Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

In the battle of music streaming versus social, the major (at least Western) music streaming services have never fully committed to implementing social features. Spotify has come the closest: an early version offered direct messaging, and the company even acquired a handful of social media-related startups in 2016. However, the direct messaging feature was retired in 2017, with Spotify citing low user engagement. 

Perhaps the rollout never quite lined up with consumer behaviour. First, in-app messaging was too early for widespread adoption, and then – as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat became ever more established – it was too late. While Spotify has since launched collaborative playlists and a short-form video feed, these types of features cannot quite reach their full potential when users cannot message or leave comments – and users’ profiles and playlists are (perhaps somewhat intentionally) buried.

Clearly, timing plays a major role. But as the social landscape enters a new era, a new, critical window for streaming services to invest in social features may be opening up. Could it finally make sense for streaming platforms to go social?

Social media is at a tipping point

Two decades since the launch of Facebook, the social media industry is on the cusp of a new era, thanks to a combination of major cultural, political, and economic shifts:

• Companies like Meta, X and TikTok are facing mounting controversies over political manipulation, user privacy, misinformation, toxicity, and impacts on mental health

• Social apps have largely become entertainment platforms, rather than spaces to connect with friends and family

• Many platforms have shifted strategic focus from serving users to serving advertisers to increasingly, serving themselves

• U.S. platforms are under pressure to align with Trump’s agenda, leading to further divisiveness

• Now that all social apps have roughly the same feature set, users increasingly differentiate based on “vibe”

• Virtually every demographic now uses social media regularly (unlike the 2010s, when it was the domain of teenagers and college students)

• As a result of all the above, consumers want to spend less time on screens. When they do engage, they increasingly prefer to do so in smaller, more gated spaces and communities

There is a gap to be filled for a major social platform that is 1. actually social and 2. offers access to smaller, more gated communities with common interests. It will be difficult to get consumers to migrate to a brand-new social app. However, if the features they are looking for are integrated within a platform they already use daily, it could be a different story.

Music streaming needs to steal some of social’s time

As addictive social apps go all-in on entertainment, they compete not only with each other for time, but also with the likes of Spotify and Netflix. Social is eating entertainment. On average, consumers estimate that they spent 7.6 hours weekly on social video in Q4 2024, compared to 6.5 streaming music (source: MIDiA Research Q4 2024 consumer survey). Should social platforms deploy subscription offerings to drive new revenue, they will compete for spend, too.

This could be a window of opportunity for music to bite back at social

The risk for a company like Spotify in going social is that users become less reliant on the platforms’ owned playlists and algorithmic recommendations. By controlling more of what users listen to, Spotify can make maneuvers like directing users to lower-cost content, and charging artists and labels for Discovery Mode. But the reality is that streaming platforms are losing their grip on discovery. They are the fourth most popular sources of music discovery among 16-19-year-olds, while TikTok comes out on top. It is what comes after the discovery that matters, though, and unsurprisingly, those who discover via streaming services are more likely than those who discover via TikTok to listen to the artists’ other songs, add the song to their collections / playlists, and more. TikTok may be winning the battle, but streaming services can win the war – they just might have to look a bit more like TikTok to do so (Source: MIDiA Research Q4 2024 consumer survey).

Even 12 months ago, social features on streaming services would have been a harder sell. Consumers seemed to prefer having access to every element of social — shopping, entertainment, news, friends’ updates – in one place, and may not have been persuaded to join a music-centric experience. The mood is shifting. Being offline is the new status symbol. Audiences are looking for more gated spaces to connect, like Discord channels and Signal groups. And again, there is ironically a gap to be filled for social platforms that are social.

Streaming platforms which adopt more robust social features could incorporate this kind of messaging into their marketing, offering spaces for fans to be truly social and connect in smaller, safer communities around the music they love. The smaller platforms which already do so – like SoundCloud and Audiomack – could double down. Spotify’s “Music Pro” tier is one step forward, reportedly allowing users to modify tracks, but these kinds of features will always fall short if users lack the ability to share, like, and comment. Going all-in on social may feel like a bit of a gamble, but the conditions are looking better than ever for streaming to take the bet.