Live Artist Rooms: building intimacy at scale on Spotify
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Connection
Spotify has always been a one sided marketplace where creators release content and fans consume it. There has never been a way for creators and fans to connect and share their love for each other.
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Reward
An artist’s top fans are incredibly valuable, in both monetary and non-monetary ways. Creators often want to thank their biggest fans, but don’t have lightweight ways of offering rewarding moments.
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Revenue
Streaming royalties don’t pay the bills for most artists. We needed to create new revenue streams for artists while also creating alternative business lines for Spotify.
Product area lead
Design lead
The team was tasked with creating a new fan monetization offering for fans and artists, and creating new revenue streams for Spotify.
As a product area lead, I co-led a 50-person product area at Spotify with a single mandate: create meaningful connection between artists and their top fans, and monetize it. I set the OKRs, shaped the roadmap from pilot to near-beta, and owned the design vision across all three products we shipped.
As design lead, I was responsible for the success of the design of the feature we were building. This involved guiding the designers I managed as well ass socializing the work outside of our immediate team and collaborating with designs across Spotify.
My roles for this project
We started with what the market was telling us — and what Spotify wasn't hearing yet.
The Creator Economy is shifting power away from attention-based businesses, to businesses built on fandom.
● Only 16,000 artists on Spotify earned more than $30k in royalties in 2021.
● >70% of income for middle tier artists already comes from outside of streaming. Artists are becoming increasingly dependent on the platforms that provide these new income streams which is incentivizing them to drive their fans, and marketing spend, there.
● The alternative path to success other than superstardom doesn’t exist on Spotify, yet. Success for artists is not just about scale, it’s about superfans.
Where it started
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Where it started •
This map, made by Hugo Amsellem, was one we referenced to get a birds eye view of the creator economy
We created a pilot program to get clearer insights
We ran a structured pilot with 3 artists and subsets of their superfans — weekly feedback sessions, rapid concept testing, willingness-to-pay probing. The pilot shaped every product decision that followed.
Our pilot consisted of 3 artists and a subset of their superfans. We spoke to them weekly and pitched various ideas to them to gauge interest, enthusiasm and willingness to pay.
Pretty quickly we narrowed in on an idea that appealed to artists and fans
While fans demonstrated some interest in having access to exclusive static content, their willingness to pay for it is low. However, their interest to have access to interactive content/experiences is much higher. They appreciate any opportunity to interact with their favorite artists in real time.
● Music-centric: An offering should not lose sight of the connecting thread of music
● Fosters intimacy: It’s an opportunity for fans to gather behind-the-scenes knowledge and insights about the artists and the music
● Builds community: Fans want to connect with their favorite artists as well as with other fans to enjoy a meaningful experience together
We ended up creating live audio rooms where artists can invite their top fans to have an intimate conversation with them.
The rooms offer chat functionality to foster a sense of community amongst fans and reactions in real-time to music and announcements from the artist.
We also allow artists to play new releases in the room so top fans get an early listen of new music.
Survey results from artists and fans95% fan satisfaction
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87% artist enthusiasm
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95% fan satisfaction • 87% artist enthusiasm •
Elohim, artist
“I want to use this for everything. New music, tour announcements, updates while on tour, releasing new merch…”
Jackson White, fan
“There’s nothing I value more than being able to speak directly to an artist I love.”
The really exciting part is that the rooms had a lasting effect on fan behavior
Fans didn’t just celebrate the artist in the moment. They increased their consumption of their catalog for weeks after attending the event.
The vision •
The vision •
While the current iteration of the live artist rooms are compelling, the real magic will happen when everything is available in the Spotify consumer app, artists can host rooms with or without video, and there are various offerings fans can choose to support the artist directly.
Takeaways from the experience
Building from a blank page with 50 people is a forcing function for clarity. You learn quickly that vision without communication is just a document nobody reads. This project taught me how to hold a team's energy across a long, uncertain arc and how to admit failure fast enough that it doesn't become drift. The results: 95% fan satisfaction, 87% artist enthusiasm, and sustained increase in catalog streaming for weeks after each event.