Facebook is preparing its answer to Musical.ly, this is how you can cash in

What is Lip Sync Live and who is going to be using it?

Lip Sync Live is Facebook’s upcoming service which aims to recapture the coveted 13-24 age demographic. Their decision to invest in this service for the Facebook ecosystem comes on the tails of their licensing deals with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. How this service will look in reality is that users looking to go Live will be able to choose the option “Lip Sync Live,” pick a song, and lip sync to their heart’s content. They will also have the option to bring in their friends to stream live and lip sync together to the songs owned by those three major record groups.

If you have never heard of Musical.ly, it is because its userbase is predominately females under the age of 21. The premise of the app is that anyone can record a 15-second video of themselves singing along to popular songs. Facebook hopes to bring over those users in a similar vein to how Instagram aims to steal users from Snapchat. The reasoning behind this is that most people already have a Facebook account but are not fond of the service as a whole. By bringing in a hip new feature, the hope is that these users will come back to Facebook to at least try it out since they do not need to sign up for anything new.

Why does this feature matter?

The Musical.ly app features charts of the top videos as well as the top songs people have been lip-syncing to. Those song charts can directly result in music sales. This is because many young and impressionable people will hear certain songs over and over along with the accompanying video from a celebrity or friend, all of which contribute to a positive reaction to the song and an increased desire to own the full song. No one knows for sure how much Facebook will “borrow” from their competitor, but looking at the Instagram and Snapchat example again, it looks like Facebook is not shy when it comes to taking inspiration from other services.

Steps to make sure you’re ready

In order to prepare for this, you need to make sure you claim all of your rights to your music so that you can make sure they go into whichever catalog Facebook creates for its music. Having your song in this catalog which will undoubtedly be searched by millions of users means free impressions and advertising for your music. Facebook is also looking into paying royalties to the rights holders whereas before they would simply mute copyrighted and protected songs.

How to use Lip Sync Live to promote yourself and your music

Being at the forefront of a new service can only be beneficial. Even when a new service like Vine grows in popularity and later shutters its doors, the stars of the service have seen their fanbases migrate to services like Instagram and YouTube. Those who invest the time to grow a following on a new service in its fledgling stages have historically been rewarded by the company as was the case with Vine and YouTube.

Artists have benefited from a specific feature in Musical.ly which allowed creators to host a competition for their song. This means that they would give out prizes to whichever lip-syncing video was their favorite. The result is many young users will enter their submission share their entry with their own followers, therefore spreading your music even further. Even if Facebook doesn’t directly implement this feature, hosting a contest on the new service would still vastly increase the reach of your music to an even wider audience.

As for the music itself, certain songs like Bazzi – Mine, Kanye West – Father Stretch My Hands, or Rae Sremmurd – Black Beatles ft. Gucci Mane blew up in popularity for certain sections which played into viral memes and challenges. Having a section in your own song that could be visualized in countless ways and inspires people to use your song as a soundtrack means that your track could very well be the song of choice for new users of Facebook’s service. You could even start the trend off yourself by making the template for the viral content in a vein similar to the “Wholesome Memes” which use Bazzi’s “Mine” as the soundtrack. As you can see in the video above, this forty-five-second clip has generated almost six million views and countless spin-offs using that one song. With the right amount of support, luck, and exposure, your song could be one of the first trends on Lip Sync Live.