Instagram boasts over 1 billion monthly active users. With these massive numbers comes an opportunity to promote your music and build new fans. This is thanks to a host of decent Instagram features, which encourage high levels of engagements with audiences.
The vast majority of famous artists heavily rely on Instagram as a key part of their marketing strategy. The growth of the platform also shows no signs of slowing down so it would be ill-advised to exclude it from your marketing efforts.
If you’re an amateur looking for ways to promote music on Instagram, then you’ve come to the right site. Below we share some tips to get your career off the ground.
Switch your personal profile to a business account
If you’re still using your personal account, it’s high time you converted it. There are several perks of making the switch, such as accessing analytics, Ads creation, and call-to-action features. What’s great, converting your account is absolutely free.
Have a great Instagram profile picture
When fans come across your profile, you want them to perceive you as professional. Always remember human beings are visual creatures and will first judge you based on your profile photos.
Therefore, it’s important to use high-quality photos that reflect your images and the kind of music you’re into for a good first impression. Ideally, a picture size of 110 x 110 pixels with a 1:1 aspect ratio will look perfect for the space Instagram provides.
Well, your profile photo can be a logo, album artwork, headshot, band photo, or some creative graphic.
We would advise you keep your profile picture updated with the latest promotion your running. For example if you have a new album launching you should try changing your picture to match the album cover.
Optimize your bio
Many musicians often overlook their bios. While Instagram gives you only 150 characters to work with, make sure your bio is fully optimized and compelling.
It should be your elevator pitch, giving a quick synopsis of your music and who you are. However, we don’t mean making your bio all about the type of music you’re doing. That’s being too generic
Think about something that can set you apart from the crowd. Perhaps, telling a short version of your story. It’s a great way to promote music on Instagram.
Also, don’t be too formal. Feel free to drop in some slang or jargon phrases that you think are familiar to your target fans.
Make your bio link count as well. You can link it to your other social media accounts, music streaming platforms, or website and landing pages where your music can be downloaded.
Make use of Hashtags
Hashtags haven’t lost their significance yet. This social media platform is all about the hashtags and you should aim to use at least 20 of the maximum 30 tags allowed on each post. The more tags you include, the wider reach you’re more likely to get.
Many Instagram users still rely on hashtags to discover new content and accounts they’re interested in following. Besides, the users also receive several hashtag recommendations, which are fetched by Instagram algorithms based on the past posts the users have shown interest in.
But how do you go about creating great hashtags to promote music on Instagram? If you’re new in the game, just find a hashtag tool online. You’re truly spoiled for choice. And they’re pretty straightforward to use, as you typically input genre of music and the relevant phrases, and then wait for hashtag suggestions.
Alternatively, you can check out what similar artists are doing to enjoy an excellent level of organic engagement on their Instagram posts. This can give you a clue on how to create your tags.
Tell Instagram stories
Stories should be part of your Instagram music promotion strategy. Even though Stories will be live for only 24 hours, they’re quite useful for sharing personal updates, sneak peeks, and off-the-cut content to encourage engagement. After 24 hours, your Stories will be archived and you can choose to create reference highlights for your new potential fans.
Musicians can increase fan interaction through features, such as poll and ask me a question. If your Instagram fans reply to your Stories, you will receive a Direct Message. Interacting with users through DM’s in time presents you with a good opportunity to build strong relationships and increase the fan base.
Through DM’S, you can also inform them about your latest releases, when is your next performance, etc. However, restrain from begging users to follow you or download your music.
Please note that as your account grows and attracts 10,000 followers or more, you become eligible for adding a link in your Stories. The link can be to your official website, YouTube channel, or online store.
Share valuable content
Instagram allows musicians to send messages to potential fans through images and videos. You can share images of you performing in the studio, selfies with fans, images of your new musical instruments, and more.
Make sure you give your images engaging captions. The caption you use should at least strike a conversation or discussion, ask a question, or tell a story that relates to your music journey.
Videos can have a significant impact on your music career. You have up to 60 seconds to grab their attention, but you should aim to do it as soon as possible. And, the video clips shouldn’t be just snippets of your songs.
Another thing worth mentioning is that, many musicians forget to subtitle their videos. Unfortunately, users often scroll feeds with the sound off by default. It’s worth thinking about this group of users before posting.
Live stream
Going live is another great way to promote music on Instagram. It encourages direct interaction with fans, which opens doors for building long-lasting relationships. It’s possible to grow your fan base if you do live streams frequently.
You don’t need to invest in a professional camera for live videos. Your smartphone will do the trick as long as it has good picture clarity.
Musicians can go live for a questions and answers session, to make a special announcement, or simply give some acoustic performance.
Live streaming has become more popular in recent times due to the pandemic and has encouraged many people to watch steams.
Many artist have actually generated revenue for themselves by selling tickets to virtual gigs which has helped them survive over the past year.
Instagram TV
Instagram TV or IGTV allows you to upload longer videos and is an alterative to uploading videos to YouTube. You can upload a video up to 10 minutes long or 60 minutes with a verified profile. This can useful to create really longform engaging content for your users.
If you already have long video content on your YouTube, twitter or Facebook account it can useful to reupload the content to IGTV.
Post when your audience is most active
For increased engagement on your posts and videos, it’s important that you’re spot on with your posting times. Use Instagram analytics to see the hours and days your audience is most active. If your Instagram account is new and you don’t have any analytics we would recommend going off the industry standards. Typically most users will be more active weekdays after 4pm and most of Sunday’s.
Instagram Ads
Instagram has brilliant advertising program which allows you to boost posts. This can get your content in front of people instantly. Instagram ads has some great targeting features which allows you to share your posts to people who are likely to engage with you content. All you must do to is switch your account to a business account and you can start advertising.
Final thoughts
Instagram is a powerful tool that can take your music career to the next level. Success lies in how you go about your Instagram music promotion. You also need to be a little patient to grow your list of followers. Don’t just jump into buying followers because the quality of every post is evaluated based on the engagement it generates.
