Facebook set to roll out official music videos in the US

Facebook has confirmed that it will soon be rolling out official music videos on its platform in the US. The company is going to introduce a new ‘Music’ destination within Facebook Watch too. 

These changes will start rolling out over the weekend and Facebook users can watch, discover and share music videos from artists like Elton John, Jonas Brothers, Keith Urban, Anitta, Blake Shelton, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Diplo, Josh Groban, Maren Morris, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, and others.

The TechCrunch reports that although Facebook has been working with partners in both Thailand and India on a similar experience as well, the US launch has been enabled by the company’s partnerships with top labels like Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music Group, Merlin, BMG, Kobalt etc.

Facebook has told TechCrunch that deals with music houses include all major partners and some independent names as well.

Reports had it that Facebook’s music plans would roll out by August 1 and many supported artists were also being informed that they would need to toggle on new permission that would allow the platform to automatically add music videos to their Page where it can be easily discovered by fans and followers from the Page’s Videos tab. Once this new permission is enabled, the artists can remove and edit their video posts as and when they wish.

If the setting is not enabled, Facebook will automatically generate a separate official music Page on the artists’ behalf, with the title - “(Artist Name) Official Music” so as fans can discover them. This page will be controlled and by Facebook and be accessible through Facebook Watch. Artists can later choose to opt-in to include their own official videos on their own Page.

This new feature lets Facebook users follow their favourite artists and see their latest video releases on their News Feed as and when they go live. Artists can be followed from the ‘Follow’ option on their page and from the music video as well.

These music video posts, just like any other post on Facebook, can be shared, reacted to with emojis and commented on. You can also share them on Groups and on Messenger.

The dedicated section for Music on Facebook Watch will let users explore music by genre, mood, name of the artist and themed playlists like - Popular this weekend etc.

These videos will also be monetised by ads, like all other content on Facebook Watch, however, the ads will not interfere with the video playback like it does with other videos. According to reports, these ads will appear before the video and during the video as an image and below the player or post it.

However, this plan is subject to changes going forward.

Facebook will be applying personalisation technology to the experience and as users watch and share more videos, your feed will get more attuned to your personal likes and interests. The platform also has more social experiences planned for the future including user-made playlists.