After launching its Lite app for users in the emerging markets, Instagram is now rolling out a new feature that gives you the ability to add soundtracks to your Stories. Instagram notes that the option to add music to their Stories section will only be accessed from an iOS device for now while Android users will be pushed an update in the near future.
To access the latest feature, users will need to tap and add a sticker to their photo or video in Stories which will pop up the new music thumbnail. They can search for a genre, mood, a song, an artist or just what’s popular on the platform in order to add them to their stories. iOS users also get an additional option through the Music shutter mode that lets them choose their music before uploading a story.
All these features will eventually hit Android devices and will launch alongside the release of Instagram version 51 update globally. When viewing a music story, the song will be played automatically like a video content plays on a Story. Users will also be able to check the artist and song info upon tapping on the sticker, which will lead them to the artist’s histogram page or their streaming platforms.
With this development, the big question is how Instagram will be able to compensate with artists and music producers over the use of these songs. Another thing that remains to be seen is whether Instagram will only be adding popular titles to the Music icon or is this a gateway to a newly embedded music streaming platform that we might see in the future.