Summary
SPOTIFY INDIA EXECUTES INDIA'S FIRST LONG-TERM TWITTER TREND-JACKING We entered trending conversations on Twitter, and promoted learning by hyper-contextualizing podcasts to trends IN REAL TIME. For example, when #TuesdayTrivia was trending we shared the ‘Brain Stuff' podcast that talked about what outer space smells like. For #WeekendVibes the ‘Stuff You Should Know' podcast revealed foods that release happy hormones!
Challenge
Our biggest advantage was the abundance of knowledge-based podcasts that were already available on Spotify. With genres like science and tech, history, motivation, personal finance, new languages, we had it all. So, our objective for 2022 was to: a. Make Spotify the default platform for audio learning b. Enable the discovery of self-enhancement titles
Objective
We're living in the golden age of podcasts. From true crime to comedy, the podcast industry is booming. India is already the third-largest podcast-listening market in the world. Every month new shows are launched, and new podcasters come into the limelight. Spotify, the home of music all around the world, is also the home to podcasts of different genres. But we aren't alone in this race, every other audio-streaming platform is out there promoting podcasts. So, to become the go-to platform and increase listenership in India, we needed to be disruptive and raise the bar. For that, we realized there was one category of podcasts, no one else was promoting. The knowledge-based podcasts.
Strategy
Our strategy was to bring knowledge-based podcasts on Twitter where every day 30 trending conversations help people find great content and inspiring stories. Thus, we arrived at our big idea – India's first long-term trend jacking. By entering every relevant trending conversation, we promoted learning by hyper-contextualizing podcasts to trends IN REAL TIME. To enter trending conversations, we partnered with Twitter to set up a specialized dashboard that uses AI and machine learning to predict trending conversations even before they hit the national trending list on Twitter. By using this tech, we could: Identify potential trends – Owing to the custom dashboard's algorithm, we could map conversations that were gaining traction, even before they appeared on Twitter's trending list. Map relevant conversations to Spotify podcasts – Before the activity began, we added over 200 podcasts to our dashboard's database. Then, it started mapping trending conversations to relevant podcast shows and episodes. For example: When National Sports Day was trending, we promoted the Indian History Podcast that shared stories of Major Dhyanchand. When the movie Brahmastra was trending, through ‘The Origin of Things' podcast, we shared the story of India's first multiplex, PVR, where they would probably watch the movie. Tweet real-time – We didn't have to wait for hours to enter trending conversations, as we fed in a database of keywords, tweets and podcast titles in the dashboard, from the list of over 200 podcasts on our app. Through a mind map, we also created cohorts out of our audiences according to their learning needs and served them with relevant podcasts. For example, ‘general trivia & theoretical knowledge' for those seeking trivia about trending topics, and ‘new languages' for those engaging with content in foreign languages.
Data
In no time, the dashboard's algorithm learned from our inputs and started recommending podcasts based on other trending conversations, which helped us leverage important learning-based topical days, such as #TeachersDay, #EngineersDay and #InternationalLiteracyDay. Apart from the key topicals, we also had fun with everyday trends on Twitter. For example, when #TuesdayTrivia was trending we shared the ‘Brain Stuff' podcast that talked about what the outer space smells like. For #WeekendVibes the ‘Stuff You Should Know' podcast revealed foods that release happy hormones! The month-long trend-jacking activity made Spotify the first brand in India and the second brand globally to master real-time messaging on social media.
Solution
Results
With this first-of-a-kind technology, we got India's curious learners hooked on knowledge-based podcasts on Spotify. All in all, we exceeded all expectations and went to increase the podcast listenership for Spotify India. Daily active users increased 2x resulting in 70% incremental listeners and Monthly active users went up by 40% With a total 66 tweets (53 planned & 13 unplanned) we received 10.5M reach & 32M impressions!
