- Spotify introduces "Plays", which shows the number of users who listened to a particular podcast episode.
- This metric helps users discover popular content based on their play count and creators to optimize their content.
- The feature is rolling out for all Spotify users globally and can be found on a podcasts home page, episode page and show page.
Despite holding the top spot as a music streaming service, Spotify has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to podcasts, where YouTube is dominating. So, taking a page out of their book, Spotify is now adding a “Plays” feature or play count, making it possible for listeners and creators to check the number of times a podcast has been listened to.
The “Plays” feature will let you and creators directly see which podcast episode is garnering the most views on the Spotify app. In a recent newsroom post, Spotify explained that “Plays will capture engagement across audio and video content on Spotify, reflecting the number of times people have actively listened to or watched any episode”.
The Plays count will appear next to a podcast on the home page, episode page, and the show page. It is also going to be available on Spotify for creators and Megaphone. The aim of introducing plays is to encourage users to discover and listen to new podcasts, especially by looking at their view count.
It will also help creators check which episode worked best for them and which didn’t keep the listeners hooked. Based on these metrics, they can optimize their content to perform better on Spotify. The feature has started rolling out and should be visible to us on Spotify podcasts this week.
