Can Spotify Artists See Who Listens? (4+ Things They Can See)

Spotify is among the largest and most successful streaming platforms in the world. There are many thousands of artists on Spotify, and they are given various features within the platform.

Some Spotify users and artists find themselves wondering about these features and if Spotify artists can see who is listening to their music.

Spotify artists cannot see the names of users that listen to their music, but they can see the number of users who listen to their music, as well as their age, location, gender, and other information about their audience. This helps artists track their success and influence on the platform.

It is useful for artists to know who is listening to their music as this helps them to better design their promotions. Understanding the type of people that enjoy your music is a very useful tool for all artists.

Spotify is a comprehensive streaming platform, but does it give artists access to this information?

Can Spotify Artists See Who Listens To Their Music?

Spotify is a powerful streaming service with millions of users internationally. There are few streaming services that make as big of an impact as Spotify, and it is important for artists on the platform to know who is listening to their music to better connect with their audience.

Spotify Release Radar
Spotify artists can see information about their audiences, but they cannot see specific details about a given person (that is, no names, addresses, etc.)

Does Spotify allow artists to see who listens to their music?

The answer to this question is somewhat complex, as there are two ways of approaching it.

Spotify artists cannot see the specific people who listen to their music, and Spotify does not even provide the artist with users of the people that listen to their music, so from one perspective, Spotify artists cannot see who listens to their music.

However, Spotify does provide a vast amount of data to artists regarding the users who are listening to their music regularly.

Spotify does not allow artists to see an individual or specific profiles that are listening to their music, but it does provide detailed data about the users who do.

The platform provides artists with information about the gender of the people who listen to their music, as well as the age of their listeners, where they are in the world, which day of the week they listen to the music, how many people listen to the music, how long listeners play the music for, and even when the music is played.

map demographics
The information that artists get from Spotify can tell them where most of the audience comes from.

This means that while Spotify artists cannot see who exactly is listening to their music, they are provided with enough data about their audience to discover the demographic of people that enjoy their music.

For example, if a big part of your audience is male aged 20 to 30 from the U.S., that is helpful in figuring out how to market your music to that group.

This is an infinitely useful tool for Spotify artists and provides significant and usable data for advertising, promotions, and even just for keeping track of the success of their music.

Can Spotify Artists See Who Follows Them?

We have established that Spotify provides a great deal of audience information for artists that can be very useful in many ways, but can artists see the people or profiles that follow them?

The truth is that while Spotify does provide a vast amount of information for artists, it does not provide the name of individual accounts, profiles, or people who follow that artist.

spotify for artists (desktop)
Artists can use information from Spotify to get general information about their audience (how many followers they have and what regions of the world they live in).

This is mainly because if many thousands or millions of people follow the artist, it will be too difficult to display every profile.

However, Spotify does tell the artist how many profiles follow them and where they are in the world.

For example, as an artist, you might be able to see that you have 90,000 followers, and about 60% (54,000) are from the U.K.

Spotify also notifies artists when the gain follows, and they can track their followers over time. Spotify provides timeline data for how many followers the artist has when they gain followers and when they lose followers, and the artist can adjust the timeline that they see as they please.

So for example, you can see if you are gaining followers faster or slower than last week, last month, or last year. This might help an artist to tell if an ad campaign is working or not.

Understanding how many followers you have as a Spotify artist is important because it helps you track your influence on the platform and how many people are finding your music.

Spotify artists can also see the other artists that their audience follows, which can also be useful information to find out how their audience finds their music and what other music they enjoy.

Can Spotify Artists See Playlists That Use Their Songs?

Spotify is among the largest music and podcast streaming platforms in the world, but a major element of the platform is the ability to make, share, and contribute to playlists.

The way a playlist is set up by a user determines how it can be interacted with, but there are thousands of playlists on the platform, and many more are made every day.

Spotify Playlist
Artists can see the playlists that their songs are added to – but only if the playlist is public.

This leads some to wonder if Spotify artists can see it when their music is placed onto playlists.

Spotify artists can see the playlists that their songs are added to. They can see the name of the playlist, the other songs in the playlist, when their song was added to the playlist, and the name of the profile that created the playlist.

However, this is only true if the playlist is made public.

If the playlist is listed as private, which means that only the user who created it can see it or has access to it, then the artist cannot see the playlist, even when their music is added to it.

Only public playlists are in the public domain of the platform, and therefore artists can only see public playlists that their music is added.

(You can learn about various types of Spotify playlists – and how to get added to one – here).

Can Spotify Artists See If Their Playlists Are Played?

Spotify artists can see the playlists that their music is added to, and they are also able to create their own playlists and add their music to them, as well as tracks from other artists. Is it possible for artists to see when their playlists are listened to?

It is not necessarily possible for artists to see when their playlists are listened to, but if people find their playlist and follow it, they can see how many people follow their playlist and they can see how many people listen to the playlist.

However, for this to happen, the playlist must be made public. Artists can create these public playlists and even display them on their profiles if they so choose.

Conclusion

Spotify artists are provided with a vast amount of information about their listening audience, but Spotify keeps the individual users who listen to their music private. It would simply be impossible to display the names and profiles of every user who listens to some artists’ music.

With that in mind, Spotify artists can see how many people are listening to their music, where they are in the world, and when they listen to their music and even have a live meter that shows them how many people are listening to their music right now.

You might also want to learn how Spotify pays artists – you can read up on it here.

You can learn about DistroKid (and what it does) here.

You can learn about selling beats here.

You can find out about other ways to promote your music here.

References

https://artists.spotify.com/en/help/article/listener-and-follower-data

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