Music is a social sport best played with friends. Whether word-of-mouth music discovery happens in person, across a messaging app, or over some kind of livestream, it’s always a special thing. So much so that there have been many attempts to form social networks solely around music. Music enthusiasts crave the thrill of finding a new song or artist as early as possible. Unfortunately, none of these music-focused social services have been able to stick in a meaningful way.
Instead, people flow toward general-use networks like Facebook Groups, Reddit, Twitter, Clubhouse rooms, and the like for social music discovery, because that’s where their friends are. The biggest opportunity for social listening to catch on in the future, however, is directly at the source. Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and other streaming music services could be the modern-day record store hangouts if they wanted. They’re not there yet, but they do have social listening features that could help you discover what your friends are listening to and share your tastes to others.
“We believe music discovery happens through a combination of our personalized and editorially curated playlists along with our product features that connect listeners together on platform,” said Sten Garmark, VP of product at Spotify.
“When we initially rolled our Group Session in beta in May 2020, we saw a positive reaction from our users but quickly learned that listeners around the world crave the remote listening feature,” said Garmark. “So we took Group Session one step further in July 2020, with brand-new functionality that allows Spotify Premium users around the world to tune into the same playlist or podcast simultaneously. The feature is currently still in beta, and we’ll continue to look to users for feedback to evolve and innovate the experience over time.”
Neither Apple Music nor Pandora yet have features that will let friends listen to music simultaneously, but they could be on the way. Pandora, specifically, launched its digital radio service on the strength of its music discovery, assisted by its Music Genome Project. Although it integrates listener feedback through its Thumbs Up buttons, those integrations are only very loosely tied to influencing friends’ listening with Thumbprint Radio.
“Pandora invented personalized, mass-scale online music discovery and has remained an industry innovation leader,” said Chris Phillips, the EVP and chief product and technology officer at SiriusXM/Pandora. “Sharing is at the heart of amplifying discovery, so we make it as effortless as possible for Pandora users to share their favorite songs, albums, playlists, and stations with their friends and networks.”
After a year of being socially distant, more social features would be invaluable. None of the music services we spoke to were willing to discuss their plans for better social listening. There are plenty of opportunities for those services to create sticky environments though.
On the other side of the entertainment industry, streaming video platforms like Disney+, Hulu, and Sling were all quick to add social viewing features. These product enhancements include synchronized video playback with friends and allow interactions ranging from sending emojis to showing live video of viewers alongside the content. Can this rapid adoption of more social features work for Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music to encourage more listening with others? Or is this largely a pipe dream of some music nerds?
For now, here are the social features that these platforms offer and how to use them.
The first thing you’ll want to do to be social on Spotify is follow friends, which will allow easier sharing and quicker use of Group Sessions in the future.
To follow Facebook friends on Spotify, tap the gear icon in the top-right corner of the mobile app and select View Profile. Once there, tap the dots in the top-right corner and select Find Friends. Log in to your Facebook account when prompted and tap to select individual people or to follow all.
Use the search box if you know someone’s Spotify username and follow them that way too.
To see friends’ listening activity, you’ll need to be using Spotify’s desktop app. Head to the settings and click on Display Options. Then select to display friends’ listening activity.
Sharing a song, album, or playlist is easy. Each song includes three dots next to it to like it, add it to a playlist, or share it. Tap Share to provide app-specific options for Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Messages, or copy the link and paste anywhere you would like.
Make a playlist collaborative to let other people add, remove, and reorder tracks. Make an existing playlist collaborative by going to the playlist and then tap the silhouette of a person with the plus sign. Then share the link to the playlist with anyone you would like to add to it.
To listen together in real time, use a Group Session. This will allow everyone invited to control what plays. Just play a song to get started.
A speaker icon will appear on the now-playing screen under the Play/Pause button. (The name of your headphones will be displayed instead if you’re listening through wireless headphones.) Tap the icon and scroll down until you see the big green button that says Start Session. Invite up to five friends to join the session with you.
Start following friends on Apple Music at your profile. You can get there, on iOS 13, inside Apple Music, by tapping Listen Now along the bottom row. Then, in the top-right corner, tap the circle. Tap the first option, View Profile and scroll down until you see the big red button, Follow More Friends. Instead of Facebook friends like Spotify uses, contacts from your address book using Apple Music will be displayed.
If you don’t have a person’s contact information but know their Apple Music username, you can type that into the search box to find them.
You can now see what is being listened to by the people you are following in that same Listen Now section. Tap on a person’s profile and you can see playlists they’ve made, recent listening they’ve done, and the people they are following. Throughout Apple Music you may also see their profile picture on songs and albums to indicate they have listened to that selection at some point.
Long tap on a song, album, or playlist and then select the Share button. This will bring up contacts, apps, and other ways to share the item. Tap Copy in that list to get a link that can be shared anywhere.
You can find friends on Pandora through the profile section. First, tap the icon at the bottom of the main mobile app screen. Then, under your name, tap Followers and then Find Friends on the next screen. Here, you’ll be able to enter a person’s email (associated with their account) or log in to a Facebook account and connect with them.
To share music from the mobile app, tap on a song, album, or station and find the Share button to the right of the Play button. Touching it will bring up a menu to share to Instagram Stories, Snapchat, or a link to copy and paste it anywhere.
Thumbprint Radio is a personalized radio stream of songs you’ve thumbed up over the years. Once you have access to this station by thumbing up enough songs, you can share this station with friends and it will stay up to date as you thumb up more songs.
What happens if you subscribe to Pandora’s premium, on-demand option, but your friends don’t? They can still listen through the Premium Sessions feature. When you share a song, other people not subscribed will get the option to watch a short ad, and then they’ll gain access to whatever song or album you shared.
If you’re done sharing music, you can also hide your listening activity.
In Pandora’s mobile app, on the profile page, tap the gear icon in the top-right corner to get to the Privacy section. Here you can make your profile public or private. There’s also the option to turn Facebook’s connection on or off.
In Apple Music, head to your profile and tap Edit under your profile picture and name. Choose who you want to see your activity by default. On the same screen, add or remove playlists that show up on your profile and, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, toggle the option showing what you’re listening to.
For Spotify, head to settings on mobile and select Social. Turn on a private session to temporarily limit friends from seeing your current listening. Go farther and turn off all listening sharing with the toggle under private session. The Recently Played Artists switch removes artists that you’ve recently listened to from your profile.
While in a Group session, tapping Leave Session or End Session will stop your participation.
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