Dubai: This week social media platforms Facebook and Instagram have expanded access to their music catalogue to an additional 18 countries including the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia to name a few.
Since the music feature launched in 2018, it was not available to people in the UAE, so whenever seeing an Instagram story from around the world with the music feature switched on, many UAE residents were watching a muted video instead.
The platform users can have their pick from a large library of songs. Additionally, they can choose the length of the clip as well as which part of the song they want to highlight in their stories.
Moreover, if the song has lyrics available, they will automatically pop up.
Facebook also released a statement saying:
"People have always come to Facebook and Instagram to express themselves and be entertained, and we're focused on bringing music into the ways people share, connect and express themselves. For that reason, we've been working with creators and music partners around the world to help people connect and share how they feel through music across the Facebook family of apps. We see music as a core part of the future of entertainment on Facebook and Instagram. Now there are even more ways for people to create and discover content they'll love."
List of countries Instagram music feature has been added to:
UAE
Oman
Saudi Arabia
Palestine
Libya
Bulgaria
Lebanon
Kuwait
Iraq
Qatar
Jordan
Tajikistan
Yemen
How to do it?
Adding music to stories is easy. You need to launch your stories option on Instagram or Facebook, take a picture or a video as you normally would. Swip up and go to the stickers option and select music.
Users can browse and choose a song of their choice and can then select the 15 second part of the song that they want their followers to hear.
On Facebook, users can pin a select music track to their accounts, when followers visit their Facebook profile. They will be able to listen to the song while scrolling through.
