As an artist, tools like Instagram cannot be overlooked. It has several features that can promote your music to your fans while converting more fans for you. Two ways to do this are through IGTV and Insta Stories. This article will highlight how both can come in handy in music promotion.
Instagram Stories are quite helpful when you need to share updates with fans. It also gives your audience a behind-the-scenes view of your activities. You can use this medium to collect votes and opinions from fans. Instagram also allows you to customize the feature with add-ons and free stickers to make it more engaging. For an Instagram business account, the stories feature draws in more traction. So, use this to your advantage.
Here are a few things to post on stories:
- Promote tutorial videos
- Short snippets of performances
- Dates of events
- Rehearsals and other backstage shenanigans
- Instrument and gear videos
- Votes for public opinion
Stories often disappear after 24 hours of posting but they still work towards drawing an audience to your profile. To make the story remain for longer than 24 hours, create a highlight.
Instagram offers more features for larger accounts
This feature doesn’t get curated like other regular posts. However, they use different sets of analytics to track visibility. It can also be used to try out fresh ideas like hosting polls and games monthly. You can also share music links and quick feedback. If you have over 10k followers, Instagram allows you to embed clickable links in stories. Your fans can easily swipe and link to the page. This feature can help you to sell tickets or new music conveniently. Since stories disappear, you can create teasers for your audience so they will come back for more. It is an excellent space for promotion. You can also allow your fans to hit you up privately with it.
Using IGTV for making your music popular
IGTV allows you to post long videos just like every other video content. There is so much you can do with it. Some include:
- Creating performance presentations
- Talking about the music creation process
- Explaining lyrics
- Sharing video streams and live gigs
Instagram Live Videos is an excellent way to engage with your viewers. Such interaction can easily convert into new fans. It saves you from needing a big budget unless you want to deliver a performance.
You can use it to host Q&A sessions along with interactive workshops to show how you do song production or schedule live shows to your advantage. The feature has a long-form immersive presentation mode that you can use to cover the screen space. This makes it possible for fans to store your video like regular videos or stories. Comments are also enabled for this feature.
The key to hacking this feature is consistency. Always be consistent in posting and respond to your audience. If you host regularly, you will develop a regular audience. Know your forte and optimize your presence to increase your fan base. Being an artist requires a growing fan base, and one way to grow your fan base as an artist is through IGTV and Insta Stories.
Insta Stories are 30 seconds long and can be viewed for 24 hours. You’d be surprised by the number of people you can engage within that timeframe. One way you can use Insta Stories to grow your fan base is by using stories to highlight posts you’ve made or links to your website. You could make snippets, pictures, behind the scene, bloopers, etc.
Instagram has a feature that lets you see how many people viewed your story, so you know how wide your coverage is. Depending on how many followers you have, some special privileges are available to you. For example, you can add links to your stories, conduct polls, surveys, etc., on your Insta Stories. You could also give freebies to your fans. What’s more, you can add highlights to your stories to make them stay for longer than 24 hours, as well.
How to use IGTV to grow your Fanbase
IGTV videos allow you to upload longer videos as posts and are especially useful for growing that fan base of yours. One way IGTV can work to your advantage as an artist is that it creates an avenue for live interaction with your followers. IGTV live can be converted to studio sessions, time for answering questions fans may ask, How-To segments, etc. IGTV live puts you in the same virtual space as your followers.
On IGTV, you can upload videos where you talk about your content, try to sell it, etc.
Instagram has so many opportunities for artists to thrive. All you need is to develop a consistent attitude. Set small goals and work towards them. Nobody builds a career by missing opportunities. Instagram is a powerful tool in your hands. Use it.