Recreate the Viral Magic with the Spotify Effect

Also Inside: Use this hack to minimize your distractions.

Nov 02, 2023

I once remember hearing a story of a marketing manager being asked by their boss to “make them go viral,” if you’re in the marketing world for one year or over a decade, this is one of the worst things to be asked.

I wish I had a magic wand to “go viral.”

Spotify is one of those brands that may have figured out their “viral wand” with their annual Wrapped segment for users.

If you’re a Spotify user, you’re probably familiar with their annual “Wrapped” — a collection of your music listening analytics at the end of the year.

The bold, colorful, story-like graphics usually flood the social media feeds for a few weeks in December.

Sharing your top artists of the year, facts about users’ musical habits, and how many hours they’ve spent on Spotify listening.

The graphics are created to be shared easily on social channels like Instagram stories, Facebook, and Snapchat so everyone can show how many hours of Taylor Swift they listened to this year.

Don’t know what it is? Spotify took over the music scenes when it began offering users the abilities stream songs whenever they wanted while also providing recommendations to find new music.
In April 2023, Spotify surpassed 500 million users, of which about 40% are premium (paid) users, but the best part is that Spotify Wrapped is for everyone.

It’s a genius marketing tactic.

Spotify has found a way to combine something personal (users’ music habits) while making it social enough to share with the world.

They’ve found a way to take something done in private, mostly alone, and entice users to share it publicly.

This is the Spotify Effect.

5 Ways To Create Your Own “Spotify Effect”

Most brands don’t have 500 million users, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative with the users you do have.

How can you create some unique for your users with summaries, data, facts, and fun graphics?

This type of campaign will work well if you collect or have some data within your system.

Here are five ways to jumpstart your new campaign with as much “viral” approach as possible.

Granted, nothing is ever guaranteed regarding “going viral.”

Make it personal.

I recently discovered on my Amazon account my “Prime Subscription” has saved me $1,135 and 106 hours of shopping.

I Guarantee This Hack Will Make You More Diligent in Your Work

Instagram is a business-driving app for my brand, NJspots.

With over 86K followers, I must check it daily to ensure things are running smoothly.

But after a long day at my full-time job and a few hours of freelance work a day, I was mindlessly scrolling for 1–2 hours at night.

A few months ago, I ended this and added an app limit to my iPhone for Instagram.

Originally, I had it set to 20 minutes a day, but found I could not answer DMs and enjoy it all within that time.

So, I’ve extended it to 45 minutes a day.