Spotify has launched a brand new fan insights analytics dashboard for artists to help give them more useful data on how to interact, engage and track the people listening to their music.
The dashboard is currently only in "limited beta" for desktop computers and a basic version has been rolled out for mobile, but the new concept could change how fans and artists interact on Spotify.
In the past artists have just looked at streaming numbers, but have had a hard time looking at who was actually looking at who was actually listening. This new dashboard hopes to rectify that problem.
Useful analytics has been a problem for artists who have complained of getting too much data and not having the time to sift through it to find what was useful. This was compounded by Spotify's previous partner Next Big Sound being bought by Pandora.
The main idea is that the new dashboard will help categorize fans who listen to an artist's music. Since there are new users signing up every day, it is logical that streaming numbers would increase.
Now fans have been put into four distinct categories based on how often to listen to an artist.
The first is a "fan," someone who pro-actively listened to an artist several times in the past few months and added them to their collections.
The second level is a streaker (no nudity), people who have listened to the artists every day over the past week. The third is a loyalist who listens to that certain artist more than anyone and then a regular who listens to a certain artist the majority of days during a month.
"In our interactions with artists and managers, getting a handle on fans and superfans in particular was a really high priority for them," says Spotify's VP of product Charlie Hellman in a walk-through of the new tool with Musically. "Those fans and superfans have a disproportionate impact on revenue: they're the people who'll buy tickets, VIP packages, merchandise and will be the social evangelists for the band."
Artists who want to sign up for the Beta can head to Spotify's website here.
