FeverBee's Richard Millington takes a deep dive into Spotify's online community. Benchmarking against best practices and making recommendations for improvement.

1. S P O T I F Y
C O M M U N I T Y
B R E A K DO W N
By Richard Millington,
www.feverbee.com

2. O V E R V I E W

3. 3
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYOVERVIEW
DESCRIPTION
PLATFORM Khoros (Lithium)
CATEGORY Customer Community
TYPE Support (with ideation / general discussions)
LAUNCHED 2012 (GetSatisfaction community 2008 - 2012)
MEMBERSHIP 7m (approx 3% of active users, 6% of paying
customers)NEW REGISTRATIONS PER DAY
(EST) 78*
SOLUTIONS 28,663 (approx 13 new per day*)
POSTS PER DAY (EST) 100*
* per day numbers calculated by comparing current totals to past totals via archive.org and averaging results

4. 4
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYSTRUCTURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
HELP Q&A For members to ask questions and help one another.
MUSIC CHAT To talk about music and content on Spotify
ROCK STARS Superuser program to support and reward the top members
IDEAS Members can submit feature ideas for Spotify
BLOG Latest news about Spotify, content on Spotify, and the community.
OTHER Social media, developer sites, knowledge base

5. 5
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYFEATURES
PLATFORM FEATURE
FORUMS
Q&A
BLOGS
TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE BASE
GAMIFICATION
CROWDSOURCED IDEAS
VALUE ANALYTICS
GROUPS
RATINGS AND REVIEWS
CONTESTS
MEDIA

6. 6
PRESENTATION TITLE COPY GOES ON HERETITLE TEXT Spotify’s community appears
to be in the maturity phase of
the lifecycle with a plateauing
rate of growth

7. 7
The Spotify Community is a mature community
which will continue to grow but at a slower rate
than before.
it’s worth noting community growth (0.4% per
year) lags far behind customer growth (2% to 4%
per year).
This means further engagement from the
community is likely to come from getting
existing members to do more rather than
attracting more members. At present we can see
most members who join don’t ask a question or
contribute a post.
Mature Community
SUMMARY
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYOVERVIEW

8. C O M M U N I T Y D E S I G N

9. 9
However, this add too
closely resembles an ugly
banner ad and should
probably be rethought.
This is ‘the fold’ line where
members have to scroll down to
see more. The banner is a little
too big and should be shrunk so
people can see the icons below.
No-one will see ‘music chat’ for
example, unless they scroll down.
Could clear list of priorities
showing where members
can participate and how
active each is
The blog is ok, but might
benefit from showing more
members activity here.
Needs a clearer registration link
Would love to see
trending topics here.
Two clear calls to action are
subscribe to a premium
account and search the
community. These both
appear above the fold.
No area for newcomers to get
to know the community. Also
far too much static content on
this page.

10. 10
This only displays posts
answered by staff and
MVPs (Rock Stars). Would
be better to show the most
popular topics / music chat
topics and/or unanswered
questions.
Who is this useful to? Why not
follow the top community
members individually here
instead? Promotes the top
members and provides better
content than a list of someone
else questions.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

11. 11
The community is well
designed for mobile with
boxes easily dropping
below one another.
The subscribe option should be
removed. People are less likely to
sign up for Spotify by mobile.
These stats can be removed from
mobile to help members find what
they want easier.
All unessential text / static content
should be removed from the mobile
experience. Members don’t want to
scroll with their thumbs to find
what they need.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

12. 12
SPOTIFY’S WEB DESIGN BENCHMARKS
ASTHETICS
NEWCOMERS
ACTIVITY
MOBILE
LEVEL
0 - 1
NAVIGATION
CALLS TO ACTION
LEVEL
1 - 2
LEVEL
2 - 3
LEVEL
3 - 4
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

13. S E A R C H

14. 14
The native search functionality is relatively
poor in the few test we made. This
community urgently needs a unified search
option to retrieve information from multiple
sources. The results pulled from search are
prioritised by likes which skews towards
The results appear to be prioritised by
the number of likes they receive. This
biases the ranking to the older and
more emotively charged responses
instead of the most accurate responses.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

15. 15
Community search results are clearly inferior to the results retrieved from the support center. In many places (like search) this
results in the community competing against its own support center. A unified search option would likely solve this and enable
community results to appear alongside support results (and vice-versa). Would recommend using Coveo or SearchUnify for this.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

16. E N G A G E M E N T
B E N C H M A R K S

17. 17
The help community has
multiple, distinct, categories
with limited overlap.
However they are not clearly
listed alphabetically or by
popularity. We would
recommend listing them by
popularity in the
community.
With few exceptions,
there is very recent
activity in nearly every
category. This is a
remarkable level of
social density.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

18. 18
Clear tags to distinguish
which questions have a
response by a staff
member (moderators) and
which have been accepted
as a solution by the
member.
As best as we can tell, the
community has a 100%
answer rate. This is a
remarkably achievement
for any community. Rock
Stars provide around 80%
of the responses.
The community accepted
solution rate seems to
hover around 15% to 25%
The subject titles are usually
clear. However there are still a
few 1 word, foreign language,
or otherwise unclear questions
creeping in that need to be
addressed.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

19. 19
Community responses are
generally friendly, welcoming,
clear, and delivered in a personal
way using an @mention.
This suggests the Rock Stars have
been trained to answer questions.
Clear signature highlighting the
responder isn’t an employee and
trying to increase the number of
accepted solutions on questions.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

20. 20
The similarity in responses suggests Rock Stars have been trained to provide answers in a friendly, personable, way. The only
downside is many responses start to seem a little ‘too’ similar to one another.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

21. 21
PRESENTATION TITLE COPY GOES ON HERE
It would be better to show a lot
more activity here from community
members. This should feel like a
thriving hub of people discussing
their favourite music, not a carefully
curated selection of content.
Would be much better to show the
top 10 playlists published by
community members instead of just
a single playlist. Lets more people be
recognised and increases the odds
of visitors seeing something they like.
There’s no-one on this page to ask a question or
start a discussion. That’s an extra click deep. Just
let people start a discussion about music dammit!

22. 22
PRESENTATION TITLE COPY GOES ON HERE
Would be better to have the
trending / most popular questions
over the past month here instead of
the latest answers which might only
appeal to a tiny segment of
members.
You could build a powerful
community around playlist
exchange. This post needs to share a
lot more content from members
here. Don’t say what they can do,
show them people doing it.

23. 23
This blog post is 2 months out of
date. It’s unnecessary too. Just list
the most popular ideas at the top
right now and remove this.
The top ideas are interestingly
displayed. Might benefit from a FitBit
Idea sections should show the latest
implemented ideas at the top to
motivate more people to post their
ideas.

24. 24
The ideas section is very
active, but the presentation
could be improved. Show the
tags so people can search
ideas by different stages of
the cycle.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

25. 25
This example from Fitbit
shows a good way to run an
ideas section. Members can
see the ideas which have
been implemented,
popularity of ideas, and
browse ideas by their status.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

26. 26
ENGAGEMENT BENCHMARKS
FRIENDLINESS
PERSONALIZATION
KNOWLEDGE
RESOLUTION
INFLUENCE
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
ENGAGEMENT BENCHMARKS BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

27. M V P /
S U P E R U S E R
P R O G R A M

28. 28
The Spotify Rockstar program is
fairly well documented without
being overly specific on how you
can be invited to join.Instead you
express an interest and when you
reach a fixed amount of activity,
you are invited.
This essentially lets Spotify
exclude members who they feel
wouldn’t be a good fit but still
match the requirements.

29. 29
Interestingly the Rock Stars
aren’t listed by the number
of accepted solutions, but is
likely a combination of
points earned over a fixed
period (typically 3 to 6
months). RockStars have many
unique abilities. They have
permissions to move ideas
from one status to another.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

30. 30
Rockstars also can use the
@AskRockStars Twitter
handle and respond to
questions mentioning Spotify.
This is an impressive and
proactive way to increase the
value of the RockStar
program.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

31. 31
Spotify has a unique reward scheme which relies
primarily on tangible rewards albeit with some unique
access to features when members hit a higher
number of points.
Interestingly, several of these rewards are sponsored
by other companies. We haven’t previously seen
sponsored rewards before and it might be an avenue
other brands could explore.
The top 10 RockStars each year are flown in to attend
‘Rock Star Jam’ in Stockholm where they can talk
about Spotify with the Spotify team.
Plenty of rewards, some sponsored
REWARD
SCHEME
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

32. 32
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYREWARDS
POINTS REWARD
15 Clear plastic beach ball.
30 5 Rock Star Program stickers
45 Spotify Lanyard
60 Classic ping-pong balls tube and capped with logo
75 1 month of Premium
80 24 oz h2go aluminium classic (bottle)
120 The aluminium bottle, ping pong balls, and beach ball
200 3 months of premium
230 Spotify Mug
250 American Apparel 2001 “Burst” Branded Tea with Logo
250 Rock Star Program 2.0 shirt
255 Spotify fidget spinner

33. 33
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITYREWARDS
POINTS REWARD
275 Black fleece blanket
300 Vanity name in the community (username of choice)
375 6 months premium
400 Join New Features Beta Group
450 One year of ‘Headspace’ App
475 Brookstone Boost Power Bank
500 Rock Star Hoodie
500 Alternative Rocky Eco Fleece Hoodie
500 American Apparel Flex Fleece Zip
700 12 months of Spotify Premium
1,500 Grey Urbanears Plattan 2 Headphones
2,800 Marshal Monitor Bluetooth Headphones

34. 34
SPOTIFY SUPERUSER PROGRAM BENCHMARKS
DOCUMENTATION
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
REWARDS/INCENTIVES
STRUCTURE AND ROLES
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
PERMISSIONS/ACCESS
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

35. G A M I F I C A T I O N

36. 36
The community has
levels ranging 0 up to
(at minimum 25 (could
be a lot higher). Levels
aren’t based solely upon
a single metric, but use
a formula incorporating
multiple behavior types
(likely # kudos,
accepted solutions, and
posts).
The top badges are
displayed but it’s not
immediately clear what
they are. These profiles
feel disappointing. Why
not include favourite
bands, playlists, top
contributions etc?
Levels are displayed
next to all community
member contributions.
Full breakdown of
member contributions
are displayed in
‘statistics’. Might be
useful to show rankings
for each.
Note members can only earn specialisms in a
particular field. This is good practice.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

37. 37
This is far too many badges for
any to be truly meaningful. They
are also badly prioritised. We
would recommend significantly
revamping the gamification
program with fewer badges,
better names, and tied to other
actions on Spotify via an API.
Too many of these badges
reward the most pointless
behavior. These crowd out
truly impressive
achievements
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

38. 38
Only member who have opted
into the Rock Star program
receive a ranking. Only the top 10
rankings appear.

39. 39
SPOTIFY GAMIFICATION BENCHMARKS
LEVELS
BADGES
REPUTATION
MISSIONS
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
GETTING STARTED
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

40. O N B O A R D I N G
B E N C H M A R K S

41. 41
The community is very hard
to find. It doesn’t appear in
the navigation bar.
It doesn’t appear here
neither.
It doesn’t even appear in
the ‘communities’ menu (!!!)

42. 42
To access the community
you first need to click ‘help’.
This isn’t very intuitive.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

43. 43
…this takes you to the support
site. You need need to scroll
‘below the fold’ and click the
‘visit community link. And this
only takes you to the
knowledge centre with less
information than the support
site!
There are clearly some
fundamental problems with
how the community is
discovered. This link should
at LEAST take members to
the community homepage.

44. 44
Spotify benefits from rich
featured snippets appearing
in Google search results. The
majority of traffic to the
community likely comes
from search.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

45. 45
The community doesn’t
have an entirely unique
registration option. Instead it
uses single sign-on with
spotify.com. If you sign up
for Spotify, you can access
the community However, there is also an
additional community-
specific step we didn’t
capture here.
There is no onboarding past
this step. Newcomers are
dropped into the guide
without any newcomer
section, guide, or support.

46. 46
There is no post-community
journey or next steps to take.
This is the only recognition
of someone’s time in the
community.
This email oddly
appears from
‘community mailer’,
would benefit from a
real person here.
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

47. 47
SPOTIFY ONBOARDING BENCHMARKS
REGISTRATION
POST REGISTRATION
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
PRE-REGISTRATION
ONBOARDING BENCHMARKS BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

48. O V E R A L L
B E N C H M A R K S

49. OVERALL BENCHMARKS
49
ENGAGEMENT
MVP / SUPERUSERS
GAMIFICATION
ONBOARDING
D
COMMUNITY DESIGN
C B A
MEMBER PROFILES
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

50. 50
The Spotify Community is a mature community with some remarkable strengths. These are a broadly enthusiastic community, a fairly
high level of activity, an outstanding MVP program (which answers almost every question), a thriving ideas section, and a rapidly
growing music-chat community. However it also needs to tackle some clear weaknesses.
• Address the limited visibility within Spotify is a major concern. It’s almost impossible to find from the main website today.
• The lack of a unified search feature is also another clear drawback. The community and support section shouldn’t be in competition
with one another.
• Improve the onboarding of new members (which is non-existent today).
• Redesign the homepage to show trending questions/unanswered questions.
• Redesign the music-chat area.
GOOD COMMUNITY, COULD BE GREAT
COMMUNITY RATING: [ B ]
BREAKDOWN OF SPOTIFY’S ONLINE COMMUNITY