Growing Your Instagram As A Musician
It is inarguably that Instagram has grown to become a major social media platform even thou some still considered Facebook to be the king when it comes to social media. Beyond reasonable doubt, Instagram surpassed the like of Myspace, Twitter, and many others which make channeling your energy to be relevant Instagram worthwhile.
With over one billion active users, Instagram is a fantastic visual social media platform to grow your fan base. However, building a community of fans as a musician requires some strategies and all efforts might be futile if the strategies are not put in place. Here are a few tips you need to grow your fan base on Instagram.
Secure Your Name
The first important thing to do is to secure your handle immediately you have a band name if you have the intention of promoting yourself and band on Instagram. This is important as two persons cannot use a handle so securing your handle is a necessity before another person does. You can read the Instagram trademark policy for more information.
Build Your Identity
Instagram allows you to build a profile for yourself, take this opportunity, and make it worthwhile. Let your profile include your stage name, real name, contact information, and a short biography. When people visit your profile, make them stay a bit by making it attractive. A consistent appearance of your set of pictures is one way to achieve this. For instance, upload your picture in batch and ensure each set of pictures have a similar and consistent look. Various photo editing apps exist to help to make your photos a fitting one for your theme. VSCOCam is a perfect example of apps you can use.
Tell Your Story
Consider your Instagram feed as your online page to showcase who you are, utilize the advantage to tell your story. Showcase your picture, video, and other content that described you as an artist. Be consistent in your feed to be relevant. For instance, your performance, your interest, fashion, and others are a great way to keep your feed interesting.
Make Every Post Meaningful
Do your research before posting to ensure you are posting what people want to see. Check the pages of other artists whose acts are related to yours and have gained grounds on Instagram to see how they post. Check the kinds of things they post that attract more viewers and comments, check the hashtags they use that gain them more comments then, follow the same steps. Do not copy other people’s content or use other people’s intellectual properties without their permission or referencing them. Digging about others who are ahead of you in their online identity will help you step up your game.
Post Consistently But Wisely
Consistency in posting is vital in building followers, sporadic posting can make you irrelevant and cause you to lose some of your followers, to make posting easier, you can create some of your posts ahead of time. Apps like Hootsuite can be of help to stay at the cutting edge. However, these two things are very important when posting:
Post At The Right Times
Perfect timing is very important to receive the most engagement, your fans are not located in the same time zone so, posting in the morning, afternoon, and evening will ensure all your fans have immediate access to your post regardless of their locations. Also, you push a bit harder to analyze when most of your followers will be online. Tools like Owlmetrics, Iconosquare, Sprout Social, and many others will help you to stay at the top of your game.
Watch How Often You Post
Consistent posting doesn’t make too much difference if the contents are not rich. Contents post on Instagram is not always temporary like most other Social Medias so it is important that every of your post makes good meaning and would not annoy your followers.
Spark Engagement
Just as you are looking to grow a community of fans online so are others trying to gain followers too. You have to give to receive, engage your followers with questions that will demand their comments, post-call-to-action photos and videos to engage them. React to meaningful conversations, leave good comments on other people meaningful posts, like people’s photos, and follow people with similar goals.
Use the Right Hashtags
When posting, try to make a connection with your post by connecting with people with a similar mindset. Think of hashtags that represent your brand and what your followers are likely to be searching for, include that with your post. Tools like Owlmetrics and Iconosquare would help you know the trending hashtags that would reach your audiences. With relevant hashtags, you are likely to gain more followers.
Return Any Engagement
Take advantage of every opportunity, if you receive any comment on your account, do not let it end there, try to establish a conversation. Return every comment and like on your post, even if you have nothing to say, a good emoji will show that you appreciate the time taken to comment. The more active you are with your followers, the more they are likely to be committed to following you.
If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to contact us.
