The Best Approach to Instagram for Artists

I wanted to talk about Instagram today oh we've got to give the shout out though to uh for the guy who in our comments told us why we look so damn Orange in our videos and he said it was dark Foods who said set your white balance to 3700k which is how we really look now all the governments are like oh my God Maddie's a snowman yeah we're a lot more pale than what we actually have been but anyway thanks for that I think we fixed it um but let us know yeah I wonder about

Instagram because I feel like so many questions are coming through that are directed to us purely about Instagram I think we've done like a bit of a loop now where it was like Instagram was amazing everyone was obsessed with it everyone wanted to agree they're following and then everyone kind of got bored of it and went to YouTube went to Tech talk and now let's come back again although I did think Instagram was gonna die I thought because I didn't even use it for a while yeah I thought the whole looking Perfect all of the

time was done and I felt like the the features and everything just wasn't really what people were looking for and then Along Came Snapchat with their filters and then Along Came um okay there was Vine Kyle quite a while ago and then Tick Tock came along and I thought that that was it the people were done because I thought that The Tick Tock content stimulated people's minds so much that you would never want to return to boring old Instagram and now Instagram then stole the features from the likes of tick tock and the stories came

from not Snapchat Snapchat so I've never done really anything original and I have mad respect for that because they've done it well true true even the hashtags things think smart you know like work smart not hard yeah yeah so so I thought that after that was going to die and when you start copying other people's features you've got to do it very very well otherwise you kind of are digging your own grave yeah because if you don't do it better than the person where everyone was flocking to then you're screwed yeah so yeah as a

company we started phasing out Instagram and now it's back heavier than ever it is and it's it's now they've implemented those features well and now for artists I'd say it's become the most important platform again yeah I think people use Instagram in a way that is like no other platform you will if you had like a tracker on your phone to see how many times you opened Instagram you'd probably be mind blown it's you open it to check stories quickly scroll if go through the feed really quickly you do it in any couple of minutes

you have spare and for artists that's incredible because you don't have to spend much time on it but you can gain a lot of traction on it so I think it's a platform that should be one of your highest priorities um go for it I was thinking that still we have the problem of artists obsessing over the followers on it though and view and like really rude comments and DMS and the actual engagement yeah as if if you've got X number of streams you should have X number of followers yeah it doesn't it doesn't work

like that at all it completely depends on your your content and and there's a lot more important things to Instagram than your follower account we're still seeing people buy followers now and Instagram we've got like they've gone really hard on it they will either block your account or suspend it or they'll just stop pushing you out so your Shadow banned and I don't understand why artists are still doing it I think it's exactly the same as why they would buy Spotify streams but it's absolutely pointless yeah and if the people you're trying to impress for

one will never see your account because it's not going to get pushed out to them but if you think it's going to impress industry professionals if you have 100K followers and I don't know 80k of them are fake and they go to your comments and there's nothing happening you're going straight in the bin then they ask themselves what else is fake yeah it's the most difficult time as well now to fake Instagram followers because before they had stories or reels you could fake the number of likes and fake the number of followers and get some

bot generated comments and that's it now for reals you're going to have to start faking those as well and then start faking your Instagram views that's expensive do you know there's a lot of artists out there though who don't realize they're faking it that's actually something we've never talked about but it's actually quite scary how many artists will come to us they want a marketing campaign from us and they say cool I've actually built 50 000 followers of my own and uh I want you guys to get me to a hundred thousand follow and we're

like they have like 10 followers real it's actually scary and they say no no I worked with a legit marketing company and they got me this it's it's it's fake and then when we we experiment with it we run tests on it it ends up being fake and we have to break the bad news to them I think the best way to work that out is um story views so story views are kind of up and down depending on how many stories you put live that day how many are actually engaging enough people to respond

to and like and share um and how often you've been posting in kind of the past that week or so and but at the end of the day you should be getting a decent percentage of people watching I would aim for five percent so five percent of your followers viewing which is totally doable a strong account will have 10 uh it's difficult when you're in a stage where you might only have like 200 followers because that will be significantly higher but when you are getting your first couple of thousand you should be aiming for ten

but five percent is still very good my favorite one if I can't see their story views is I look at their poll results so if you 50 50 50 50. yeah I was gonna say 80 or 90 because say uh we're looking at an artist more like is this fake this could be fake if there's two results to the poll and then it's on 90 so I get Maddie to vote for probably what is the most popular one go and it goes to 90 and then I then vote for the least popular and it goes

to 80 actually 10 people voted on that poll we know the Bots don't have an opinion so that is how we look if we can't get access to their data so overall it's just absolutely pointless um but I think it would be cool for us to run over each area of the artist's Instagram account yeah and advise on how you can absolutely Smash It Instagram is a lot easier now due to Reels because in the past we'd always say treat it as a CashNet so people find you on Tick Tock people find you on YouTube

people find you on Spotify and once they found you you collect them on Instagram that is still true however you can also get discovered on Instagram now which is it's great you might be a suggested account to follow on desktop or on story they now have it so if you're going through stories they're suggested accounts to follow you might be suggested posts at the bottom of someone's um feed and your reels might come up on people's feed or their explore page or all things like this so there are plenty of opportunities to get discovered if

you're using it correctly I think the basics are something that most artists actually don't even have down so if you log in if they uh if you go to their account and you look at the display picture the bio the highlights people struggle with that and you actually did a full YouTube video on a bio do you remember that oh yes that was a while ago I'd say it did well it was it was like a good good piece of advice because people just do artist name where they're from age link to my music it's

like I don't care that you're 23 Stacy why are you telling me this and I didn't expect that one to do well because like it was just a you know it's just a bio I don't think people would care that much about it there's an amazing uh Tick Tock Creator who I really like who also said that people put out now in their bio on all streaming platforms and what a waste of space that is in your bio to say all streaming platforms because she literally said like uh I can't remember the example she she

said but it was like something's going to be I think it was like Twinkies or something like that and there's some Twinkies there uh where they're gonna be and they're obviously this is the best way for a musician to understand out on all streaming platforms or like out now something like that imagine you knocking on someone's door and saying hey there's Twizzlers in the kitchen there's twizz is in the kitchen the Swizz is in the kitchen and you keep going back to tell them because they just won't go to the kitchen twizzers are in the

kitchen it's only enough information to make you act if you already like Twizzlers this is not about Twizzlers telling people where something is doesn't matter unless they already like the thing and they value the thing already don't treat them like they already like it when they're just finding out it exists let's add on top of that if you did buy Twizzlers and let's say I actually like Twizzlers you wouldn't have to tell me what room of the house it's in like we all know where food goes in a house right like like all you need

to tell me is that we got Twizzlers you don't have to tell me where it is and you're telling me we got Twizzlers with the piece of content again not about Twizzlers okay you're telling me the song exists buy this video being available by this video being posted meaning again not about Twizzlers we all like the reasonable consumer knows where music is right we have a preferred platform we we know where music is so you don't have to really say that and I'm not like you can say if you want but I'm just saying don't

feel compelled to though like don't feel like you have to say it or else that they're going to be in the kitchen so you don't have to say old streaming platforms she said it a lot better than me actually she did and I can't remember how she said it but good job yeah that girl it wasn't even a good try I I really liked how old it was good yeah definitely do she's a good Creator and they're not many in this industry with actual like strong advice I like her uh yeah strong advice and also

just general humor and also she doesn't upload every single day which is a bit hypocritical because we're trying to do that right now we're just upload as often as we possibly can to give information but what I mean by that is it's just not like content for the sake of content yeah so she is really good yeah so the basics I think first first your profile picture people don't think that it's that important they'll just pick something random like the artist's logo I don't like that what yeah all the artwork no like just pick something

that's of your face of the band as a whole the colors of the style all of that should represent you as an artist it needs to match on all socials so you take talk to your YouTube your Spotify it's not hard just get a pressure on each other on yeah also being mysterious is not unique no stop with this stuff now being wanting to be mysterious is is just laziness as an artist and one that means that you just want to create the music but you want to pretend you do actually have an Instagram strategy

but really you don't and I think this whole mysterious thing like no artist has ever broken by being mysterious and not having us any kind of brand okay you could make the argument for like dead mouse where he's got like the helmet on you don't know what he looks like but now obviously we do know what he looks like so you could make that argument but that is still a brand it's also an anomaly yeah they're the amount of times people will be in our comments when we'll say something be like try and do this

because this gets results like excuse me Madonna didn't do that and it's like you're picking one person there's always going to be one person but look at the majority of artists that are succeeding and that we're seeing results with that's why we give these tips it's not just like plugged out dinner exactly I can't stop looking at how pale we are I also don't know what camera to look at right now I'm like oh crackhead going from each camera at the moment I never mind uh quality content quality back to the so artist profile picture

cool bio you can watch Alex's full video but a quick breakdown show people what they're gonna get and if you're like your brand is like a funny guy and like the whole Lewis Capaldi thing if you just want to call yourself like fat ugly guy trying to sing like that is personality it's showing what they're gonna get from the profile and it's not just plugging because if they follow you on Instagram or they're even on your Instagram profile while you bother plugging them or like pushing them somewhere else try and get them to stay and

and if you're not necessarily funny or humans not your brand then I'm happy for you to go for the genre of music as well I'm a ex-artist making music for people who are going through this or feeling like that something like that I'm more than happy with as well yeah yeah yeah and then highlights I've spoken about this quite a lot recently no artist is doing well with highlights no they're they're the highlights of your stories they're not just a folder to promote we're seeing far too often like promo live shots some people even share

other like their fans sharing them so a family person on their story they'll re-share it then they'll highlight it to be like look I do have fans like this space isn't as such a waste of space instead use it to show people what they're going to get if they follow you and they're viewing your stories every day since you said that I was thinking last night where I was trying to get to sleep on highlights um I don't think people should use them I think it's a redundant feature on Instagram no you don't 100 every

single time give me an example we're a bit more nosy women you know okay so like uh for example you know Jamie and Sophie who from Made in Chelsea right yeah she came up with my suggested I went to her account then I went through her highlights okay what kind of highlights does she have just like normal girly stuff and I was just like being nosy really yeah and I followed her and I followed Jamie too and it's like people want an insight and if that is giving them access to what they've missed on your

stories already they they will because people just are nosy interesting I don't look at highlights at all I I would actually use Instagram I think it's not much though it's a waste of space in the profile for you get like it it takes up the distance between going to that profile and going to that you won't ever scroll someone's feet and I don't think many people do I do that's fascinating I will go to their feed and have a look at what they're posting more than I'll look and then if they've got a story live

which I do recommend for all artists to have a story life as often as possible because that ring people will go and have a look to see what they're going to get they know you're consistent so which is why plugging too much on your story is is really terrible imagine I've discovered you for the first time your bio is out now uh your feed stuff is all promo and then I'm like oh finally they've got a story live what am I gonna see screenshot your Spotify yeah you are not getting a follow yeah it needs

to be something else and that doesn't have to be anything crazy just something that is interesting something that shows a bit about you as an artist and if that's because like if that's just you in the studio drinking a coffee that is some something more than you saying please go through my song I would also like to comment on why it's important I've never said this before why it's important to create Instagram content sorry have a good Instagram even though you're not creating content that people are going to discover and that is because I forgot

my point um it was a long interest yes yes I remembered it it's because when someone follows an artist similar to you there is a drop down of other similar artists if you've been on the same playlist as them or same Spotify editorial as them or they've listened to your track before then they are still you want to be in that drop down to be able to get the followers they're in them this person is in the mood for discovering new artists and you are now linked with that person so so if you go and

follow save Maddie on Instagram chances are I'll be in the drop down I hope I'm in the drop down yeah but if I haven't interesting point though if I have been slacking on Instagram and not posting anything then it will not recommend me which is why you have to stay in with the algorithm because you want to be in that drop down so if you are a country artist and you I don't know follow Gavin McGraw you want to be in that suggested and then people are going to look and go I've listened to the

artist before click or they might just click follow but you need to be playing to the Instagram to even get there in the first place if you don't get the follow you want them to go to the profile have a glance and this is what we're talking about we're not talking about you creating reels and tick tocks and getting pushed out all of the time fantastic if you are but just because you're not doesn't mean that this advice doesn't apply to you yeah I think that's such a good point as well about like we're not

telling you to become content creators like you don't have to every day be like pulling out your phone talking to camera you don't have to every day be creating a reels which is like really funny and you want it to go viral be an artist just document it in whatever way feels natural so if you spend your day grabbing a coffee getting on the train going to the studio doing a songwriting session with someone like just document that and that can simply just speed snap snap it doesn't have to be super creative angles using a

camera doing voiceovers just take a picture and it that's all you need to do feed content press shots whatever looks nice basically and show a bit of personality and maybe the narrative a bit in the caption because there's so much space for that you can write a ridiculous amount it's basically a novel and then the real stuff can be just stuff you were going to post on Tick Tock anyway it doesn't require too much time and you don't need to be ridiculously consistent stories yes but feed you can post once a month reels you can

post once every two weeks if you wanted to just consistently having stuff is all you need it doesn't mean every single day agreed yeah and it's interesting as well because in 2018 we were telling people to have multiple interests and you have to if you're into like cooking then you should probably be putting cooking stuff up and things like that yeah still do that but we've changed because the algorithm has changed and the the way that people are using social media has changed therefore you're not able to get people across and convert them to your

music anymore so if you have been watching our videos from 2018 2019 wondering why we're not saying that anymore that's why um yeah I think uh as well are what we've said about feed content has changed we used to say posts like once a day once every couple of weeks on the feed make sure it shows loads of personality you don't need to do that anymore that feed because we have reels and it can be more raw and reals that feed is for the more aesthetically pleasing stuff the stuff which is a bit more of

a brag a bit more of showing who you are as an artist but doesn't need to be that personal because that's what the industry is going to look at and that's what from first glance someone should be able to get your genre address guess what your brand is like um guess what your music's basically going to sound like from a from a quick glance so you can just post some press shots on there with some interesting captions and then reels is where you can be more raw and our opinion on that's changed massively because rails

has been introduced it used to be you really have to engage people on the feed it doesn't matter so much now it really doesn't just realize we've been hitting the table this whole podcast I'm so sorry I I was I was editing our last video yeah or get one of those mics that uh up in the air yeah that might be a good idea gotta be careful apologies uh shall we talk about the key bit of uh Instagram then which is obviously reels now the gift for artists is Tick Tock and Instagram reels Instagram reels

is is now phenomenal in terms of reach firstly I feel it gives people an easier way to share your content remember when you used to share in a video on Instagram didn't even play the video in the story yeah and people had to click to even find out what it was nobody ever clicked so now people can actually share your content to their entire audience and it plays the content that is so valuable that let alone the algorithm people can repost on Tick Tock but no one really does that they can share it with their

friends uh that's about it still hitting only one person some story where you can reach all your audience yeah yeah it's great uh one thing that I do think is really key about reels is the only difference between reels and Tick Tock is Tick Tock has their own separate Trends which I think you should keep on Tick Tock however if it's a great video do put it on reels just make sure there's no watermark but you also want to ensure you're using text on reels because if you have been integrated into the feed and you

are on someone's page and they've just discovered you they're probably not going to click it unless there's something really interesting going on they're probably not going to click it so you do need text and Instagram literally creates the captions for you you just click captions and it does it for you it's incredible so use the text put like little pieces of text which show people what the video is going to be about as well and you're good to go and a point we always make is with your text and with your captions I know that

the the text is usually the lyrics of the song If you're singing or something like that but for the caption it's so important to to get people's people invested in that video via the captions so what say about a year ago we did a lot of testing on captions on what was going to get people to click onto a video watch the entire video and resonate with a truck emotion was always always the most important whether it is saying this song will make you feel like this or this is the people who are feeling like

this that was the most effective captions we came up with in terms of getting people to to watch the entire thing yeah I I think that's kind of a point about all content make people feel stuff yeah uh whether it's funny and it makes them feel happy whether it's emotional makes them feel sad or it's relatable and it makes them feel kind of nostalgic empowered yeah there's there's that's what it is because you want to create a relationship with someone and so often you'll find story views go up because there's something in there that's just

real and people just see something that's a little bit more real one example I think of it is um we love David Beckham oh yeah he's bloody gray and he put on his story or his feed just him playing with his dogs yeah and it was like wow this man is actually real yeah like he just plays with his dogs for fun and remember you shared it with me and like we share his content a lot and that was a perfect example of someone that's supposed to be Untouchable and is meant to have this certain

image just showing about personality and his Instagram engagement is ridiculous and with artists you're so afraid of not being cool or not looking like uh one of the established artists that doesn't have social media and doesn't engage with their fans that you actually end up losing the potential fans that you could have got from just being yourself and uh I think that's what artists should think about when they're supposed to experimenting with that kind of content as well can really help you know what kinds of content you can do people say what should I post

well you start with everything and mentally as well mentally yeah it helps mentally if like if you post stuff just like experimenting a little bit all right true yeah you kind of like you dropped that barrier yeah yeah I totally agree with that and also the fact that you realize what you like creating as well so so say uh all artists put Studio picks up and you think that that's what you want to do and then one day you like put a video of your dog doing a trick suddenly your dog doing a trick is

actually what you enjoy putting up and you can put it up regularly and people are engaging with it suddenly you've got your Instagram content of those two or three things that you're regularly putting up and then you can improve on that and before you know it then you've got a huge amount of story views so finally you've got the Instagram algorithm for reels and I think that is still the case of getting watch time so you have to get people to the very end you've got to stop people from scrolling and then they've got to

be able to watch to the very very end that's what Instagram wants you to do and stay on the platform so then they can show them an ad when they scroll uh also watch time doesn't actually necessarily mean someone clicked on the video and watched it if they are scrolling on their feed they pause they watch it without the sound on that will still count as watch time because if there's captions on it they may be reading it so again like we said use text as much as you can because that could be the thing

that increases your watch time then to be able to get found by the right people is simply time and uploading it will work out using its algorithm what type of content you are you can use hashtags hashtags help but I'd say they only help by about 10 I'd say that the algorithm does most of it so you can upload without the hashtags if you can't think of anything you wanted to put and then as you continue to upload reels it learns what your content is it could learn by your fifth reel what all of your

content is go back to your first reel and send that one to go viral so don't worry about the possibility that you've only got 10 views on your first reel I should delete it or I should quit because if you continue then all of your content is going to be helped by that yeah I'm done cool good place to end it yes I hope you found that useful I hope that you can change your Instagram you can work on using those tips and get some followers get some views get some engagement and we'll see in

the next one cool cool