Sabrina Carpenter enjoys a casual night in before the fireplace. Photo Credit: John Doe
Weeks after Universal Music Group (UMG) revealed an expanded Meta licensing deal, Instagram is launching a music feature with Island-signed Sabrina Carpenter.
DMN received word of that fresh feature this morning, one day out from the release of Carpenter’s sixth studio album. As mentioned, UMG 10 days back announced a bolstered Meta union, including new joint initiatives and, for the first time, WhatsApp licensing.
Also under the agreement, which attests to the increasingly varied music content and features attributable to different platforms, music videos exited Facebook. Running with the point, Instagram is now enabling users to add songs directly to their profiles.
25-year-old Carpenter took advantage of the option to integrate “Taste,” besides releasing a brief promo clip previewing the track’s music video. Said video and the song itself are set to release tomorrow in tandem with the highlighted album, Short n’ Sweet.
As for the overarching feature, which is live on mobile but not desktop, users can simply select songs to display beneath their bios; from there, others can then play roughly 15 seconds of the appropriate works.
For the uninitiated, Instagram allows users to “add notes on posts and reels” as well; by the app’s own description, only one’s friends can see these notes, which are temporary and “disappear” after three days.
At present, notes’ color will turn “baby blue” when mentioning Carpenter-related buzzwords, including the artist’s name, the title of the new album, “Espresso,” and a whole lot more, reps told DMN of the decidedly specific marketing effort.
Shifting the focus from these multifaceted details and to the campaign’s broader significance, relatively involved music promotion is becoming common on social platforms.
Universal Music started leaning particularly hard into the undertakings on YouTube (including via Shorts) and Instagram (with a chief focus on Reels) amid its TikTok licensing dispute. But with the latter confrontation in the rearview, the ByteDance-owned app is once again pulling out all the stops to plug releases from Billie Eilish, BTS’ Jimin, Post Malone, and others.
Additionally, TikTok is continuing to add a variety of music features and close new agreements yet, referring in part to the recent rollout of “Sound Search” and an Eventbrite pact. But the short-form mainstay is also staring down the possibility of a full-scale ban in the U.S., where growth data suggests YouTube Shorts is beginning to close the gap with TikTok when it comes to music-fan users.
