How To Promote Music On Instagram: A Guide For Musicians
Published October 16, 2023
If you have to choose one social media platform to be in if you are a musician, then that would have to be Instagram. It’s a top social media platform to dip into whether you are a budding artist or an established musician to grow your brand, increase engagement with your loyal followers, and gain new fans.
With over 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million daily active users, Instagram is the place to shine for musicians. With Instagram’s sterling feature enabling users to add music to feed photo posts, similar to what you can do for stories and reels, musicians now have limitless ways to grow their brand reach.
In addition, Instagram reels are also being shared 1 billion times a day which means you can put your music out there with more opportunities for non-followers to discover and love your music. In addition, Instagram reels also reveal an average engagement rate of 1.23%, according to a 2023 study by SocialInsider. With that said, if you are not yet using Instagram to promote your business, those potential new customers might never find their way to your products or services.
With 90% of users following at least one brand or business on Instagram, your music will certainly get more visibility on this popular social media platform.
The most powerful competitive advantage Instagram has over other social media platforms is user engagement. With Instagram, users can easily tag even giant brands in their everyday photos which businesses can easily leverage to gain more reach from user-generated content. Imagine a world wherein you can normally just add anyone to a personal photo using Instagram’s “Photos of You” feature. This allows users to interact freely with their favorite brands and musicians in a fun and intimate way.
Instagram for Music – Why is Instagram So Good for Musicians?
With Instagram, you can expand your network and influence! Instagram is an excellent platform for musicians to grow their brand reach, visibility, and engagement. On Instagram, you can find and collaborate with other artists, musicians, producers, and your music fans. In fact, with Instagram, you’ll find it easy for music enthusiasts to discover your music and follow you.
Using hashtags, you can interact with people interested in a particular niche. The more you engage with other artists and musicians, the more you expand your network, which opens more opportunities to put your music in the spotlight.
Your 24/7 Business Card
Instagram promotion is the best way to showcase your music. With your Instagram profile and content, people can easily follow and engage with your content. You can post random and raw videos of you while performing or on rehearsals. You can also post a photo of your music setup. Your Instagram becomes your all-rounder business card that showcases what you’re all about and how they can support your music.
Expand Your Brand Reach
There’s no shade of doubt that your music rocks, but without a social media presence, you are practically invisible to your target audience. In a music study conducted by Nielsen together with Instagram on 3,000 respondents, the results prove that the majority of Instagram users are music lovers. Around 47% of Instagram users spend more on music-related items than anything else.
Strengthen Relationships with Fans
When on Instagram, there are many ways to show up and interact with your fans. You can follow your fans back right after they follow you, respond to their DMs and comments, and make a shout-out when they tag or add you to their photos. You can also go live so they can ask questions, promote new offers or a music album, or create more intimacy with your audience. It’s extremely important to be authentic and warm in your communications and engagement with your fans because these people are drawn to and inspired by your music.
Open Up Collaborations
With Instagram, it’s easy to find other music artists or influencers with whom you can collaborate to expand your brand reach. In other words, you can tap into other people’s audience and cross-promote. In the same way, they can also promote their offers or music to your audience.
Generate More Sales
As your fans get to know you behind the scenes and also your music, you gain more admiration and following because authenticity really compounds and If you start raking in thousands of views on your music reels or stories on Instagram, you also get more sales for your music and also from your merch.
Paid Advertising Opportunities
Once musicians become popular on Instagram, they become huge Instagram music influencers, and this opens up a new revenue stream for you on paid advertising. This means brands will find it an advantage to collaborate with you and pay you for promoting their products and/or services to your thousands or millions of followers on Instagram.
How to Promote on Instagram
Around 350 million Instagram users follow musicians. The top 5 most followed accounts on Instagram belong to music artists like Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Beyonce, and Ariana Grande. With that being said, musicians should take their Instagram marketing efforts seriously because this is the platform to be in if you want to gain maximum visibility, engagement, and sales! Here’s how to do your Instagram promotion:
Instagram Feed
Your Instagram feed is your professional canvas designed for visual storytelling.
You can share your personal story or music inspirations, the story behind your music, clips from your concerts or live performances, feature your fans and music milestones, showcase your music tech setup or instruments, do cover songs of other famous artists to showcase your flexibility, and even random snapshots of your life as both a musician or your personal life, making your fans feel like they are a part of it.
These posts are strategically curated and have that same familiar branding and cohesive look that your fans can identify with.
Instagram Stories
Unlike posts that will be on your feed permanently, Instagram stories are up for only 24 hours, which is great for showcasing what goes on with you behind the scenes, promoting something real quick, and letting your fans get up close and personal with glimpses of your everyday life.
Some ideas to put on your IG stories are polls, quizzes, and questions that will help you get inside your fans’ headspace and get to know them better. Also, fans can easily reach you when they reply to your stories, helping you build and strengthen your bond with fans.
You also get to unlock a special IG feature once you reach 10,000 followers that allows you to link your website or YouTube channel.
Instagram Reels
You have 60 seconds to keep your fans captivated with your music via Instagram reels – so make it count. The urgency to digest content makes this tempting for music enthusiasts who love bite-sized content.
With reels, you can also join trending challenges, create teasers of your new music video or album to keep your fans excited and glued to your music, or simply promote and collaborate with other music artists. With a potential ad audience on reels shooting to 758.5 million Instagram users, using reels will definitely broaden your music market. This is in fact one of the best ways that you can leverage when using Instagram as part of your marketing mix.
Instagram Live Videos
You can host a live stream right on Instagram. These Instagram music live sessions allow musicians to impact and create connections with fans on a real-time basis. You can also engage with your fans in the comments. You can have live performances, announce or promote a new album release or concerts, or host a Q&A session.
Enjoy Jam Sessions With Your Fans!
As a musician, using Instagram is never just a solo act. It’s a collaboration with peers and also real-time jam sessions with your fans. Your followers are not just numbers but a part of your music scene. With every post, comment, and share, you share your music and soul with fans. Instagram is your stage, and it’s time to make every jam session Instagram-worthy!
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About The Author
Judy Ponio is a professional writer and SEO specialist based in the Philippines. She works hard to cross check reputable sources to ensure her work uses accurate facts. She is the lead author for several prominent websites covering a variety of topics including law, health, nutrition, and more.
