With more scrolling on visual apps like TikTok or Instagram and less time scanning the radio, the way we discover new music has undoubtedly changed. Now, Instagram and Spotify have an integration to help close the gap between you and your new favorite song.
Instagram Expanded its Integration with Spotify for Directly Saving Songs
If you’re on Instagram, you know that music is not a new thing for the app. For some time, we’ve been able to add songs to our Instagram Reels, Stories, and posts. The social media app has also offered previous integration with Spotify, with the option to share a song to your Instagram Story directly from the Spotify app.
Somewhat counterintuitively, when encountering a Spotify song shared in a Story, you can’t actually hear the audio on Instagram. You have to tap Play on Spotify, after which you’ll be transported to the music app and can listen from there.
Now, things are about to change. With the new update from Instagram and Spotify, which has started its worldwide roll-out today, you can add a song to your Spotify’s Liked Songs list without leaving Instagram at all. All you have to do is tap on the audio featured in a Story or post, and you’ll find a new button to Add that song to Spotify.
In order to find this new feature, you’ll have to make sure your Instagram and Spotify app are both updated and linked.
Spotify’s support page
offers more details on how to link your account to social media apps.
An Olive Branch for Indie Artists
Instagram and Spotify have both received flack over the years for a lack of exposure and general support for emerging musical artists. This new integration will surely help connect the dots between more musicians and listeners, but will it make up for behavior that the apps have been accused of, such as Instagram’s “shadowbanning” of independent artists?
Despite the head of Instagram releasing a video last year promising to introduce measures which would increase transparency, some musicians still find their posts being buried if they are not engaging in a certain way.
Hopefully, the new feature will not only make it easier for you and me to find new music, but also help artists who are trying to reach new audiences. Switching between apps in order to listen and save a song might not seem like a big deal, but in today’s world, every second counts. Those little moments of inconvenience could be enough to dissuade us from actually saving the music we’re interested in.
Perhaps, the feature will also bring Spotify a step further in becoming the next great social media platform. Whether Spotify will actually step out as its own music-based social network remains to be seen, but in the meantime, it’s firmly hitching its wagon to Instagram.
