Why I can't stop talking about Spotify

As someone who works from home, Spotify is my spirit animal. Any kind of jam I need to get me through whatever project I'm working on is easily at hand (Bastille while I write this post, if you're curious), and all for what I consider to be a very reasonable price.

But a few Thursdays ago, my relationship with Spotify got a little more serious.

My colleague Rhi mentioned that Spotify was curating a #ThrowbackThursday playlist—about 40ish songs from the past 40 or 50 years, updated weekly. The music itself ranges in style, from CCR to Snoop Dogg to Stevie Wonder.

And here's the thing—I love this curated playlist. I love it so much that I just can't help telling people about it. From friends and colleagues to workout buddies and random strangers with headphones on the train, nearly everyone I've interacted with recently has heard about Spotify's #TBT list curation.

And you know what? That's exactly how you do content marketing.

When we think of content marketing, we usually go straight to the old standbys like infographics, whitepapers, slideshares, and the like. But don't be afraid to branch out. Curating a playlist obviously makes a lot of sense for Spotify, and hits all the content marketing sweet spots: it's fun, it showcases what the company can do, and it gets people talking.

Even if you're not in the music biz, you might consider using music as a hook for other content. For example, LookBookHQ created a "marketing mix tape", highlighting some of the best and brightest in the content marketing world, including our own VP of Content, Jenny Karn.

If music doesn't seem right for your brand, what kinds of things are unique to your industry that that would make great pieces of content? Don't be constrained by the usual suspects—be creative in your thinking about what your customers would find useful and entertaining.

Be sure to load up the #ThrowbackThursday playlist tomorrow!