most listened-to independent artist? Imagine the sense of pride to be name-checked alongside a major-label star.
2. Allow fans to tip independent artists
Spotify currently allows fans to thank their most listened-to artists. The mechanic for thanking an artist is to share this achievement on your social media platforms. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could go one step further and leave a tip or financial reward to show your love, a simple Paypal or Apple / Android Pay donation could be massively beneficial. Even a small £1 or £5 donation would go a long way to boosting the notoriously low streaming royalties payouts.
Allow independent artists to thank their listeners
It wasn’t that long ago that Taylor Swift removed her music catalogue from Spotify, now she is the platform’s poster child with 26.1bn streams on Spotify in 2023 alone. Any fan that had Taylor Swift included in their Wrapped this year would have received a video thank you from Taylor herself. Why should this feature be limited to Taylor Swift? Wouldn’t it be great if every artist had the chance to upload a 10-second thank you video, that would be shared with any fans who featured them in their Spotify Wrapped? After all, fan loyalty is built on personal engagement, not faceless Streams.
Discover Right Chord Music’s most listened-to independent artist
Do you have further ideas?
Do you have other suggestions about how Spotify Wrapped could be improved for independent artists? If so drop us a note on X (Twitter) or Instagram you can find us @Rightchordmusic
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Words Mark Knight
