The Swedish streaming service recently added four spanking new engagement stats on Spotify for Artists. In this article, you will learn how to access, interpret, and utilize these four stats to the benefit of your artist brand.
Spotify Audience Metrics: Old versus New
It is not uncommon for artists to put out documentaries of how they struggled in their formative years, a good example is the off-season documentary film recently released by Jermaine Cole.
Like an artist, the journey of becoming a fan can be very interesting. Some listeners get converted via late-night talk show performances, word of mouth, YouTube reviews, Instagram influencers, Facebook communities, Reddit groups, Spotify Playlists, Marquee Ads, and many more. The list is endless, but the discovery avenues that matter most are the ones that can be pinpointed, traced, and reused. That is why Spotify for Artists is a powerful tool for building a cult-like fanbase.
In the past, Spotify only provided artists and labels with conventional engagement metrics such as listens, clicks, impressions, and reach. However, they got negative feedback from artists complaining about the lack of depth and key metrics on the data provided on Spotify for artists. This is still a small improvement in the Beta test phase but it’s already available and better than before.
The New Spotify Audience Engagement Stats
It is true that your artistry is defined by your personality and personal experiences. However, as you grow in this cut-throat music game, your decisions and art will be colored by the audiences your music attracts. You would have to speak their language, connect with them, tour their various locations, dress like them and maybe give them a shoutout in your songs. To do any of these, you must first know them.
Under the “Audience” section on Spotify for artists, you can access your listeners’ data. You can limit the data to a specific timeframe. Here, you can know the “source of streams”, as your streams can come from your profile and
catalog, playlists, library, and other undefined sources. The monthly listeners’ data is updated daily to help artists improve their Spotify campaigns, but it shows the number of users who stream your song(s) during a 28-day duration.
Also, you have access to the demographics of your listeners such as age, country/city, gender, and predilections.
Streams / Listener
The average number of times your listeners played your songs. A higher streams/listener indicates a higher audience engagement.
Saves
The number of times people saved your music to their library, showing an intention to listen again in the future.
One advice artists get when they ask for the best way to grow their Spotify presence is to up their save rate and start a pre-save campaign before the release. So does it mean to save a song on Spotify?
Your song is automatically saved to a Spotify user’s library when the person likes your music by clicking the heart icon or playlists your song.
Playlist Adds
The number of times people added your music to their playlists, showing an intention to listen again in the future. Now, you have easy access to the total number of playlists your songs were added to.
Before, you only had access to the top 100 playlists your songs are on. These playlists are arranged according to the number of streams amassed from them. If you are checking your Spotify for Artists dashboard via the web, your song needs not less than 2 listeners from a playlist to be visible on your end. If you are using the Spotify for Artists mobile application, your song needs not less than 25 streams for the playlist to be visible to you.
Intent rate
The percentage of your listeners who saved or playlisted your music, showing an intention to listen again in the future. In the eyes of the Spotify algorithm, higher intent rate indicates a higher audience engagement.
The intent rate measures the percentage of listeners that saved or playlisted your song. A high intent rate shows that many listeners like your song and are interested in listening again in the future. According to a Spotify study, an increase in interest rate resulted in a 250% boost in the number of streams amassed by several artists six months after.
Final Thoughts
Artists like Travis Scott and Justin Beiber can sell-out shows (online and offline) at any time and day because they have built a cult-like following. The only way to do this is to build a strong relationship with your fans and these new stats can be used as great indicators to measure yours. Spotify is not just giving artists the avenue to get new listeners but also the chance to build a reliable fanbase. Seize the opportunity!