By now you’ve likely heard the news that social media behemoth Facebook and digital streaming music service Spotify have partnered up. The announcement was made at the F8 conference on Thursday, September 22^nd. Part of the soon-to-be fully unveiled “Timeline” feature on Facebook allows users to share what they’re doing in Facebook-connected apps while they’re doing it. The “Timeline” topic itself is deserving of it’s own blog entry but we’ll save that for another day and just focus on Facebook and Spotify for now.

So, who cares about the Spotify/Facebook connection anyway?

Well, we think it’s pretty cool because it gives users the opportunity to discover new music and give personal recommendations to your friends and vice versa. More on that in a minute…

Ok, how do I connect to Spotify?

If you are a new Spotify user, you must now log in using your Facebook profile. Click here to get started. If you’re an existing Spotify user, follow these 5 steps to connect to Facebook:

1. Launch Spotify
2. In the right corner of Spotify, click “Import friends” and follow the instructions. If you can’t see the “Import friends” button, click your “People” list icon in the top right corner.
3. A page will appear for you to log into your Facebook account.
4. Allow Spotify to connect to your Facebook account.
5. Your Facebook friends who have already imported their own friends into Spotify will now appear in your People list.

Alright, back to sharing music:

Now that your Spotify account is integrated with your Facebook account, the music sharing can begin. If you look to the left-hand side of your Facebook site, you’ll see a new Music Dashboard. This is where you can see what your friends are listening to, playlists they’ve created, and what songs are trending currently. You can access your friends’ favorite music and playlists and send tracks or playlists to friends. Your profile will also feature a Ticker that displays what music your friends are listening to at the moment. All the music posts in your Ticker feed and the Music Dashboard have a Play button so if you want to listen to the same song just hit play to hear the track yourself, right then and there!

You and your friends can also access this music through your Spotify accounts. As soon as you import your Facebook friends into your Spotify account, you can literally drag and drop music directly onto their names! Any of your Facebook friends who’ve imported their friends into Spotify will appear as a live stream so you can view their top music lists and drop music on them at any time.

The Facebook and Spotify connection has made music sharing and discovery easier than ever before. At CD Baby, we’re excited about this news because our artists are now able to sell their MP3s, CDs, and vinyl right from their band’s Facebook page using our MusicStore for Facebook.

-Molly King

If you’d like your music to be available in Spotify’s catalog so that Facebook users can stream and share it, sign your single or album up with CD Baby today!

Resources:

http://www.spotify.com/us/help/faq/social/

http://www.spotify.com/us/about/spotify-on-facebook/

http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline