Why You Listen To Spotify’s Discover Weekly: The Psychology Behind Compelling Users to Take Action
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In the summer of 2015 Spotify announced “Discover Weekly,” (DW) its algorithmically-curated weekly playlist. Since then, DW has become such an integral part of Spotify users’ week to the point where one week when there was a bug with the playlist, users vented their frustration on Twitter. How did Spotify successfully engineer this craving?
By delving into the psychology behind Discover Weekly, artists and music companies can discover (pun intended) ways to market their music and businesses in a more compelling manner.
Creating Scarcity
A natural inclination is to give consumers as much as possible in order to seemingly deliver the most value; however, by replacing the playlist every week and taking away a sense of freedom from the user, urgency is created. This urgency prompts users to take action and listen to the playlist each week before it disappears.
Take away a users sense of freedom, compel them to take action against that interference of freedom.
Variable Reinforcement
Listeners of DW are rewarded with new music they will love but importantly, are not rewarded with every single song — they will most likely not enjoy every song on the playlist, but the act of listening to the playlist each Monday means they will most likely find one or two likeable songs. This possibility keeps users coming back. It is the anticipation of potentially finding a new favorite song that triggers dopamine in the brain and creates the “craving” feeling among users. This is a critical component to DW — if users liked every single song, there would be no excitement in the product. This concept is called “variable reinforcement” and is leveraged in all addicting products from social media to email to slot machines. One is not always rewarded (i.e., likes, shares, reply email, winning the slot machine) for their contribution — the anticipation of not knowing the end result is what makes these products so addicting.
The anticipation of finding a song you will enjoy is what keeps you coming back — each week you don’t know what to expect but hope that you will find your new favourite song.
Conditioning
By delivering a new playlist every Monday of the year, DW conditions its users to expect the playlist. This is similar to any other condition — if one has a a coffee everyday, one is conditioned for that coffee and becomes upset (and perhaps cranky!) if one does not get it; Spotify has achieved a similar phenomenon with DW
This type of conditioning and repetition is key in our lives — it helps make actions almost unconscious behaviours.
Combining these three elements — scarcity, variable reinforcement, and conditioning — creates an addictive product, making users feel the urgency and excitement to listen to their DW playlist every week.
Ok so how can artists or music companies utilize this knowledge…
Actionable Takeaways
Artists:
- Condition your fans: for example, pick a day of the week and do something on socials every week with a certain hashtag
- Create scarcity: for example, offer fans a free download of a song before it comes out for only 24 hours in exchange for their email address
- Stimulate variable reinforcement: for example, do a fanart contest and feature some fans artwork on your Instagram (not all…the anticipation of potentially being featured on your IG will compel fans to continue creating and posting)
Music Companies:
- Condition your users: highlight a specific product or feature of your platform each week (in the case of playlists and DSPs, perhaps have a “Playlist Focus” section that features some of the top user-generated playlists on the platform each week)
- Variable Reinforcement: find a way to get users to invest into your platform (create a profile, contribute to playlists, etc.), and reward them for their efforts; however, only reward them some of the times, to “hook” them into the product (points, badges, discounts, special access to certain content, etc.). Continuing the above DSP example, featuring several user-generated playlists on the platform each week will compel users to create more playlists and promote them (thereby free promotion for your platform) in order to try to be featured on the “Playlist Focus.”
