Facebook announced on Thursday the launch of a new music sharing and discovery tool that allows users to post a 30-second clip of a song from Apple Music, iTunes or Spotify directly to their News Feed.

Users on the social network can already post a status saying they are listening to an artist or particular song by that artist, but in order to hear that tune for yourself, you would have to exit the site or app and open your preferred streaming service.

The new feature, called Music Stories, will allow users to share a snippet of a song they are currently listening to on the aforementioned streaming services simply by hitting "share song" and tapping on their status on the Facebook's mobile app to paste the link. Facebook will automatically format it to play a 30-second soundbite.

Users will then be able to play this posted snippet of a song or album while remaining on Facebook. The "story" is streamed from Apple Music, iTunes or Spotify directly through Facebook, and the user is given the option to stream more music from the service or purchase the track to add to their library without leaving Facebook.

While it's common for users to share a YouTube music video on the social network, this new feature allows Facebook users to easily write a post about a song they can't stop listening to on Spotify without having to search for a good quality audio version.  

Facebook said in a blog post it has plans to expand the new music discovery feature to support more streaming music services "soon."

"We hope by making this experience better, artists will share more, friends will share and engage more, and music will become a better part of the Facebook experience overall," Michael Cerda, Director of Product at Facebook, writes in the blog post.

Music Stories is only available for the Facebook app for iOS for now, and began rolling out worldwide today.  

Source: Facebook