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Instagram for bands

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Using Instagram to promote your band can be a very effective way to help people discover your music. While using Facebook to promote your band is the number way to take care of your band’s online presence, Instagram has a secret weapon that will help you to reach a lot of new people – hashtags.

Instagram focuses on posting images and short videos and requires a bit of a different strategy than Facebook.

What to post

The basic ideas of what kind of content to post still apply, so if you need a refresher, check here. One difference with Instagram is that it focuses more on spontaneous content. Experiment what works best but it’s worth trying posting more of the bands’ day-to-day activities and even some non-music related content that might be interesting to your audience.

Keep in mind that Instagram does not let you post clickable links, simply because they don’t want you to leave Instagram.

It’s also worth mentioning that Instagram stories are great for sharing more spontaneous content since it gets erased after 24h unless you save it. One great idea is sharing your songs directly from Spotify into an Instagram story. Just remember to put some animated arrows in the upper-left corner to make sure people see that there’s a link to Spotify they can click.

Tagging

Just like on Facebook, it helps to tag the right people. If you are posting about a venue, music gear you are using, another band who was awesome to play with, tag them by typing the ‘@’ character, then the account name.

How to get more followers

Follow!

The easiest way to get more relevant followers might be easier than you think but does require some research. First, identify artists that play music similar to you, then find their Instagram account, look at the list of their followers and start following these people from your band account.

Some of them will be curious and will check your Instagram account, and if they like what they see (or even better – hear!), there is a good chance they will follow you back. If they are not interested, they will simple ignore it and move on with their lives.

It goes without saying, you should have some good content on your account before doing that, so people have a reason to follow you. Short video clips with your music are a great way to make a good first impression.

Hashtags

What are they?

A ‘Hashtag’ is the text that starts with a ‘#’ and you can often see that in social media posts. They are a way of tagging your content to appear under the appropriate topic. Once you click on a hashtag, you will see the content from all other Instagram users that used the same hashtag.

Instagram to promote your band

Example hashtags from Gürschach

The power of hashtags

With Facebook, there are two basic ways people will see your posts:

  1. Somebody who ‘Likes’ your page will see it in their feed
  2. A person who ‘Likes’, comments or shares your post, will make it visible to their friends

That’s great but you can really see how your reach is limited. With Instagram, you can add special text to your post that will help your content to be discovered organically. This comes at absolutely no cost and if done right, will get you a lot of new followers.

Originally you had to search or click on a hashtag to see related posts, however, later on Instagram allowed its users to follow hashtags, giving people who use them even more exposure.

How to choose your hashtags

It’s important to choose relevant keywords, as spamming will actually hurt your post.

  • Start with your own hashtag. Is your band called ‘Happy Hippie Rage’? Get #HappyHippieRage hashtag going, so other people can post their photos with that tag and your fans can see it.
  • What is relevant to your post?
  • To help you choose a good hashtag, you can use sites like Websta or simply type keywords into Instagram’s search bar by starting with # and you will see matching hashtags and their popularity. Instagram to promote your band
  • Use local tags associated with your local scene: #BayAreaMetal #BayAreaMusic
  • Jump on some high-traffic hashtags: #MusicMonday #MusicMondayVideos #TBT (or #ThrowbackThursday) #HumpDay #MetalMusic #FridayNight #SaturdayNight #SS (or #SelfieSunday)
  • A lot of people view the popular hashtags but as a result, they also get so much content that your post will move down quite quickly. Because of that, it is recommended you use a mix of 3 to 5 super popular hashtags and 6 to 3 of less popular one.
  • Is your post about an upcoming show? Tag other bands you play with that night and use their hashtags for some great cross-promotion.
  • If you have a decent number of followers, tag gear manufacturers whose products you like and use. This might be a good starting point to discuss an endorsement.
  • Don’t spam with irrelevant tags. You don’t want to annoy people with your band

Putting it all together

This is a great post from Hellheart where a lot of things come together:

  • Funny image
  • Anybody can relate to it, and join in with comments
  • Hashtags
  • Tagged the drummer, so people can follow him as well

Action plan for you

  1. Find relevant fans, and follow them.
  2. Use good hashtags in your next post.
  3. Tag people or brands when you mention them.

Finally, one more tip. It might be tempting to post to use Instagram to post to Facebook as well, but it’s not a good strategy. If you tagged anyone, it will not work and the using Instagram hashtags in Facebook posts can actually hurt your exposure.

What other strategies have you found useful when promoting your band on Instagram?

Facebook for bands

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How do you use Facebook for bands? Let’s start with something you might not have expected…

You are NOT building a promo page to sell stuff

Instead, you are building a community of like-minded people. You want to attract people who listen to your style of music and enjoy the culture around it. Don’t try to appeal to everyone and instead cater specifically to your ideal audience and the fans that respond to that will be your most valued asset.

And please, don’t do the ‘Check out my band’ driveby posts. Nobody will be impressed. Here’s an example:

Facebook don't

Why would I be interested in clicking on this?

This post would be much more interesting if it included some information about the music that would intrigue the viewer, for example ‘Love psychedelic hot-dog inspired folk tunes? Listen to our new song from our upcoming album’. Even better, add a Spotify link to your post so that I don’t even have to leave FB to listen, just press play right in the post.

Posting guidelines

  • Post consistently. You can schedule your posts in advance directly from Facebook, or across different social media platforms with a free web app  www.hootsuite.com
  • Think of what theme does your music present. Play Celtic metal? Post  LOTR, castles, weapons, etc.
  • Pretend like you are talking to one person when building your sentences.
  • Don’t ask people explicitly to share and like. It will work against you.
  • Track which posts get the most shares and comments, repost them again in the future for new people that liked your page since.
  • There is a huge metal audience in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Learn how to post in multiple languages here.
  • Videos will get you best reaction. Images are ok and text-only posts are something you should try to avoid.

What to post

  • Post viral videos that you like (could be a wine repurposed barrel table). Check Buzfeed or metal memes. If you can download the video and post, that’s great. If no, sharing is ok too.
  • A story about a show, or rehearsal.
  • Images that go with your theme (‘choose your weapon’, ‘I would like to retire here’, etc.).
  • Use open-ended questions (not a ‘yes/no’) to get a conversation going. It could be feedback on merch, asking for help to choose a design, etc.
  • Take a photo of your fans during a gig and tag them.

Here’s an example of a post that works. It uses images that is funny, specific to the genre, and it knows its audience well.

Tagging

This is an important aspect of Facebook that many people do not utilize well. It will help to promote you and your fellow bands.

  • Whether it’s a personal, or band post, always tag well. Instead of writing ‘We had a great night with my band, Apicura’, type ‘@’ first, then start typing the band name. This will create a link, so it’s easy for people to see your band page.
  • Tag other bands you played with, venues, specific people you want to mention.
  • Do not overdo it, as it can be overwhelming for some people to keep getting notifications.
  • If you are posting about a specific piece of gear, tag the company. They might just share your post and give you free exposure. Just make sure only their product is visible in the photo/post.

Interacting

Comments and shares are your most valuable Facebook currency

  • Get on the same page with your band members and have everyone share posts from your band page without being sarcastic about it. If you are not fully committed to your music, why are you doing it in the first place?
  • ‘Like’ and comment back on people’s comments. It will make them feel special.
  • Delete negative comments. You don’t need assholes hanging around your awesome community.
  • When you have a popular post, check the likes on it and invite these people to like your page.

Page setup

  • Set your FB page template to ‘shopping’ and add your albums as for sale items. This will show a ‘shop’ tab on the left that can link to Bandcamp and will also let you add little ‘buy’ icons underneath posts.
  • Set topics to similar musical genres. These are ‘tags’ that will help people discover your page based on the style. Use autocomplete to set things like ‘Melodic Death Metal’, ‘Orcs and Trolls’, etc.
  • If you have Bandcamp or website, put the link in ‘About’/’CONTACT INFO’ section of your page, so people can easily listen to your song.

Facebook and hashtags

Hashtags on Facebook are very different than onInstagram. Here, they are not widely used and while they can help you get your content to new people, they can also hurt you. As shown in this article, using more than one hashtag on Facebook actually hurts your reach. Facebook does that to prevent spamming and people seeing irrelevant topic under hashtags.

A word about ads

What do you when you already have great content but somehow still don’t reach as many people as you would like?

‘Ads’ might seem like a dirty word and often this business stuff is the last thing a creative person wants to deal with.

However, ads are a super important part of getting noticed. After all, how can people know how cool your music is if they never had a chance to hear about you?

Ads can greatly speed up your growth but you have to be very careful about how you set them up. This deserves a separate article but the bottom line is that you want to be very specific about who will see the ad. If you just advertise to everyone on Facebook, it might be detrimental to your reach.

The good thing is that it’s not as difficult as it might seem in the beginning and after having run a few successful FB campaigns, I can tell you it’s not very expensive either. If you don’t know where to get started, ask your friends, check YouTube for tutorials but whatever you do, don’t just ‘boost’ a post and walk away without setting up any campaign details.

Action Items for you

  • Think what kind of community you can build around your band. What is a theme that will bring a lot of people together?
  • Prepare a library of funny/viral videos and photos that match your theme and schedule the posts in advance
  • Practice tagging

I hope these tips helped you get some inspiration for your band page. What strategies have you found working well for you?

Facebook posts in multiple languages

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English may be one of the most popular languages in the world but not everyone understands it or feels comfortable with it. While your metal fans in Sweden and Norway will not have a problem understanding your posts, there’s a huge metal audience in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil.

If you want a better engagement from these countries, try writing your posts in their native languages.

Luckily, Facebook allows you to post one message in multiple languages. The correct version will show up based on the user’s language settings. This way you can write a single post that will be both readable in English and Spanish. Here’s how to enable that:

  1. In top-right corner of your page, click ‘Settings’ -> ‘General’
  2. Find ‘Post in multiple languages’ and enable it
  3. From now on, when you post, there is an additional option called ‘Write post in another language’

 

 

And that’s it!

Well, almost. You might have noticed that Facebook automatically translates your post but keep in mind that not only the translation might not work well, Spanish in Mexico and Chile is different than in Spain, just as Portuguese in Brazil slightly differs from the one in Portugal.

If you don’t have a native speaking friend to review your messages, you can always find somebody on Fiverr.com.