Facebook introduces the biggest change to text posts in years

Facebook posts take many forms – images, videos, links, reels, and text. The company has tweaked and added to the posting options over the years and has now just announced a neat new option for text-based posts.

Just as is possible on other social media platforms, Facebook users are being given the chance to embellish their text posts with background music. Working in a similar way to adding background music toa video post, there is a limit library of tracks to choose from.

The feature is being compared to the early days of social media, particularly MySpace, giving users a way to share the music they love when making a post. This can be with the aim of sharing a favorite track, or adding something suitably atmospheric to enhance a post.

Facebook says of the change:

Music has always been something that brings people together, and since the very beginning Facebook has been about showcasing what you’re into and connecting you with your friends. And now, Facebook is making it easier than ever to add music to your Feed posts for more ways to express yourself and create fun, engaging content to share with others.

When adding a music track to a post in this way, information about the track in question appears at the top of the post with other extra data such as location and emotions. The track will play automatically in the background when someone views your post, but only if they have sound turned on.

This is the same functionality that Facebook uses for video audio at the moment; if you have audio muted, scrolling by video will not override your preferences – you will only hear sound if you are unmuted,

Is this something that is needed or wanted? It is hard to say. Social Media Today wonders whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, but it’s hard to argue with Facebook giving users more options.

In addition to adding music to a post, Facebook is also introducing themed backgrounds that are associated with a small number of artists. The nature of the relationship between artists who are given this attention and Meta are not clear, but you can expect that it is only the biggest and most popular who will receive this treatment.