Spotify announced the addition of pages whose purpose is to help artists promote upcoming releases at their March Stream On event in Los Angeles. Artists have long lamented the fact that they have to create a separate landing page in order to encourage fans to pre-save so Spotify is finally giving them a fix.
Countdown Pages will give artists the ability to tease exclusive content, pre-order merchandise, preview track lists and add a timer counting down to a song or album release in one place. There will even be an option to add a pre-save button directly on Spotify.
The Jonas Brothers joined Global Head of Artists Partnerships and Audience, Joe Hadley, and Head of Editorial, Sulinna Ong, for the announcement of these new features. The Jo Bros endorsed Countdown Pages and Spotify also showcases clips of other artists endorsing the update, including Jennifer Lopez, Karol G, Luke Combs and 6lack.
Many in the industry believe having high pre-save numbers can help artists, particularly up-and-coming performers, increase their likelihood of being featured in one of Spotify’s playlists. The thought is high pre-save statistics equal high demand thus Spotify can assume the song will be popular.
This new pre-save option will send a push notification on release day to fans who have opted in, encouraging them to stream it in Spotify. Over 80% of pre-savers stream the song within its debut week, according to Spotify, so the new push notifications could improve this already high conversion rate.
With the new feature comes, you guessed it, video promotion. Artists will be able to include Clips, or snappy vertical video messages à la Instagram and TikTok Stories, to further promote their upcoming tracks. Previously, Clips were limited to specific playlists and the top artists. However, they will now be available to more entertainers and can be featured on their profile and Countdown Pages.
Ong seems to have specifically referenced the popular promotion trend of teasing songs on TikTok at the announcement. “There’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed,” she said. “The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify. That’s why we’ve built Countdown pages.”
So far, fans don’t seem to love the new video-heavy updates but, as with all these other social platform updates, we’ll see what happens as people get used to it.