10 Ways Musicians Can Promote on Instagram
After less and less happens on Facebook, more and more people are logging on to the social media portal Instagram. Since Instagram now belongs to Facebook, accounts can be linked there and contacts from the friends list can also be transferred. But every beginning is not so easy. How to get followers on Instagram? You can always just go to https://pimpmyacc.com/promote-your-instagram-account and learn how to do it more efficiently. But I did a little research and experimented with my own profiles there. The result is the following helpful tips for musicians on Instagram.
Here are 10 tips for musicians on Instagram.
#1 Be active!
Since it is a social media account, social interaction is very much in the foreground. This means that you should not remain idle, but actively comment and add this “meaningful heart” to other images. Waiting and doing nothing doesn’t bring followers, unless you’re Taylor Swift or something, for example, and the world is already at your feet anyway.
#2 Post pictures or videos regularly
On a profile on which no pictures can be seen, hardly anyone will linger. So post interesting pictures from your musical life. It doesn’t have to be anything private. As a musician, there are plenty of other interesting opportunities in which you can give the interested fan insights. The frequency is up to you. If you’re still active, it’s enough to post once a week. You can also post daily. As you like. However, you can quickly annoy your followers with too much content per day and risk losing followers.
#3 Post content in good quality
Noisy and shaky images that are far too dark are not very well received on Instagram either. High-contrast, sharp and bright, colorful images work best. For the original Musifiziert account, I opted for black and white pictures, because the preview in the blog is also black and white. With profiles that have quite a lot of followers, you can also see a kind of scheme and consistent style. The pictures are coordinated with each other in terms of color and theme.
#4 Post themed pictures
We want to pick up the content of the pictures. As a musician, you should think about what you want to post on your profile. For example, if you have a home studio and produce songs, then pictures are absolutely recommended. Pictures from the family trip to the zoo, on the other hand, do not necessarily fit into this series, as you are more likely to be followed by people who are interested in your studio work. But maybe that’s what your fans find interesting. Find out! The same goes for an excessive number of pictures of the daily lunch. As a food blogger, this is a must, but if you’re a musician, show your followers that you’re also making music and not just eating.
#5 Use meaningful hashtags
To be found on Instagram, the use of relevant hashtags (#) is important. Of course, this only works well if you have not set your profile to private, but everyone can see your pictures. But you want to push your music project anyway, so why hide your content? For example, if you post a picture from the recording session in the studio, you could also use the following hashtags in the image description: #recording #musician #recordingstudio #studio, etc. Of course, you can also use German terms. However, in order to reach a larger audience, English hashtags have proven their worth. I like to combine.
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#6 Work on connecting with followers
If you start with Instagram, you will often be shocked to see how fast-paced it is and that followers “come and go”. Many who don’t know you and your music or your project yet will find and subscribe to you relatively quickly (if you follow these tips…) without having any special connection to you. – Many follow you in the hope that you will follow back. So if someone subscribes to you with an interesting profile, just follow back. Thus, the chances are quite good that he/she remains on the subscription list. Commenting on each other and liking pictures strengthens the “relationship” even more. Don’t take it personally if everyone doesn’t follow you back or withdraws their subscription.
#7 You can publish music videos
Videos up to a length of 60 seconds can also be uploaded to Instagram. Not necessarily suitable for publishing entire music videos. But you can upload snippets of it. In the description, you can refer to the complete video. Good videos work really great to actually convince with your own music and get “real” fans.
#8 Links in Instagram
On Instagram, you can currently not place links to other websites in individual pictures and videos. However, a single link can be integrated into the profile. There you could link the website, Facebook page, or even the YouTube channel. If you publish a new music video and upload it as a teaser to Instagram, you can store the link in your profile and replace it later when the next video is released. This makes it easier for interested parties to watch the new video. With the reference “Link in bio” in the description of the picture or video, you can easily refer to it. – This is a common practice on Instagram.
#9 Private Messages on Instagram
If you are particularly interested in me and want to learn more, you can also write to me in a private chat. This is a fairly simple way of contacting us. Great collaborations have already been created in this area. Also great for fan loyalty!
#10 Invest time and stay tuned!
To be successful on Instagram, you have to invest quite a lot of time. Once you have built up a certain number of followers, it will be easier for future prospects to follow you as well. Man is such a herd animal, as you can also observe there. This means that especially at the beginning you have to deal intensively with this tool and be active. For this reason, in large companies, there is often an extra person who concentrates exclusively on the maintenance of the Instagram profile or social media work. So don’t give up, stay tuned, and don’t be disappointed if Instagram doesn’t get off to the same rocket as you might be used to elsewhere.
Conclusion: Trying is about studying
So now we have a profile with the first pictures or videos and have the first idea of how it works on Instagram. Now it’s time to test it all. The first friends are already following you and even some fans have discovered your profile there. But how do you get more followers and what do you have to do to get more people to discover you there? I believe you just have to test it out.