Facebook has been assembling a team of music experts this year, but it’s been unclear what the social network’s end game is with the hiring spree. Most of the new postings have focused on direct licensing or publishing, but now it is recruiting for the role of Music Business Development Manager. According to the job description, this individual would “lead Facebook’s strategy and negotiations with digital music services, as well as collaborate with our product, media partnerships and platform partnerships teams to ensure a coordinated and best-in-class approach.” It also lists “digital music negotiation experience” as a desired qualification.
This latest facet to Facebook’s team-building indicates that the company is indeed seeking a partnership-based approach to music rather than looking to go it alone and build its own platform. Facebook has already been building out the ways it integrates with existing streaming platforms: members can build Spotify playlists by Messenger and it has teased a collaboration with Apple Music. The further emphasis on negotiation in this latest job posting hints that we could be seeing more and more deals in this vein that bring audio (and possibly video) to the forefront of the social network.