Musicians and music fans should spend time with Spotify’s Fan Study
Spotify is quite brilliant at sharing insights and analytics. Their latest missive, “Fan Study,” should be required reading for everyone who wants to know how music distribution and consumption works in the streaming era.
The study centres are four topics: Reach, Engagement, Releases, and Merch. Drilling down into each topic will reveal 15 very specific things to think about when it comes to music, all of which can help musicians make the most of the tool that is streaming.
For example, Latin America is the region of the world that discovers the most new music. That could be very important for anyone with new material. And the study shows that the lines between boundaries between genres continue to blur. What could that mean for the music of the future?
Other areas to study:
- The platforms that are driving listeners to Spotify.
- Why it’s important to pay attention to fans who save tracks.
- How much more do hardcore fans listen that casual ones? (“The top 5% of your fans are listening six times more than all the rest combined.”)
Spotify is a powerful tool. Don’t get hung up on the top 50. Instead, use this information to find your niche with the right fans. Work on building slowly and over the long term. And like a fragile plant, you need to care for your presence on Spotify.
