Music has been a key element in TikTok’s rise, with music publishers now focusing on the app as a key platform to connect with audiences, with some even changing their artists’ song names to better align with TikTok trends.
But if TikTok leaves the U.S. next year, as the current sell-off bill implies, music publishers will have to shift their focus, and music fans will also need to go elsewhere to stay up to date with the latest song trends.
And Instagram’s hoping to be the app that picks up the slack on this front.
Over the past few months, Instagram has added a range of new music-related features, including its “Add Yours Music” stickers, music in Notes, song lyrics display in Reels, and most recently, songs on profiles.
And now it’s exploring another music element:
As you can see in this example, posted by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram’s testing a new integration with Spotify, which would enable IG users to continuously display the track that they’re listening to, via their IG Notes indicator.
That would act as a form of music promotion, by showcasing what your friends are tuning into at any given time.
Of course, you would also be able to opt-out of such sharing, if you didn’t want people to know that you mostly listen to Billy Joel classics or Chipmunks remixes. But if you chose, you would seemingly be able to constantly highlight the music you’re into, by sharing that info in your inbox Notes bubble.
Which is not a major integration, it’s not like a game-changing tool that’ll revise your approach in the app. But it’s an interesting one, which, again, provides more music options in IG, as it seeks to supplant TikTok as the key music discussion space.
And really, it seems like the most obvious alternative in this respect.
Snapchat’s also popular among young users, but it’s not designed for public sharing like TikTok and IG. Which makes Instagram, really, the logical solution, and if TikTok does indeed exit the U.S. market, Instagram, and parent company Meta, may well end up being the major beneficiary.
So will TikTok actually leave the U.S.?
At the moment, it looks like it’s going to have to, with the sell-off bill set to come into effect early next year. TikTok is still challenging the bill, while presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that he’s opposed to the sell-off push (despite being the one who also originally proposed it back in 2020).
That could mean that, if Trump is elected, he may be able to overturn the bill, but right now, the odds would be in favor of TikTok being forced out, if it refuses to sell to a U.S. company. Chinese authorities remain firm on their stance that it won’t be sold, which could open the door for IG to become the new home of music discovery.
Which would mean that all of these new music additions could add a lot more value.
