Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Hult-International Business School

Spotify vs. SoundCloud

Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Per Obiora

Neuro-Marketing – MKT - 405

Prince Ghuman & Matt Johnson

April 1, 2019

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Spotify vs. SoundCloud

Abstract

A report on the habit-forming qualities of the music streaming services of Spotify and

Soundcloud utilizing Nir Eyal’s Hooked model.

This report will attempt to examine the features of Spotify’s and Soundcloud’s music

streaming applications to understand how they trigger automatic behaviors and their ability to be

offset by specific situational cues respectively. Each application will be analyzed consecutively

by framing their 1. Triggers – External & Internal, 2. Actions, 3. Variable Rewards, 4.

Investments. The analysis of both applications through the hooked framework should present the

reader with useful information about the two companies’ individual efforts to pair their service

with a habit. This report will attempt to answer the questions revolving around the products

similarities and differences with a close-up lense on how these affect their habit-forming

qualities. Explicitly, by dissecting each feature that is applicable to the hooked model, and by

assessing them based on effectiveness, should show their individual impact on the customers

decisions. The first part of the report will focus on Spotify’s habit-forming features. The second

part on Soundcloud. The third part will suffice as a comparison to identify their hook-forming

similarities and differences in nature and design. The report will conclude with possible

improvements for each service as well as a discussion about potential ethical issues that are

raised with their habit-forming products.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

1. Spotify

Users of Spotify have two clear needs: 1. Stream, save and store their music, 2. Discover

new music by finding new artists and tracks. Those needs are very well aligned with Spotify’s

overall mission: “Give people access to all the music they want all the time-in a completely

legal and accessible way”. Let’s first identify each of Spotify’s features that contribute to the

hooked model by solving the customers’ needs.

Triggers

External Triggers – external cues that are “embedded with information, which tells the user

what to do next”.

Spotify’s external triggers are mostly conveyed through the word of mouth of its users;

relationship triggers. The call to action is mostly received through its existing users that are fond

of its simplicity to listen to mostly prominent artists.

Once a potential user comes to its website through a shared link, personal curiosity, or its

featured app store placement, there is a very prominent button that asks the user to sign up with

little to no engagement: “No credit card needed”, “free”.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Internal Triggers - “When a product becomes tightly coupled with a thought, an emotion, or

preexisting routine, it leverages an internal trigger”.

One internal trigger of Spotify is the negative emotion of boredom, which suffices as an

internal trigger to instigate the desire to be entertained – entertainment through easily accessible

music on Spotify. Even if a user is not fully aware of the feeling, just a spark of boredom can

initiate the willingness to listen to music: e.g. while walking to school. In their application we

can also identify their attempt to couple their music with a plethora of internal feelings and

routines by curating playlists for situations: such as one where “focus” is required:

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Spotify is very good at coupling internal feelings with the music on their platform. I.e.

they found a way to couple deeply rooted feelings such as the feeling of “Fernweh” to one’s

home country– which is more or less translated to the feeling of wanderlust, but the wanderlust

to your originating country:

Another Internal trigger is the possibility to see what your friends are listening to. By

coupling the feeling of loneliness with their feature of connecting Spotify to Facebook, one

might feel that they can delve into the mindset of his or her friends and feel an intimate &

internal connection to their friends by listening to the same music.

Actions – “To initiate action, doing must be easier than thinking. Remember a habit is a behavior

with little to no thought”.

Motivation – “All humans are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain”

Simply by providing all sorts of accessible music on the platform one can maximize

“pleasure” by listening to recommended music, favorite artists, or discover what friends are

listening to, while minimizing the “painful” experience of boredom.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Ability – “The capacity to do a particular behavior”

There is an innate human desire to be part of a group; historically different groups created

different music and by listening to different genres the individual can identify as belonging to

that group. The ability Spotify presents the user with very simplistic. The strenuous way of

acquiring music and finding new likeable artists, that a user can identify with is facilitated

through Spotify’s technology. The technology that Spotify uses takes out multiple steps for the

user to listen to music. It generally only takes about three click to start to listen: 1. Spotify icon,

2. Playlist, 3. Song to play. This makes the action simpler than thinking, ultimately contributing

to a habit, as it is a behavior with little to no thought.

While listening to music in one of your playlists, if the tracks available in the playlists

come to an end, Spotify doesn’t stop the music but keeps it playing by substituting the end with

similar songs that are based on the playlist. This effectively reduces the last piece of friction that

remains while listening to music, one does not even need to click replay.

Variable Rewards – “The Nucleus Accumbens was not activating when the reward was

received, but rather in anticipation of it”.

Rewards of the Tribe - “Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted,

attractive, important and included”.

Spotify allows the user to follow playlists and to be followed. Essentially, the time and

effort the users put into the content of their playlists can be acknowledged by the user’s friends

and Spotify’s community. This leads to a reward that makes the user feel accepted. We can

observe a sort of role-model effect within Spotify, as individuals are able to look at what their

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

friends and thus, the people that are most like themselves or that they believe have a great taste

in music listen to.

Rewards of the Hunt – “The need to acquire physical objects, such as food and other supplies

that aid our survival, is part of our brain’s operating system”.

In Spotify, the user is presented with the rewards of “the hunt”, while hunting for good

content: e.g. discovering new artists through Spotify’s feature of “Discover Weekly”. The user

never knows what will be presented in the playlist, until the start of each week, presenting the

user with a set of variable rewards while listening through it. The strategy is: the more music that

is listened to, the better the playlist will be, which ultimately hooks the user in a loop of hunting

for good content – user listens more to receive better music to listen to.

Rewards of the Self – “People desire, among other things, to gain a sense of competency”

The user gets acknowledged in her music knowledge and thus competency through the

number of followers on their profile and playlist. Also, e.g. during trips or social gatherings, the

one with the best taste in music (or in this case best Spotify playlist) gets to turn on the music,

contributing to the feeling of competency. It is also adding an element of mystery as music taste

is very subjective, but when one finds songs that everyone enjoys it appears fulfilling.

Investment – “The more users invest time and effort into a product or service the more they

value it”.

When one crafts his or her playlist on Spotify, we can observe the Ikea effect; we value

our own playlists irrationally high, as we put time and effort into creating them. Spotify suffices

as a potent medium for storing value: 1. The Songs one values, 2. The number of followers on

playlists, 3. The reputation in their community by having presentable music at gatherings. The

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

amount of value one stores on their Spotify account very valuable as it represents their

personalities to some extent – making the user come back.

2. SoundCloud

Users of SoundCloud have three clear needs: 1. Publish music and collaborate with other

musicians 2. Stream, save and store their music, 3. Discover new music by finding new artists

and tracks. SoundCloud’s mission statement is also very well aligned with the user’s needs:

“connect every human online through the power of music and audio”. Let’s discover how

SoundCloud hooks the user by solving their needs.

Triggers

External Triggers – external cues that are “embedded with information, which tells the user

what to do next”.

SoundCloud’s external triggers are mostly based on the word of mouth of its users;

producers and streamers. Most of the times I hear about SoundCloud, it is underground DJ’s that

attempt to promote their tracks either on club stages, directly telling me, on social media or in

person. The call to action is mostly embedded within its strong user base of underground music

producers, that attempt to get people to listen to their songs. As SoundCloud provides the

producer with immense simplicity regarding the upload of their music, once a producer has done

that, he or she is mostly responsible, to get listeners onto the platform.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

After a potential user (streamer or uploader) comes to the website, SoundCloud presents

two alternating windows, that feature very prominent buttons that asks the user, producer and

streamer, to sign up: “Start uploading today”, “Try for Free for 30 days”.

Producer Sign up – External Trigger

Streamer Sign up – External Trigger

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

There are a few more external triggers once the app is opened for the first time, such as

the tutorial messages that take the user through the first few important steps: event triggers.

SoundCloud asks you to invest into “following your first artist” and else in a really not too

obtrusive way.

Internal Triggers - “When a product becomes tightly coupled with a thought, an emotion, or

preexisting routine, it leverages an internal trigger”.

The most prominent internal trigger is possibly dedicated towards the producer side of

the userbase: Every time one visits a club i.e. in Berlin, underground producers present their

SoundCloud names on their desks, coupling the thought of successful & underground music

production with SoundCloud. This thought of music production is used to reinforce the thought

of producing music and uploading it to SoundCloud to be considered a producer.

Similarly, it happens to streamers when i.e. they enjoy a specific DJ in a club, being able

to visualize the person that produced the music makes them much fonder of looking him or her

up. Especially, as the majority of the music on SoundCloud’s is rather niche, it couples the

thought of raw, solid & tangible music with SoundCloud.

Actions – “To initiate action, doing must be easier than thinking. Remember a habit is a behavior

with little to no thought”.

Motivation – “All humans are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain”

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Simply by providing all sorts of accessible, though mostly of small artist music on the

platform one can maximize “pleasure” by listening to friends and also to what friends are

listening to.

Ability – “The capacity to do a particular behavior”

The innate desire to listen to music, and to feel part of a culture is strongly resembled

within the userbase of SoundCloud. The notion that people could be anywhere around the world,

at any given moment, producing a completely new genre of music, that might be next big thing is

strongly visible in the accessibility and ability for everyone to upload music to SoundCloud.

SoundCloud has managed to create a platform that makes it very easy for 1. streamers to listen to

the latest tracks of their favorite artists and recommended music with no more than three clicks:

Stream button – “Discover Mode” Search button – Ultimately Simple

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

They also made it simple for 2. DJs and music producers to share tracks and mixes.

Young and aspiring musicians can freely upload their beats and present their talent – all from

SoundCloud: it takes one click to start recording your music, and another to publish:

Record Button

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

The UX design is similarly fluid to Spotify’s. Also, similarly to Spotify, the tracks won’t

stop playing once your playlist comes to an end, but the music rather keeps on playing based on

your interests and the current playlist, presenting the current song in an ingenious way of a sticky

footer bar.

Variable Rewards – “The Nucleus Accumbens was not activating when the reward was

received, but rather in anticipation of it”.

Rewards of the Tribe - “Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted,

attractive, important and included”.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

SoundCloud features the ability, or more or less the necessity to follow and to be

followed. Essentially, all the strenuous work of the producers can be acknowledged by following

them, liking and sharing their music. This leads to the reward of feeling accepted and

acknowledged in their profession by friends and the community. Another ingenious feature is the

comment possibility. Individuals can comment their thoughts on the music at any given point in

time, at the point of interest throughout the track:

That works as a way to make the streamer feel included and part of a community. A

community where thoughts and opinions about the topic at hand, the music, can be shared and

expressed fluidly.

Rewards of the Hunt – “The need to acquire physical objects, such as food and other supplies

that aid our survival, is part of our brain’s operating system”.

SoundCloud presents the streamer with a gorgeous hunt for good content. By discovering

new artists, specifically artists that are not known for their global success and are rather

unknown, a streamer can engage in her endeavor to find the “next big” artist. It is ultimately

satisfying to play music from niche artists that are subjectively considered good during a social

gathering, where one might say: “Let me Shazam this song!”, and then only figure out that: “It is

not Shazamable”.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

SoundCloud presents the streamer with a similar strategy to Spotify; provide

recommendations based on the music you listen to whilst the recommendations get better the

higher the volume of music listened to. That effectively hooks the user in a discovery loop,

engaging him to listen to more in order to receive better music recommendations.

Rewards of the Self – “People desire, among other things, to gain a sense of competency”

The streamer gets acknowledged in her music knowledge and thus competency through

the number of followers on their account and playlists. The producer gets acknowledged in her

proficiency of music production through the feature of: likes, shares, comments and reposts of

the song. Those element of acknowledging the producer’s music reinforces little achievements,

that contribute to the self. It is also adding an element of mystery as music taste is very

subjective when one finds songs that everyone enjoys, specifically on SoundCloud with its

immense “unknown” artist base.

Investment – “The more users invest time and effort into a product or service the more they

value it”.

Similar to Spotify, on SoundCloud, when one crafts his or her playlist, we can observe

the Ikea effect; as we put effort and time into creating playlists, we value them irrationally high.

SoundCloud suffices as a platform for streamers to invest in the form of: 1. Store the tracks they

value, 2. Follow artists, 3. Keep track of what friends create. Music producers are investing

through 1. Easily shareable tracks, beats and mixes that they upload on the platform, 2. Their

reputation in the community through the number of followers, likes & shares, 3. A form of

presenting music while applying for events. The amount of value both users store on their

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

SoundCloud account is very valuable as it represents either their personal tastes (streamer) or

professional work (producer) – effectively making the both come back.

3. Comparison – Similarities, Differences & Improvements

Both Spotify and SoundCloud are dominant driving forces in the online streaming

industry. Most individuals that use online streaming services have most certainly come in contact

with one of the two. Both platforms possess a major appeal that make it hardly imaginable to

have a landscape where one exists without the other. Instead of seeing them as direct

competitors, it seems that, even though their target demographics are partly overlapping, they

and are meant to do different things.

Spotify is the clear choice for the casual music listener with an interest in discovering

music that is novel to them. It doesn’t matter if the user is looking for major label releases or for

hipster rock, generally everyone in the broad population can find something appealing on the

platform.

SoundCloud on the other hand is more for people that either create their own music, or

look for underground, niche and bedroom artists. SoundCloud is full of underground techno and

hip-hop music and thus becomes a haven for individuals that love those genres. It offers the

individuals a chance to listen to unknown artists before they break out into the Spotify

mainstream.

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

Both platforms are very effective in keeping customers engaged. Their churn rates are

both similarly low. Most users are probably won over very fast as both platforms prompt the user

with effective triggers. SoundCloud does that with targeted intervention such as event triggers of

showing them specific investment reinforcing messages. Their core focus of supporting their

producer’s ability to share music in a seamless and social manner. The feedback the producers

receive on their music resonates within the producers as she likely would want to hear about it;

making her come back.

Spotify on the other hand uses its planned next trigger: i.e. the discover weekly playlist,

that the user would likely want to hear about. It serves as a source of feedback on their volume of

music listened to and a little acknowledgement that rewards the user for listening. SoundCloud

does not have this discover weekly playlist, but in their case a “Suggested Tracks” section, that is

powered by the users listening patterns and likes. What makes it different from Spotify’s

discover weekly playlist is that the music is updated continually by showing suggestions as you

use the service. It is not as powerful as Spotify’s discover weekly playlist to hook the user as

there is no “anticipation of the reward” but rather gives the user a simple but powerful

functionality.

Both Platforms should start experimenting and A/B testing personalized push

notifications as it could potentially serve as a complimentary trigger to increase listening time,

customer retention and the frequency of listening on the platform.

As music is generally something viral -people share music in all sorts of forms through

social media and word of mouth – both platforms should attempt to turn the transient user that

comes to the platform through i.e. a shared link into an engaged user. This could be done by

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

encouraging the first-time user to download the app as appropriate, after the first song was

listened to on the website.

In any case, perhaps instead of putting a user in front of the question which streaming

platform is better or more suitable, one should embrace Spotify and SoundCloud as platforms

that are existent for different occasions and reasons.

4. Ethical Implications

There are some serious issues revolving around the creation of habits and hooking people

onto products. But creating habits can also be a force for good. To assess the morality of Spotify

and SoundCloud we will look at the manipulation matrix:

Manipulation Matrix

Materiality improves Peddler Facilitator

the user’s life

Materiality does not Dealer Entertainer

improve the user’s life

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 Analysis on Spotify and Soundcloud using Nir Eyal’s Hooked Framework

The maker does not use it The maker uses it

Both Spotify and SoundCloud are perceivable Facilitators: Awesome products that the

makers use them self and make the world a better place. Both platforms are intrinsically

engaging but at the same time provide a great amount of value to the user and her life. At the

same time, too much good can also potentially have undesired effects like in the case of Spotify

and SoundCloud: Cutting out of social interaction and delving into a world of oblivion by solely

listening to music.

Especially Spotify should, with its recent Facebook partnership, give the end user the

power of choice. Because as Spotify, but also SoundCloud is furtherly integrated into our daily

lives, it is important to mark the risks of overusing technology so users can make better choices,

even if it goes against their major motive of maximizing profits.

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