Just having a social media platform doesn’t mean that the group that uses them the most, teenagers, will come, or remain using it. Teenagers seem to prefer the platforms with fewer rules, more ‘fun’ features, and as Digital Music News puts it, more controversies.
To keep the pace with competitors like TikTok and Snapchat, Instagram, one of the largest social media platforms in the world, has introduced the integrated lyrics capability with its video Stories. Even though various tech blogs have been announcing this new feature for a while, Facebook, Instagram’s ‘bigger brother’ enlisted Billie Eilish to make the official announcement the first week of June 2019.
So now, wherever Instagram Music is available, the users can add integrated lyrics by using a ‘Music Lens’ before a recording, or ‘Music sticker’ after the recording has been made. As you choose a song, the lyrics will pop up instantly and they can take on a look as it was a karaoke prompter.
Those knowledgeable in the field claim that Instagram took a page from the fast-growing TikTok platform, which for its part, also announced new features the same week. Now, the videos posted on TikTok can have overlaid captions, a feature that in another form seems to have been available on Snapchat, yet another competing and fast-growing platform.
The competition is probably only going to heat up, and as DMC points out, “the plastic look and numerous influencer controversies have led teens to consider platforms in which expressing yourself online is less than perfect, and that’s okay.”
