Using social media to promote music

Introduction

In this section im going to be looking into how i can use social media to promote music. Im going to try to find videos or interviews of actual artists talking about how social media helped them become famous. Im also going to look into ways in which social media canreally hep you get music out there not only in the local area but to the country and even around the world, im also looking into how you can do different things on social media for example using popular sounds to catch peoples atention im going to look into how views and likes can effect who sees your content and how different interfaces get your content to a large audiance depending on how many views you are getting.

Different social media Apps and Websites

Tik tok

The tik tok industry has changed the music industry massively over the past five years especially. The reason being is it created a platform for artists to get there music out there which allows them to also gain streaming numbers which helps the artest gain not only fame but also money. Tik tok with its videos allowed people to show people all over the world there music and othere platforms at the time werent able to do this for example instergram mainly was a photo app that didn't share your posts to your followers a lot more than most people. like on feed and the only people shown on your feed were extremely popular influencers which meant that you couldnt get your music out to the public on line as you already needed fame were as tik tok is completely different. Anotheer thing is songs that become popular have a significant jump in streams and some artists like riley green who can be found in my artist research gained popularity because one of his songs blew up on tik tok and trhen everyone started to stream it on streaming platforms like spotify and sound cloud. What tik tok does better than other social platforms is it show people who have similar intrests in your music and content and it comes up on there for you page and because of this it means that they like similar stuff it means that they very likely will watch it like it and possibly follow the artist and from there it will explode and go extremely well and tyhats why so many artists have gained fame from this app as it hass aloud them to get there music out to people they wouldnt be able to because they dont know them and then also sahopw it to people that they statisticly think are gonna like it.

Like know trust rule 

This is when you try to get people to like your content then feel safe with you and like they know who you are and are comfortable when watching your content and then trst you and these are the three hardest things to achieve on the social media industry as there are millions of people on socia media doing the same thing so you have to try to be different to them. One way this might work is they like you because they relate tov youir music and its in the genres they enjoy and when you reach this point its in a way stage one of them enjoying your content but to get to the next two is the hardest as they have to go out of there way to go on your profile possibly follow you asnd watch more of your content instead of your feed. When they then go to your page and look at your content were you should post a varity of content it will make them enjoy your work and feel like they know you ever so slightly which is great for the trusting phase. You hae to tell people your story however as that way more people can relate to you. There are three kinds of content in which im going to talk about bellow.

Atraction content: This is when artists have photoshoots and make there posts look extremely proffesional and draw you in hense atracting you to there pages and every artist does this from Ed sheeran to taylor swift to anyone in the idustry as this is there way of getting people onvolved with them and gaining views of Tik tok and othe social media platforms. Other things they will do is go out of there way to use high quality cameras and spend a large chuck of there physical work on promotion towards this as without it there not able to actually get anyone in to liking there music and its another reason why its so important to managing companys for artists.

Nurturing content: Even though atraction content is extremely important it greastes distance between the artist and the viewer as there not able to live luxury like thes people and this is were this kind of content comes in as you have hooked them in but you want to keep them intrested and to do that you have to nurtur them. Its very similar to real life for example you meet someone new out or from work you have got there attention but you want to create that relationshp weoth that person and social media especially tik tok is exactly the same. The way to do that is post some personal content about your home life pets is a really good way to do this or if you do something not crazy like a walk post it and explain you just went on a nice walk heres a picture as thats what there normal friends on socials do. and your trying to persuade them that you are that aswell. And you can tell people about you and what it does is it changes them from a follower to then actually becoming a fan however it has to be strategically done as you might still be tying to get new people to see yor content so you need a real mixture. The main concept of this content is showing that your not better than anyone and your actually quite similar to people and might like the same thing and that makes you relatable to which is a hige thing to aim for when your making content and thats why a large amount of people go for the funny video aproach.

Promo Content: The last part of the content is the promotion bucket abd this is were you say i need you to do this for me like listen to my songs or music videos or whatever it might be and because youve turned these people into fans there gonna be excited about it and most likely will help you out. However you dont want to burden people and what I mean by that is if you constantly keep asking for thing from you fans your going to creat distance between you and them again like the attention content so you do have to be careful oof that happening. You have to make sure that you dont do this before the other two kinds of content.

What you need to do is create a mixture of these contents and you also want to present yourself correctly and use the different contents correctly. For example people copy peoples content and this doesnt actually get you anywhere and you need to make your tik tok different to vothers as that is what will make people want to not only go to your channel but keep coming back for more informantion and content which is exactly what you want as a musican.

Bibliography

Marjorie Aguimbag (2025) How Tiktok influences music discovery and streaming, Career Hub | Duke University. Available at: https://careerhub.students.duke.edu/blog/2025/02/20/how-tiktok-influences-music-discovery-and-streaming/#:~:text=Driving%20Discovery%20and%20Streaming,their%20release%20and%20marketing%20efforts! (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

Ivy, A. (2022b) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6wMJnTBEBg (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

stereo fox (2025) How Tiktok is changing the music industry?, Stereofox Music Blog. Available at: https://www.stereofox.com/resources/how-tiktok-is-changing-the-music-industry/#:~:text=If%20you%20dig%20into%20the,but%20this%20is%20pretty%20impressive. (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

Ucaya (2024) Market intelligence for the music industry, Soundcharts. Available at: https://soundcharts.com/blog/how-to-promote-music-social-media (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

Phillips, C. (2025) How to promote your music as an independent artist in 2025, Access Creative College. Available at:       https://www.accesscreative.ac.uk/blog/how-to-promote-music-as-an-independent-artist-2025/ (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

How to blow up on instargram 

Introduction: Even though tik tok is the most popular form of social media in the modern day and age its actually easier for people to get there music out on instergram. More people get noticed for there music o instergram and 95 % of these people are spotted on reels wich is very similar to tik tok just less hecktick and layed out to make you want to watch the videos more which means you wont have people skipting your content straight away. In this next section im going to talk about three pillars that are key to instagram if you want to improve and grow as a musican. These are inform,drip and reel. Im also going to do research into hashtags aswell.

Inform: When it comes to your Bio you have to look at it as if you are a stranger as it might make loads of sense to you but the people reading it will most likely not know who you are and would haver seen a short amount of content you hasve posted and then gone to your page to learn more about you and this is crutial as your extremely close to them iver following you or look at more of your content so this is crutial that your page looks proffesional and welcoming. One part that is crutial even though it isnt to noticable  is your profile picture and this will be ther smallest picture you post so you want whatever photo you use big enough for people to work out what it is and you dont want to change it. But if you do change it dont change it much as this is in a sense your traid mark. When people look at your content one of the first thinghs they will look at is this picture as it gives them a cue and slight understanding of who or what they are watching. The next thing is a bio and this should be fun but also proffesional but something that sums you up or gets people curious and want to go deeper and that is your end goal in this situation. This doesnt mean you have to write a paragraph about your self but something simple which you use diffeent simble that sum up your vibe which will make people want to look at your profile more like the pictures bellow.  Nearly all of them are nothing alike but thats because the artists arnt and they are all unique and different. You should have a link in your bio like two of the artists do, this should take you to iver your spotify or over streaming platforms with your music on them and also possibly some up and coming gigs as this way people can straight away look at this and the reasoning for you posting on social media is to get more viewas ery likely on these things instead of your actual instagram page. Using beacons is a great way to put multiple linls in one space that people casn really easily find and get to via a single link in your bio. Story circles bellow your bio and above your posts. What these do is you can put your storys you have posted in there and lable them for different things. Loads of people use these for capturing peoples atention when they look at your page as its a great way to learn a lot about someone in a short amount of time. These are extremely popular with views and are suggested however you want to do it correctly. The best way is have one of them focused on your music and music you like so people one see your music and then see what kind of person you are through that anyway. Another thing would be is seperate to you if you have more performances make one for that mearch but the futher to the right they go the less chance they will get clicked to the most important stuff must be the first ones. One thing that instergram came out with which is a great way to get people intrested is pinning, this is were you can take a post you made no matter how far down your page it is or how long ago you posted it and you can pin it to the top of your page so its the first post they see and very likely click on. This is used for if you have important information to share or a great video of your songs or performances put it there to capture the viewers attention as they will hopefully like it and want to watch more content like this which is just your page. Another thing thart is suggested is colour cowardination is ecxtremely popular and my generation love this.

Drip: Before tik tok was around instergram had a very specific way to go about posting and using the app which was good until tik tok came up so ever since the CEO has been trying to focus on showing people how to show themselfs of as that way the marketing goes up as it makes the app more popular as there is a constent war between social media platforms as they all individually have there ups and downs and unique features. Were as before tik tok the algorithm liked when you posted constant storys and didnt stop it would then boost your views on them were as they now prefer quality. What this is, is when you istead of post seven storys a week and get basic views instead you post one high quality story a week but it gets a huge viewer count instead. For example instead of basic pictures one tight picture thats been edited that looks really good as thats what people enjoy more know instead of a huge dump of posts and storys. Storys being able to use links is amazing the only down fall is the fact there only up for 24 hours however there is a way you can get both audiance interaction and feedback of new listeners and this is putting a question up that they can click on and when they answer it you will reseavce a DM wehich is perfect as you can then respond personally or put the answer on another story as I see this happen a lot from both famous and not famous musicans as its a great way to interact with your audiance. The way this works is because your storys are getting a lot of views and interaction instergram notice this and move your content up in the algorythm a nd you can then post your link to music and it will be seen by a large amount of people. The best release stratergy in my sourses opinion to gain the most amount of vierws as a artist can be seen here and Im going to use this to help me promote my music better and do up my instagram acount ro a better level to make it more apealing to views I dont know. Another thing suggested is instead of using the close friends feature which is you can post things and only people you choose as close friends can see and use this for your closes fans as that way you can use it as a ladder for people to want to get up to see what your doing along side everything else that others cant see. 

This will make viewers feel special  and also you can use it a a marketing statergy even though all you will post is fun content in sa way messing around to make the viewers feel closer to you as a person and not just a artist. The last thing you need to look into is the oldest thing thats been in instagram which is grid posting which most people do know but I will break it down. the first thing should be the most ingagig images go first and then anouncing anything thats linked to this images will go in the caption were people will look to learn more about this. Dont post a single image if your struggling take the proffesional picture and then use a dump of fun not as proffesional pictures as even though they arent as good it keeps the viewers attention. Collab posts are highly recomended, this is when someone posts something and then tags you as a colaborater on it which means you can post the exact same thing on your profile. These always go further than a solo post on one profile as the collabs are being seen by in a sense double the people. You also need to add music especially yours as without knowing it the longer they look at your post the song will slowly get stuck in there head or they will ge intrested and they can just click and find the song which if your a musican will be yours and you have secured another listener. A really important of drip in instargram is captions as this is bellow the post and is great for a bit of story telling about the post and ios great for connecting with the viewers. More information on this can be found on the other youtube video from the sourse im originally using bellow here. And finally a good way to get your reach on new people and your own followers is going live as it puts your story section on peoples instagram at the front of there page for people who folllow you or dont so its a great way to capture there atention. Its recomended to post storys saying when your going to go live and do it if you have a anouncement to make or some information you want to get across.

reel: Reels are now seen to be as big as tik tok which is crazy as in a way there just a side peicve to a app which has so manyt more opportunitys in which tik tok doesnt have.  Instagram is devoloping to make hashtags less important by using ai however for now it is really important you use them as its the best way to get your content to not only your target audiance but a large amount of people. What you also wanted to do is make a funnny joke about your content in the comments that people are able to relate to and not get confused at and they will very likely respod or add another comment. The main thing you want to talk about is trying to get them ingaged as without them knowing there hooked on what your trying to show them and it will lokely end up with them posting it to a large audiance of other people. Another thing you should do is take your video and edit it so there are subtitles over what your saying as it straight away makes people want to focus in and see what your saying and loads of people do this and its a great way to capture peoples atention to watch the whole video / reel. Another thing to do if you are starting out is use local hashtags to allow people in your area to see your work and then be intrested as its near them and you have a higher chance it going voral this way locally however that wont allow you to go viral internationally so it depends what your final outcome is. Another thing now is you can link your insta posts to facebook and this is highly recomended as you are targetig even more people on another platform but only have to click a single button and is a win win situation die to the fact you have another cvhancve on it going vireal on another platform. Another thing is timing when you post your reel as there are two main time people are on there phones the most andf that is in the morning and before they got to bed as in these times nearly everyones first fought is to grab there phones and look at what happened that day or while they were of the app as social media is adictive and is a part in a large amount of peoples lives. The last thing that is really important is making sure that your videos are at the highest quality they can die to the fact that as soon as someone looks at a video if it isnt high quality there usually put of but if it isnt they wont notice and its little things like this that will make your views increase drasticly.

Hashtags: Since social media was very new with my space all the way up to modern day hashtags have been a key and important part of social media. They originally were not used as a stratergy and were just a fun thing to add to your posts however later on they became huge and we see this towards the more modern era of social media regarding especially instargram and facebook but there was a big push when tik tok started to become popular. As explained in the youtube video ots now become a stratergy for managing companys and buisness to target there target audiance and this is mainly focusing on iinstergram but happens the same on both tik tok and facebook. There are over 20 billion active users on social media which is why its so good to use to get to your target aiudiance and reach your kind of watchers. It also means your able to gain followers as the people watching your video already like this kind of content so its very likely they will follow you or like your work which will help your business or whatever your promoting grow in my sense music.

All of my infromation was from these two videos bellow I would recommend you watching them as all the sections I have written about are split up in the videos aswelll.

Bibliography

cannon, jess (2025) How Musicians Blow Up On Instagram In 2025, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVdnwpyWIx4 (Accessed: 01 June 2025). 

socials , wingnut (2023) Do Hashtags Still Matter? | Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is-x21a1hG0 (Accessed: 01 June 2025).