The Swedish music streaming service is preparing to bring ephemeral content to its platform as well. This is what Spotify’s Stories will look like
The “Stories Mania” is coming to Spotify as well, with the name “Storyline”. After Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, then, even the famous music streaming service gives in to the market trend that sees Stories as the must have of the moment. But it does so in a very specific way and, this time, it might not be mere imitation but a feature that is actually useful, both for artists and their fans.
The Storylines of Spotify, in fact, will not be user-generated content but by the artists who publish their music on this platform. They will serve to tell curiosities or provide additional information about the tracks and, in fact, they will be displayed right below the player and will be linked to the single track. They will be available only on the iOS and Android apps and not also on Spotify Desktop. It’s not known, however, when they’ll be made available worldwide: at the moment, artists can only create their Stories in the US and a few other markets, but starting with version v8.5.5.853 they should be available to everyone.
How are Spotify’s Storylines
Aesthetically, Storylines are very similar to normal Stories seen on various social networks: a series of tabs where the artist can insert images and/or short texts. At the top there is a segmented line that makes us understand how many tabs the Storyline is composed of and we can swipe between one tab and another. To access the Storyline of a track we’ll have to lift the “Behind the Lyrics” tab, at the bottom of the Spotify user interface.
How to use Storylines to increase engagement
While on various social networks Stories are UGC (User Generated Content), on Spotify they can only be created by artists. This makes them an additional tool to increase the involvement of their fans and create an extra channel of communication with them. In fact, it will be possible to use Storylines to tell how a song was born, to provide fans with a few more details, to share artist photos or additional concepts more or less consistent with the song. Some artists, for example, are already using Storylines to share their thoughts expressed during an interview. Each track, therefore, thanks to the linked story can become a bit more multimedia and, consequently, a richer content to offer to those who follow us.