Skip to main content

Jam to your News Feed, Stories, and profile with Facebook’s new music beat

Facebook

For when music says it better than words, Facebook is giving users the tools to add favorite songs to the News Feed, Stories, and even profiles. On Wednesday, October 24, Facebook debuted music for Stories and the News Feed, while expanding a Live video version of Karaoke and promising that users can soon fuse favorite tunes into profiles too. The features come after several deals with major music labels.

Facebook Camera’s new music sticker allows users to add music to Stories and will soon also allow for mixing the music into the News Feed as well. The sticker is similar to Instagram Stories’ music sticker; users add the sticker marked Music to the image or video, choose a song, then choose what section of that song to play. The sticker gives the musician credit.

The tool works with both images and video, including those shot within the Facebook Camera and pre-recorded media added from the device. While the tool is already available for Stories, Facebook says the network is bringing the sticker to the News Feed soon, too.

Besides the News Feed and Stories, Facebook will soon also let users include a favorite song in their profile. The feature is meant to share what you’re listening to or a favorite song. While new for Facebook, it feels a bit reminiscent of MySpace profiles. From the sound of it though, Facebook says profile visitors will have to play the song, so the feature doesn’t sound like visitors will automatically be serenaded by your profile.

The profile music, like the stickers, gives a visual credit to the artist. Tapping on the song will also lead to options to add the song to your own profile or to view the artist’s Facebook page.

Facebook

The third music-focused feature is an expansion of the Lip Sync Live, a feature launched earlier this summer encouraging Live “performances.” Besides rolling out the feature to “many countries,” Facebook is also now giving some songs on-screen lyrics. Think of it as karaoke for Facebook Live, only without your voice.

The features come after several deals with major music labels that allow sharing the music under those agreements without committing an illegal copyright violation. Facebook said after the first agreement that the deal also includes “fair compensation for music creators.”

Editors' Recommendations

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Facebook News just expanded. Here’s how to customize your news tab
facebook news tab local launches

After launching tests to limited locations in the fall, Facebook’s dedicated news tab now houses local news for users in the U.S. Moving from testing to an official product this spring, Facebook introduced local news into the new tool. Facebook News houses journalism exclusively from a list of vetted sources while using algorithms to personalize the news that each user sees.

The Facebook News tab comes as social networks face increasing scrutiny for handling of fake news. Publishers on the new dedicated tab are selected based on “integrity signals” which Facebook developed with journalists to determine what publishers to include. The list is designed to eliminate publishers that share fake news and clickbait. The tab is partially determined by algorithms and part human curators, with journalists selecting the top stories listed in the first subsection of the new tab.

Read more
Facebook’s newest reaction is a virtual hug
facebook care reaction hug

Facebook reactions launched as a way to quickly respond when a like just didn’t suffice -- and now the platform’s latest reaction is a way to send a virtual hug during social distancing.

On Friday, April 17, Facebook revealed a new “care” reaction for the Facebook app and Messenger.

Read more
How to view Instagram Stories on your computer
how to view instagram stories on your computer laptop

For the longest time, if you wanted the best of Instagram, you needed to go to the app. If you use a desktop as much as you use your phone, this could be frustrating. Slowly but surely, though, the social media favorite has brought more and more of the app features to the Instagram website. One feature that you can enjoy both in the app and online is Stories.

Currently, more than 500 million accounts use Stories daily, according to Instagram. That's no surprise. These little glimpses into friends, family members, and complete strangers' lives can be addicting. If you haven't figured out how to feed your addiction using the Instagram website, here's how you can view Instagram Stories on your computer.
Stories with a mouse click

Read more