If there’s anything superfans love as much as listening to their favourite artist’s music, it’s talking about how much they love that artist. Put these two things together and you unlock a world of opportunity for any artist or label.

Fans thrive on immersing themselves in the beats of their favourite artists and engaging in lively discussions about the music they adore. When they link their streaming on Spotify to their chatting in a Discord community, the data reveals the scale of this harmonious connection.

Superfans on Discord could be racking up as many as 131 billion music streams a year - and that's just on Spotify.

The data comes from a new Discord tool we’ve introduced here at Levellr, where we build and manage communities working with clients from Fred again.. and Fall Out Boy and their teams to global brands like Starbucks.

This new tool is a Spotify integration which connects Discord servers with Spotify's streaming service to gather invaluable data analytics for any artist, label or brand.

Currently, artists and their teams get some data from streaming services on how many times their songs and catalogue have been played. But when fans connect their Spotify account to their Discord, it’s possible to capture and analyse vastly more information with significantly more granular information. That means you can learn much about your superfan's listening habits in much greater detail.

Across the many Discord communities managed by Levellr, a whopping 62% of members have connected Spotify and started tracking their listening.

Ready for some numbers?

Spotify listening in Discord communities

Those members stream 1.3 million tracks on Spotify every day. That's around 40m a month, adding up to around 489m tracks streamed per year.

Extrapolate those numbers across all users of Discord and we could be talking about as many as 131 billion music streams a year from Spotify alone.

Levellr CEO Tom Gayner explains the significance of these numbers. "The music industry has collectively talked about Discord being a home for their artists' superfans over the past 24 months, but they've not been able to prove it with data. The numbers we've seen from our Spotify integration are eye-popping and show a significant habit of streaming when hanging out on Discord."

Artists, labels and brands can see for themselves. The Spotify integration Discord tool is packed with data which an artist and their team can easily see in the dashboard of Levellr tools. Here's what it shows to you as the community owner:

• Total streams The bottom line from all users who connect Spotify and play music while they're on Discord.
• Total streamers See how many users with Spotify connected to Discord who have played at least one track.
• Daily streams per user An average number of streams among community members.
• Hours listened See the time users spend listening while on Discord discussing the artist.
• Top played tracks per community Instantly learn the most streamed songs in the community. You can toggle artists' streams in the dashboard, so you can see your artist’s streams and any other music which community members like listening to. Ideal for seeing which tracks are a hit with superfans, and which other artists are popular among the community.
• Top listeners Identify the members who listen the most so you can reward superfans. This includes the number of streams and how that number changed compared to previous periods.
• Flexible timing See all this information for any time period you like. Specify the timeframe for these metrics to see how streaming behaviour changes over time. This is ideal for seeing how listening has shifted compared to a previous period or in response to recent releases or activations.

How to increase Spotify streams

Seeing what fans are streaming is useful information. But you can also get involved and encourage fans to listen. We know streaming data is a key metric for your success, and you can boost those numbers right from your Discord community by driving more streams with community rewards.

Our new feature integrates Spotify listening into your community reward system. Here's how it works: fans who stream your music on Spotify earn XP (experience points). Everyone who links Spotify earns a one-off XP bonus to get them interested. Then, every hour, members who earn XP win rewards. Fans who listen to more streams zoom up the community leaderboard, stand out from the crowd with Discord's leveling feature, and are recognised by our XP Discord bot.

The big prize comes each week, when there's a special bonus XP for the top listener of the week.

Levellr's clients are already taking advantage of this invaluable insight. Here's Luke Smith, digital marketing manager at record label RCA UK, home of artists including Biig Piig, SZA and Bring Me The Horizon:

"Being able to take a deeper look into fans’ streaming habits allows us to understand the importance of growing online communities and the fans within them. Having easily accessible superfan streaming data at your fingertips is an incredibly powerful tool. The ability to gain deeper insights into what Bring Me The Horizon’s superfans are listening to, identify the top streamers and reward them for their fandom is just one way we are utilising the new feature."

Fiona McAuley, UK head of audience at Atlantic Records, home of artists including Fred again.. and Maisie Peters:

"The addition of their new Spotify integration is providing true ROI on Discord. We’ve been amazed at how highly engaged those core Discord fans are, which we are seeing translated into a significant amount of streams."

The streaming data analytics are just one of the many tools Levellr provides to artists, sports teams and brands looking to drive tangible marketing and monetisation results from their superfan community. Read more about Levellr's top 10 tools that help your brand hit your goals.

Contact Levellr today to find out how you can build a community which works for your brand.