Messenger Launches 'Soundmojis' to Add Another Element to Your Replies

Messenger today announced the launch of its new 'Soundmojis,' which are emojis that play a short music clip, adding another interactive aspect to your chat threads, coinciding with World Emoji Day. When Soundmojis are included in a message, they play an audio clip that the receiver will hear when they get it.

Soundmojis are a higher-level emoji that allow you to send short sound clips in a Messenger chat, ranging from clapping, crickets, drumroll, and evil laughter to audio clips from your favorite artists like Rebecca Black and TV shows and movies like Universal Pictures' F9, NBC and Universal Television's Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Netflix and Shondaland's Bridgerton. The drama of it all, oh, the drama of it all. That may be an entertaining, intriguing addition to your conversation threads, and the app could become a major hit if you don't suddenly blast the office or train carriage with a creepy ghost sound.

According to Facebook, consumers send over 2.4 billion emoji-based messages on Messenger every day, so leveraging that usage makes sense, especially since more people are open to audio features than they have been in the past (88 percent of TikTok users, for example, say that sound is essential to the TikTok experience), it may be the ideal time to take emojis to the next level, and the inclusion of promotional tie-in clips suggests that Facebook may be looking to convert it into a marketing opportunity with some excellent niche use cases.

You can imagine a popular ad campaign expanding specific quotes or clips to Soundmojis in order to boost their branding effort, for example. This isn't something that all brands can use, but it could be a consideration for big campaigns, or those that gain traction quickly and inspire people to quote and reference. Facebook hasn't said how brands will be able to accomplish this yet, but given the above tie-ins, it's likely already working on it for the general public.

After you've upgraded your Messenger app, tap the smiling face to enter the expressions menu, then click the loudspeaker symbol to see your Soundmoji selections. You can then preview and email your Soundmoji stickers from there.

Facebook says it will keep updating its Soundmoji collection, which will feature more popular and well-known voices to expand your audio response possibilities. In addition, in honor of World Emoji Day, Facebook has compiled a list of the most popular food and drink emojis used on the platform, which may lend some context to your preparations. Or maybe not. It's a rudimentary overview with little detail, but it adds another fascinating data point, emphasizing the use of emojis, which could hint to Soundmojis being a platform winner.

It'll be fascinating to watch where Facebook takes this, as well as how accepting Soundmoji clips are among Facebook users. For frequent users and brands, it might be a substantial addition. Hopefully, Facebook will provide us with some usage statistics in the near future.