The Power Of Trending
If you are on any form of social media, you have likely seen one of your friends or followers post their Spotify Wrapped for 2021. It's a social media campaign that is insanely popular and has everyone posting their top songs and even has some non-Spotify users feeling left out and switching platforms.
Spotify Wrapped is displaying a new massively successful marketing push that combines social media and music. On the surface, it seems like a fun interactive promotion, but in reality, it is a multi-layered and brilliant form of branding. In this blog, Hollywood Branded discusses how Spotify Wrapped is becoming such a lucrative form of influencing and branding using social media.
What is Spotify Wrapped?
Spotify Wrapped is a marketing campaign that is released yearly towards the beginning of December for Spotify users. It was originally introduced in 2016 in a slightly different format compared to its current state, but the general idea was still the same. Wrapped essentially compiles user data about their favorite songs, artists, and music genres. People are given catered lists of their top 5 most listened to songs and they are even given a curated playlist based on their listening. As the popularity of Wrapped has increased, there have been new additions to the release. Podcast data was added and Spotify added more statistical information like being in the top 0.5% of listeners for a specific artist. Additions like these have been welcomed by many because it gives people an opportunity to prove that they are one of the biggest fans of their favorite artist.
Wrapped has absolutely exploded in popularity because of the unique variations to everyone's musical tastes. The seamless transition to post results on social media encourages everyone to compare with their friends. There have been countless opportunities for memes and general discussions on social media. The presence that Wrapped has imposed in the past 2 years during COVID-19 has been greater than all of the years before it. More people are talking about it by discussing how cool it is to track their music history and also some of the descriptive writing based on their listening. Either way, Wrapped is exploding in popularity year after year and has become a giant influence on social media. People are sharing their own music styles and influencing each other all while Spotify is reaping the benefits of one of the largest marketing campaigns ever.
How Wrapped Is Successful
For many people sharing their playlists, they don't know that they are being subconsciously influenced. The excitement in Wrapped is showing others what you enjoy and connect with the most. Sharing their favorite underground artist or underrated song is the most enjoyable experience because they get clout and recognition out of their post. Social media has become all about self-branding and Wrapped expertly focused on allowing the expansion of people's online personas. In reality, it's genius because everyone can become an influencer when posting their playlist data.
The interconnectivity that Wrapped provides is one of the reasons it is so successful. People who rarely use Spotify can see the thousands of posts on social media and get interested in using the app more heavily. People from different walks of life can realize that their music taste is the same or be exposed to genres they previously would never thought about. The sheer scale of posts about Wrapped are bound to connect with parents who could be inspired to go back and listen to their favorite rock album from their teens.
Paid Partnerships
One of the newer aspects of Wrapped that has entered due to its popularity and the rise of apps like TikTok has been influencer partnerships. While Spotify does get a massive amount of free promotion from their regular users, over the past 2 years they decided to begin employing popular influencers from Instagram and TikTok to promote Wrapped and in turn, the Spotify brand as a whole. Many of the ads from influencers are easily integrated because the posts look just like everyone else just simply sharing their end-of-year playlist. Without the addition of the hashtags like #ad or #sponsored, no one would even know the difference between a regular post sharing Wrapped or a paid promotion for Spotify.
Wrapped has already gained a lot of fans and users for Spotify just with its regular release. Adding the influencers to the marketing campaign has only improved the reach that can be felt. The key reason that many of the partnerships are so popular is because the product that Spotify is selling is an entertaining and interactive campaign that people are interested in. So for any fans who didn't automatically look at their Wrapped, Spotify then strategically laid out influencers and paid partnerships to entice the remaining holdouts to finally engage in the campaign.
Musicians Who Promoted Wrapped
Another genius aspect of the Wrapped promotion is that artists are heavily inclined to promote their music and in turn the Spotify brand as a whole. Artists can gain new fans from all over the world by posting their Wrapped which would most likely include their own music. For the most part many of the musician's aren't getting paid to promote Wrapped directly because they are already getting the benefit of recognition as a form of payment. This strategy is amazing because Spotify can spread the influence of the promotion through music artists who can easily promote their music to millions of fans through the hashtag on social media.
Some examples of musicians who inadvertently promoted Wrapped include the massively popular BTS, Jordin Sparks, and even one of my favorite artists, Tion Wayne. The wide variety of musicians who can post their Wrapped with ease is what makes fans and artists love it so much. For Spotify, worldwide stars like BTS drastically increase the number of users on the platform. Smaller artists who are grateful for their following already can then connect with their existing fans and promote their new music to people on social all at once.
Looking Forward To The Future
Wrapped and the Spotify brand by itself has already become a smashing hit online. Judging by the growth from the initial Wrapped in 2016 to now, it will only grow even larger in the years ahead. It is a great way to gain new users, entice them to use the app more, and keep them using it for a long time. As we have seen with current social media influencer culture, connecting to audiences online across the globe are vital for brands to be successful. Wrapped has provided a great formula that seems to be working for all parties involved along with great fan approval. Since music is something everyone listens to no matter their taste, it is a great way to market a brand efficiently. In the future, expect more brands to try and adopt more of the user-generated popularity on social media to make promotion vastly easier and stronger.
Learn More About The Strength Of Music Marketing
Music provides the opportunity for many varieties of brand integration and marketing. Learn even more about how social media and music can drastically increase recognition in these other Hollywood Branded blogs!
- Case Study: Product Placement In Pop Music
- Fashion Brands And Product Placement In Music Videos
- Why Popular TikTokers Are Transitioning To Musical Careers
- HB Roundup: Music Marketing
- Why Millennials Like For Brands To Sponsor Music Festivals
Want to know even more about how to connect music marketing to social media presence? Look no further than our video that explains the specific types of music to market your brand on social media and to different demographics!
