5 Ways To Connect With Your Friends On Spotify

Just last week, Spotify unveiled our 2021 Wrapped experience, which offers listeners an opportunity to reflect on their streaming habits from throughout the year. It’s also become a moment to enjoy—and maybe even judge—the listening habits of friends and family, thanks to the social sharing component within your Wrapped experience on Spotify.

Wrapped doesn’t stand alone in its capacity to bring people together. Social sharing continues to help friends, family, and fans connect from afar. Listeners have flocked to Spotify’s features, including Group Session and Collaborative Playlists, to share what they’re listening to—and to have a rockin’ good time.

But these aren’t the only ways to connect over your shared love of audio. Below, we’ve outlined five easy options for sending or showing what you’re listening to with those closest to you, literally or metaphorically. 

1. Show your anthems on your sleeve

Confident in your taste and ready for your friends to see? Your Friend Activity is the tool for you. The Friend Activity appears to the right of your desktop app, and you can use it to see the listening activity of those you follow on Spotify. (Those who follow you will be able to see yours.) To turn it on, head to “settings” and accept “Share my listening activity on Spotify.”

All new Spotify users on Desktop will see an empty Friend Activity—this will be filled with the listening activity of people you follow on Spotify. You can also find your friends on Spotify by connecting your Facebook accounts from the “add friends” button at the top right of the Friend Activity. You can turn off your sharing at any time.

2. Social share to anywhere from Spotify 

We know that Spotify fans love to share their Wrapped cards on social channels like Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And new this year, we’ve added the ability to share 2021 Wrapped cards on TikTok. 

Wrapped aside, Spotify makes it easy to seamlessly send a link straight to a song, album, artist, playlist, or podcast on most social media or texting apps. Simply look for the three dot menu (…) on your phone or desktop app. 

Once you click or tap those three dots, scroll down to the “share” option. From there, you’ll be prompted to share to one of the many apps you have on your device—from Facebook and Instagram to Snapchat and SMS. Or, simply use “copy link” to send it wherever you choose. 

You can also share Canvas videos to Instagram and Snapchat, as well as podcast timestamps. Read how.

3. Generate picture perfect Spotify Codes 

Looking to share something you’re listening to “IRL”? Perhaps you’re making a shared playlist for your dorm, workplace, or club, and want to spread the word. You can easily create a Spotify Code, a QR-like “scannable” tag that can be used to quickly share or access a piece of content, within Spotify. Spotify Codes can be created for artist profiles, brand profiles, playlists, albums, and songs. And you can access them like you’d access any QR code: with the camera on your phone.

To create a Spotify Code, you’ll need to grab a Spotify URI. To find one, right-click and hold “option” on Mac or “alt” on PC—or tap or click the handy … to the right side of the screen— then select “Share” and click “Copy Spotify URI.” From there, you can paste the URI into this site to generate a URI, pick a color or design, and save it for use anywhere.

Note: Spotify Codes should not be placed on physical goods for sale without permission from relevant rights holders.

4. Make a collaborative playlist

Collaborative playlists are a great way to swap podcast recommendations, share your latest music discoveries, and build the perfect playlist—together. Easily invite others to contribute and then see who added which songs or podcasts, and stream together or apart.

Pick the playlist you want to collaborate on, then tap the “Add user” button in the header to make the playlist collaborative. From there, you can start inviting others to add songs and podcast episodes on social media or messaging apps, or simply by copying and pasting the link. You can read more about collaborative playlists here. 

Note: You also have the option to block people from your collaborative playlist or from viewing your activity on Spotify. Head over to our Support pages to find out more.

5. Join a Group Session

Music and podcasts are always better when enjoyed with friends and loved ones—together or afar. Our Group Session functionality allows Spotify Premium users around the world to tune in to the same playlist or podcast simultaneously. So no matter the distance, you and the members of your squad can each listen to the same content at the same time on your own devices, as well as control playback. 

Groups can use this feature at once by sharing a “join” link via messaging apps or social media with each other. Read more about this feature and get inspiration for how to use it here.

We’re constantly evolving the Spotify experience to meet listener needs and working to provide the best possible audio experience for listeners around the world. There are so many ways to share your latest jams or that must-listen podcast—letting friends, family, and even followers fall in love with the same stuff you’re listening to.

Can’t get enough of your friends’ great taste? Try creating a Blend playlist to merge your two distinct musical tastes into one shared playlist made just for you both. Learn more here.