It’s that time of year again! While many have the holiday season on their mind, music lovers around the world are poring over their Spotify Wrapped review of the year. But just how does the media-streaming giant create this social media phenomenon?
The data-curated playlists and insights have been an annual occurrence for a few years now, but this year Spotify has made them more personalized and engaging than ever. What started as a simple compilation playlist of users’ top hits throughout the year has grown into something much bigger — just as Spotify itself has grown from its music streaming roots. Since its inception, Spotify has added and expanded dozens of features, including its library of podcasts and search-by-lyrics functionality.
Spotify continues to seek out innovation wherever it can — and its Wrapped playlists are no exception. To power new elements such as users’ binge-worthy podcasts and top genres of 2020, Spotify gathers data from qualified users. That means anyone who has created a Spotify account by November 15th, listened to at least five different artists, and at least 30 different songs. Streams are only counted if a user listens for at least 30 seconds and, for those users listening to downloaded tracks and playlists, offline plays will be counted the next time they go online, which they have to do at least once every 30 days to confirm their subscription anyway. With Wrapped being mobile-only for the first time, users will need to head to the homepage of the Spotify app, and tap the '2020 Wrapped' banner, or search for '2020 Wrapped' if it's not visible. Once in the Wrapped section, users can tap 'See how you listened in 2020' to view their personalized 2020 Wrapped experience, or they can go straight to their curated playlists.
Spotify 2020 Wrapped: Everything New & Improved
Spotify has come a long way in the last four years with Wrapped, turning a simple compilation of top-played songs into an interactive and shareable experience for its users. Last year, Spotify capped off the end of the decade with playlists for both 2019 and the entire decade. In 2020, they’re doing even more. New features like in-app quizzes have now added an interactive element to the experience. Spotify is also giving users more granular details about not just their music habits, but podcasts as well. Having expanded its podcast reach over the last few years, Spotify 2020 Wrapped includes information about how many total minutes users listened to podcasts, their top podcast with its listen-count, and even which podcasts users “marathoned,” with a count of the most episodes listened to of a single podcast in one day.
Music lovers will see many of the features from last year improved as well. For example, not only will they be able to see their top five songs and artists from 2020, but also a deeper dive into their number one streamed song with the 'Story of Your 2020.' This section shows the song they listened to most through Spotify, as well as details about when they first listened, when they streamed it for the 100th time, and their total number of streams in 2020. When their top artist for 2020 is revealed, they’ll also be able to see where they stand compared to other listeners.
Users can also now earn badges for such achievements as 'Tastemaker' if their playlists gained followers 'Pioneer' if they streamed a song before it hit 50,000 streams, and 'Collector' if they added a certain number of songs to their playlists. As always, users will have a playlist compiling a list of their 100 top-streamed songs from 2020. However, this year Spotify also offers a 'Missed Hits' playlist, with songs similar to their streaming habits, and 'On Record,' a compilation of users’ top artists and related podcasts.
Spotify once again makes it easy for users to share their Wrapped info in the form of a personalized card in one of four colors, perfect for Facebook, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, or Twitter. It has even created a Wrapped for non-Spotify users with global music trends from 2020. With Wrapped cards already dominating the feeds of social media everywhere, Spotify has proven once again to be ahead of the curve as a media streaming leader.
Source: Spotify Community