Music Videos? On Facebook? Yup! You read that right! This weekend, the US will roll out a music video feature on Facebook. Much like a post, you can like, share, and comment on an array of videos from some big name artists. Some of these artists include Blake Sheldon, Bob Marley, The Jonas Brothers, and Diplo. Facebook has already been working with similar concepts in India and Thailand. However, the US launch is backed by Facebook’s recent partnership with top labels, such as Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, BMG, Kobalt and other independents.
Pages
Facebook users can follow their favorite artists and view their music videos as they are put out. They can also navigate to their fan page and other areas to look at other music videos as well. You can follow both a Facebook page or the music video itself. Videos can be shared across News Feed, where posts can be discovered by friends. They can also be added to messenger and shared in groups.
Music fans will be able to locate all these videos on the Pages Video tab. The artists will have to toggle on a switch to allow these videos to be posted – which also means they can remove these videos at any time as well. Artists may also use their own personal “Fan Page” to include these music videos as well.
The music section on Facebook Watch, will act more like a music app, where users can search my genre and listen to pre curated play lists. There will be advertisements, however, they will appear prior to the video, on a pre-roll at the bottom during, or post video. The more you engage and share within Watch, the more personalized the music experience will become for you. Users can also find new music/artists too through using this new feature.
The Future
Facebook rolling this out is rivaling YouTube. YouTube paid out more than 3 million to the music industry in 2019. However, a lot of the industry says this isn’t enough and has expressed interest in wanting to find an alternative. In the past, artists were only able to post small clips on Facebook. Now that they are able to post full videos, this will significantly increase the amount of time people spend on this social media platform. Not only will this continue to help artists share new music, it will also help to continue to deeper the artist/fan relationship – through Q&A, live feeds, etc. This is surely to change the music industry and social media forever.
