Using Instagram As A Music Promotion Tool

For musicians and bands, Instagram can be an amazingly powerful tool and can really help you spread the word. So, here are some tips to use it to its utmost.

1 – Establish A Separate Professional Account

Instagram works just like Twitter: It’s easier and more effective to keep your band or professional account separate from your personal account. You’re not going to get a lot of music-loving followers with pictures of your last dinner. If you find that there’s already an account using your band’s name, try including your geographic location. (e.g. DittoMusicUK) Establish a separate email account exclusively for handling your Instagram account.

Note that if you’ve already made a significant investment in branding yourself musically, Instagram does have a Trademark Policy. Get in touch with the company directly if you’d like to claim a specific name that you feel should clearly be yours.

2 – Create The Right Profile

Your Instagram account includes a profile image. For promotional consistency, consider using the same picture here and on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The other components of your Instagram profile are a bio and a link pointing to your website. Instagram profiles are intended to be simple; don’t waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel.

Note that although it’s not easy to post photos through the Instagram website, the web setup does allow you to view, edit, and manage your account from a desktop computer. This may be the most efficient way for you to set up your account and then review it. Buy some Insta views to make your post look nice and busy and viola, you’ll see a lot more people come on board and follow and like your work.

3 – Link Up Your Social Media

Instagram is the preeminent social platform for sharing images, and it can be integrated seamlessly with your other accounts. Facebook integration is especially strong. Your Instagram photos can be sent directly to your Band page, and content shared in this way shows up prominently on your timeline.

You can find the necessary options for linking your Instagram account to your other social media accounts under Profile > Edit Settings.

4 – Telling Stories

Like other social platforms, Instagram is primarily designed to let individuals connect with each other and share their stories. In order to get off to a good start, schedule a little Instagram research time before you start posting. Look at other bands that are using Instagram as an effective promotional platform and see which sorts of content are particularly liked by their followers. Generally speaking, you’re going to want to give people a distinctive reason to follow your band.

5 – Play With Your Schedule

Instagram is notable for having highly variable audience responses depending on when you post. A daily picture shared at 9 AM might not generate any buzz with your intended audience, but posting the same image at lunchtime could create a huge response.

Don’t be afraid to play around with your posting times to find out what works best for your followers. It’s useful to put yourself onto a general schedule, making your posts at a similar time every day. This doesn’t have to be ironclad, though, and sometimes sharing a spontaneous image is the best way to deliver great content.

6 – Use The Right Lingo

As noted above, Instagram works very well with other social media platforms. If you have an aggressive promotional strategy, you’re probably distributing content across multiple platforms at the same time. Just make sure you tweak your posts to work with the particular service you’re using! You don’t want to slap pictures onto Instagram with a caption urging your followers to retweet them.

7 – Make Your Band Instagram Collaborative

You might find yourself running low on creative pictures to launch on your Instagram feed. That doesn’t mean the whole band is running out of content to share! It’s relatively easy to set up an Instagram account so that multiple people can post to it. Doing this allows followers to connect with you as a group rather than as just one individual. Exercise a little common sense and organization to keep things from getting confusing for your followers. You don’t want to have two band members posting at the same time or sharing the same photos!

8 – Look To Fans For More Content

Social media is all about reciprocity. If you want your fans to follow you, you should be prepared to follow them in turn. Take the time to scour the service for mentions of your band, and be generous with your likes and comments. Do your best to find and appreciate fan photos of your gigs and events. Reply to comments your followers leave on your photos whenever possible.

9 – Tagging And Geo-Tagging

Use relevant hashtags to describe your Instagram posts and make them easier for people to find. Opinions differ as to how many hashtags are too many, but you definitely want to avoid adding irrelevant tags in an effort to attract more people.

Instagram is also an excellent platform for publishing geo-tagged pictures. This enables potential fans to find you based on proximity as well as your hashtags.