Spotify x Instagram
Case Study
Time: March 2017 - May 2018
Scope: UX, Conceptualization
Role: Product Design Lead
We partnered with Instagram to make it easy and fun for their users to share, recommend, and consume music through the Stories platform.
People share millions of tracks from Spotify everyday. The majority are one-to-one shares between users on direct messaging apps.
With over 600 million daily active users on Instagram and Snapchat, the Stories format is an opportunity to expand Spotify’s audience and to increase share engagement through one-to-many sharing.
Now Playing
A screenshot of Spotify’s “Now Playing” view shared on Instagram Stories.
Research
The team noticed people sharing screenshots of their Spotify listening activity on Snapchat and Instagram Stories. We investigated further and found that almost 1 million screenshots are taken in Spotify every day. People choose to share screenshots because they appear more “authentic” than standard links.
Stories offer a glimpse into our daily lives. The format gives creators new tools to express themselves with overlays, stickers, filters, and masks. Although it’s exciting to see people share what they’re listening to in their Stories, screenshots aren’t ideal for two reasons:
Screenshots are difficult to share - Spotify only supports sharing links, so users have to go through multiple steps and apps to share screenshots.
Screenshots aren’t interactive – there isn’t a way back for viewers to listen to the song on Spotify.
We developed a screenshot sharing test to reduce the friction to share and increase the consumption of shared content. The feature detects when a screenshot is taken in Spotify and displays a banner asking if you’d like to “Share this screenshot with friends.” A link to the song on Spotify makes it easy for recipients to start listening.
The test performed positively and encouraged us to explore deeper integrations with the Stories platform.
Mission Statement
Empower users to share their unique music identity through the Stories platform.
Goals
Increase Shares
We can increase the number of shares by reducing the friction to share to a platform that people are already using.
Increase Reach
We can increase the reach of each share by increasing the number of viewers. Unlike direct messages that are mostly one-to-one shares, Stories allow sharing content from one-to-many.
Increase Consumption
We can increase the consumption of shares by providing a link to easily listen to the song on Spotify.
Music Identity
Sketches from the team’s brainstorming session explored ways for users to express their “Music Identity” through Stories.
Exploration
I led a cross-functional design sprint to explore how the team could leverage the strengths of the Stories platform to empower users to share their music identities. I started our brainstorm session with Crazy Eights exercises to sketch out ideas. We each shared our favorite ideas and discussed them as a group.
The team’s sketches explored music video effects, artist masks, lip syncing, virtual instruments, face-swapped cover art, visualizations of listening data, and location-based AR experiences. After the session, I synthesized the group’s ideas and evaluated each one based on:
Opportunity - Will the idea lead to increased streams or sign ups?
Compelling - Is the idea engaging to users?
Product fit - Does the idea leverage Spotify’s strengths?
Replayability - Does the idea encourage repeated use?
Barriers to entry - What investments does the idea require?
The team voted on its favorite ideas. We fleshed out the concepts, I created animated prototypes for the most popular directions, and I made an experience catalog to share them with potential partners like Instagram, Snapchat, and Musical.ly (now TikTok).
Animated Prototypes
I created prototypes to show how users could share their music habits with compelling Stories.
Artist Lenses
Unlock custom lenses by listening to songs from popular artists. Unlocking provides exclusivity and authenticity to an artist’s biggest fans, but we’d need to develop custom assets and receive artist approval on a case-by-case basis. Although this was one of the most popular ideas, it was not scalable for the first iteration.
Playlist Filters
Be the cover artist on your favorite Spotify playlists. Unlike Artist Lenses, Playlist Filters give us flexibility and control over the assets, but they’re not as compelling to our users. Tracks represent 80% of the content shared from Spotify. Playlists are the second most shared content type, but they only represent 10% of shares. Playlist Filters would not optimize for the most common use case.
Now Playing Sticker
Quickly share what you’re listening to on Spotify. It’s automatically generated based on your “Now Playing” status, so it reduces the friction of manually searching for songs. At the same time, it provides authenticity since it only shows the current song you’re listening to. This was the most viable concept, so I iterated on additional executions around this idea.
Now Playing Explorations
I explored different executions to visualize a listener’s “Now Playing” status. AR lenses made a return in the form of headphones with music notes and song info animating above the user’s head. Other filters featured Spotify playlist branding, with song info replacing playlist titles.
One quick note about music rights. One way artists make money is by licensing their music to stream on Spotify. Another way is by licensing their songs for use in films, videos, television shows, and commercials. These are called sync rights because they allow the licensee to synchronize music with visual images.
The user-generated images and videos in Stories fall under this use case. Spotify does not currently have these rights, so any integration with the Stories platform cannot feature music directly from Spotify. Spotify is even at risk if users find a workaround to play music in their Stories, as long as the Spotify logo is present.
Share to Instagram Stories
The Share to Instagram Stories user flow.
Instagram Stories
We began working with the Instagram team in February 2018. The legal team was concerned about sync rights issues if users shared songs in their stories.
To get around this restriction, the final design blocks user-generated content with a color extracted background. We chose this implementation because it parallels the look of the “Now Playing” view, and since it’s generated based on the album art, it helps to keep the visuals of shared Stories fresh.
Users can share tracks, playlists, albums, and artists to Instagram Stories with a link to listen to the content on Spotify. They can resize and reposition the album artwork and customize their Story with stickers and text.
Story View
Viewers can tap the link at the top of the Story to listen to the song on Spotify.
Feature Launch
The feature was announced at F8 in May 2018.
Impact
The share to Instagram Stories feature provides new tools for creators to tell their stories. It’s an important component of Spotify’s strategy to build a two-sided marketplace for artists and fans to connect. It became Spotify’s second most popular share destination and achieved our goals to:
Increase the number of shares - the feature drove a 50% increase in overall daily shares.
Increase the reach of each share - tens of millions of Stories are shared from Spotify every month. These Stories generate hundreds of millions of impressions.
Increase the consumption of shares - shares through the Stories platform have 5x higher engagement per share than shares through direct messages.
Spotify’s competitors have launched similar features. A month later, Pandora teamed with Snapchat, and Soundcloud launched their own share to Instagram Stories feature in September.
Artist Tools
Artists like Selena Gomez and Charlie Puth are using the feature to engage with their followers.
Improvements
User testing revealed the Spotify attribution was too small. Users also expected their Stories to include audio clips of the shared song.
We were not able to resolve these issues before launch, but we addressed them when we partnered with the Facebook Stories team to build the feature for their platform. The success of the Share to Instagram Stories feature allowed the team to negotiate with music labels for the use of audio clips in Facebook Stories. The integration with Facebook Stories also includes animations and a larger CTA to play the song on Spotify.
New Spotify features open up additional opportunities for sharing. Spotify Canvas is a creative tool that gives artists the ability to upload their own visual loops to accompany their songs. Future iterations of this feature could leverage these animations to create even more visually compelling artist Stories.
Next Steps
The integration with Facebook Stories features improvements like audio clips and a more noticeable Spotify playback link. Future iterations of the feature could leverage Canvas to create stronger visual Stories that utilize the strengths of the platform.
Canvas Prototype
