Get excited, music fans. A new feature is being tested on Spotify.
The music streaming platform is testing out a Stories feature that allows selected influencers to integrate videos into their private playlists, according to TechCrunch.
The influencer who was chosen as the first influencer to test this feature was the fashion and makeup YouTuber Summer McKeen. She currently has 2.33 million YouTube subscribers, 2.1 million Instagram followers and she has 126 thousand Spotify followers. Mckeen began using the feature in testing to introduce her playlist “All Time Besties”, which consists of her favourite songs.
The Stories feature that Spotify is testing is similar to the features on social media applications as this feature consists of short video clips that users tap to move onto the next clip or watch and the next video will appear automatically.
On the top of the videos are horizontal dashes that indicate how long the story is. The circular icon found right above the playlist’s title is where the stories will be posted for the users to see. The design of this feature was meant to catch users’ attention through the use of an animated preview of the video.
The story feature will uniquely include its use of music, as the influencer can also share video clips consisting of song snippets and the art of the album in order to preview the songs contained in the playlist.
The group of testers is being determined by multiple factors such as their follower count, how engaged their followers are and how active the influencer is. Mckeen was selected because she is on influencer who likes to make playlists and has multiple user-generated playlists that she shares, according to TechCrunch.
Spotify is not introducing this feature to its artists, because the story feature is meant to be a tool used for music discover and not for promotions. However, Spotify is not ruling out the chances of letting artists test out the Stories feature in the future.
The Stories feature is similar to the ones found of Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube; however, Spotify does not plan to turn its application into another social media platform. Spotify is reliant on the influencer’s use of their own social media platforms to get the word out to their fans about their playlists. For example, Mckeen posted a link of the playlist on her Instagram story.
The Spotify Stories can only be seen on iOS and Android but not on desktop, for now at least. The ability to view the stories is available to all Spotify Users both free and paid; however, there is a chance of that changing in the future. Spotify considers this product as a test for now and is open to consideration about a bigger rollout in the future.
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Written by Mayar Ibrahim. Photo credit: Shutterstock.