Instagram music promotion can be hard if you don’t use the right strategies and approaches. In this article you will learn how to optimize your Instagram and how to market your music.
Optimize your Instagram profile
First thing to do is to optimize your Instagram profile and make sure that everything looks nice and clean. Some of this stuff are pretty straight forward but I’m sure there are still some things you can do to improve your profile.
Let’s start with your profile name. Make sure that you are using the same profile name on all of your social media accounts. This enhances your artist brand and makes it is easier for people to find you.
When you are choosing your profile name try to keep it short and do not include any special characters. It should be easy for your listeners to remember your name. Your profile name should be also unique so people will not confuse you with other producers or brands.
After you have decided your name you should add a profile picture. I recommend to use a simple picture that can be easily remembered. If you can’t make profile picture yourself you can get a freelancer to make a picture for you. You can find freelancers from Fiverr for example and get it done for 5$.
Again, I recommend to use the same picture on all of your social media sites so people can find and remember you more easily.
Lastly, you need to write a short description to your profile page. You can only write a very short description so you need to use the space wisely.
You should tell people who you are, what you do and why they should follow you. You are also allowed to add one link to your profile. This can be a link to your YouTube channel or Spotify, for example.
Make new content
The most important thing to do is to upload new content regularly. When your followers know that they get constant updates from you, they will trust you.
Trust is what you are going to need more than anything. Building trust takes time but when your followers trusts you, they will listen to all your new tracks, follow you on every social media sites, like & share your posts and leave comments.
Trust can be also lost easily if you don’t provide value. You should never upload new content just because you have to upload. You need to make valuable content to your audience.
Here are some example Instagram music promotion & marketing content ideas:
- music productions videos
- behind the scenes videos & pictures
- music sneak peaks
- music previews
- music tutorials
It is a good idea to upload new content daily. If you miss a day or two there is no need to worry. As long as you are posting regularly you are good to go. Keep in mind though that posting more increases your chances to get more new followers.
You may also repost other people’s content. However, reposting content should never be your main source of content. If you repost something it should be similar to your own content.
There are many free apps that can be used to download videos & pictures from Instagram. Once you are about to repost, don’t forget to credit the original creator of the video or picture.
Engagement
When your new piece of content is uploaded you need to engage your followers. Reply to every single comment you get and like them. This way we you building trust and your followers will eventually notice that they can easily communicate with you.
The same applies to direct messages as well. When you receive direct messages you need to reply to them. The more easily your followers can communicate with you the better.
You can also create engagement yourself. Find similar minded people on Instagram and comment their videos and pictures.
When people see your comments they will more likely follow you and leave comments to your own posts. This is a great way to get new followers and find other music lovers and producers.
Advertising
Ads are a big part of Instagram in these days. Instagram let’s you advertise any of your posts or stories. This way you are able to get a lot more traffic if you are willing to spend some money.
When you are creating an ad you can choose the target audience. Instagram will only show your post to those people who meets the criteria you have chosen.
Here are some criteria you can adjust to target your ads:
- age of the audience
- demographic
- gender
- interests
When your ad is ready Instagram will review it. Reviewing usually takes couple of hours so be patience. I recommend to first spend small amount of money and see how your ads are performing.
You can also try to target different audience to see who which settings are bringing you the most traffic. You need to optimize your ads to avoid wasting money.
Conclusions
Instagram music promotion & marketing is effective when done right. The are 3 key things to remember when using Instagram: content, value and engagement.
You need to make valuable content to your followers regularly and engage them in order to build a sustainable artist brand.