If music be the food of love, play on! Facebook adds music

Yesterday Facebook announce that you can add music to Facebook stories, which lets be honest given that you can do it on Instagram stories is not exactly groundbreaking, but it does show that the “stories” are becoming “one” entity, like it or not.

It also begs the question why are they adding these features?

Stories have taken off in a big way, and given the situation with Instagram, Facebook have a route to test what works with a younger market and then adopt it. Nothing wrong with that strategy, clearly since launching the ability to add songs on Instagram stories its going to be a popular move.

What is more interesting in the announcement is the efforts to capture a younger market, by taking on TicTok (Formerly Misica.ly) in the Lip Sync stakes, appealing to some creators and influencers but largely to the teen market who adore the TicTok offering.

We’ve now rolled out Lip Sync Live to all profiles in many countries around the world. We are also opening up the feature to more artists and creators by expanding to Pages, giving them more ways to connect with their fans.

For example, just this week Why Don’t We gave fans an impromptu performance of “8 Letters,” the hit song from their new album, and Jess Glynne used the feature to lip sync live to her new single, “Thursday.”

We’ve also heard feedback that people want to see the words to songs while lip syncing, so we’re starting to add lyrics to Lip Sync Live. Lyrics are starting to roll out today, and are available for songs including Dua Lipa’s “New Rules,” Khalid’s “Better,” and “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5. We’ll be adding more soon.

It’s interesting as the teen market is a highly prized sector and in the recent Piper Jaffray's fall 2018 survey, Instagram now commands 85% of teenage time against 84% snapchat, however looking lower down the chart on 36% use Facebook. When looking into favourite platform only 5% quoted Facebook which has halved from around 10% in a year.

Its clear that Facebook are going to do something about this as the platform needs a younger market not just for advertising but to continue to secure its future. Simply buying up platforms does not protect the parent brand, you only have to look at the recent issues around Instagram.

We wait to see how this unfolds.

We are excited though by the news that you will be able to add music to your profile, for no other reason than it means we can personalise our profile with our taste in music and subject those who visit us with it!

We’ll soon be launching the ability to add songs — what you’re currently listening to, or your all-time-favorites — to a new music section on your profile. You can also pin a song to the top of your profile to share with friends and help them learn more about you.

Songs added to your profile will also visually showcase the artist and track you choose. When someone plays a song on your profile, they’ll hear a clip of the song and see an accompanying video featuring photos of the artists and album art. They can then choose to add the song to their own profile or visit the artist’s Facebook Page.