Consumer Mobile tracking habits over time
Mobile apps as well as mobile websites and websites on all platforms track what people are interested in. They do this through allowing cookies to trace what it is your looking at specifically on their site so they can market certain things to you. This is very beneficial to not only the companies running the sites, but also us consumers because it can expose certain products to us that we were unfamiliar with and save us time not having to scroll through the things we don’t want to see. Many people see this as an invasion of privacy, and I may agree, but in today’s world I see it as inevitable. With that being said I will normally give into this process and allow these sites to track what I am interested in because a lot of times they can show me something that I actually do like. Instagram is one app that does a very good job at this as I have experience buying things that have popped up as “random” ads. Sometimes it is a little creepy I will say, but just this past Christmas I got a gift for a friend from one of these advertisements.
I am someone is very big into music; I love developing my taste and finding new music and artists that I can share to my friends. I have always been someone who takes pride in finding the song that blows up before it blows up. For a while I was pretty good at finding these songs and just new music in general. I’m not exactly sure why but for some reason it started getting harder for me. During this time, I was using an app called Musi, and then transferred to Apple Music after a couple of years. I used Apple Music for a while and really began to love it since it was the first music platform, I had a subscription too. I was obsessed with lengthening my playlists and having the playlist that all my friends use. And then it became very dry.
Apple Music does a poor job helping you find more music. In the article above by Popneuro.com, it talks about how the number of options we have many times limits us from trying to discover new music. With Apple Music you have everything at your fingertips, but you have no clue where to start. This is when a friend I had who was a long time Spotify user told me about how Spotify has helped him find so much more music than he ever has before. Me being curious, cancelled my Apple Music subscription and decided to give Spotify a try.
What Spotify offers is a multitude of methods to finding new music. It’s simplest one is adding smart shuffle to your playlist. What this does is it adds new music to your playlist based off the songs you are currently listening to. It can base it off your mood, type of artist, or whatever genre of music you are listening to. It will add new music from a different artist or possibly something new from an artist you love. Once I found this out, I have never looked back. Spotify also offers you a Weekly Mix which will show you songs based off the music you have been listening to this past week. And then they also give you a Daily Mix which still includes music you already know, but have been listening to frequently along with suggestions based off those songs. In the article by Raul-Guerrero.com, it talks about Spotify’s deep understanding of their listeners psychology. And I believe this to be true, Spotify’s way of understanding what you are looking for, and presenting it to you without having to go out of your way to find is a phenomenal process and has benefitted me greatly since becoming a subscriber.
By: Dominic Graci
References:
https://www.popneuro.com/neuromarketing-blog/spotify-consumer-psychology-choice-decision-making-happiness-music-discovery-paradox-of-choice
https://www.raul-guerrero.com/blog-archive/how-does-spotify-tap-into-consumer-psychology