TikTok is becoming Spotify’s new recommendation engine

People are all about recommending things on social media. Scroll any platform and you’ll see people talking about things they like, from local restaurants to the latest movie to the book they just read. Now, Spotify‘s new integration with TikTok puts the short video platform smack in the middle of word-of-mouth recommendations for songs, podcasts, and audiobooks.

Spotify announced Nov. 7 that its partnership with TikTok will smooth the path for users to share Spotify content in two ways: (1) by allowing them to make videos sharing tracks, albums, playlists, podcasts, or audiobooks using TikTok’s video editing tools, and (2) by letting them DM one another direct links to music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

“Users can access the music, podcasts, and audiobooks shared on TikTok by simply tapping the link to go directly to Spotify, allowing users to easily discover new favorites,” the platform said.

The new tools build on Spotify and TikTok’s existing partnership where TikTok users can save songs to their Spotify libraries from within the TikTok app–so if they scroll to a video and dig the bop playing in the background, they can save it on Spotify right there.

This integration makes TikTok a core part of people telling each other about the Spotify content they enjoy. It’s right in line with TikTok’s strategy lately

; the platform has been sealing partnerships and building tools to make itself a search engine, a marketplace for movie tickets, a travel promoter, and more. Basically, its goal is to make itself an inextricable link between people and companies for transactions that are already happening. Hundreds of millions of people use search engines, buy movie tickets, go traveling, and share songs every single day without TikTok being involved—but it could be involved.

And TikTok has proven it’s become savvy at spotting where it could fit itself into these transactions (…and get a financial cut, some valuable consumer behavior data, or both in the process).

As for how Spotify benefits, this integration could help boost its discoverability offerings for artists, podcasters, and authors. If TikTok recommendations become a big enough deal, the data both platforms reap from it could inform further updates, or even foster a broader financial relationship between the pair, with TikTok getting what’s essentially an affiliate marketing bonus for driving traffic.

For now, though, the two are using this integration to further their symbiotic relationship–and Spotify says that going forward, “we’ll continue to introduce new features and integrations that connect artists and creators with millions of fans across the globe.”