Instagram announced a new feature on Thursday (Oct. 18) that makes it easier for users to save songs they discover while perusing the app.
The social app aims to make the music-saving process as frictionless as possible — and users don’t have to leave Instagram to do it. If they find a song they like, they can simply click on the track to reach its audio page and then tap the “add” button. Saved tracks show up in their “Liked Songs” playlist on Spotify. Currently, no other streaming services are integrated with Instagram.
The Spotify-Instagram integration comes roughly a year after TikTok launched its “Add to Music App,” a very similar feature that allows users to save music they find on the platform. TikTok had more partners for its feature — not just Spotify initially, but also Amazon Music and Apple Music.
“TikTok is already the world’s most powerful platform for music discovery and promotion, which helps artists connect with our global community to drive engagement with their music,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement last year. The new feature “takes this process a step further, creating a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
The “Add to Music App” has become even more of a priority for TikTok recently. In September, the company announced that it was shutting down its subscription streaming service, TikTok Music, to focus more on integrating with existing streamers. “Our Add to Music App feature has already enabled hundreds of millions of track saves to playlists on partner music streaming services,” Obermann said.
On Wednesday (Oct. 16), TikTok announced that another streaming service would join the “Add to Music App”: Melon, which is popular in South Korea.
“Since the launch of Add to Music App, we have seen the TikTok community fully embrace the opportunity to save the songs they discover to the music streaming service of their choice,” Michael Kümmerle, global head of music partnership development, said in a statement. “Our new partnership with Melon means that millions more music fans in Korea will be able to save, share and listen again to music they fell in love with on TikTok.”
