Did You Know? --> Instagram is a Great Place for Music Distribution (and Creative Exploration)

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Social media is a good thing. I see each platform as its own sort of “canvas” that musicians can use to create and distribute music.

There’s Facebook - a canvas that reaches a lot of people, but laden with distractions at literally every click.

There’s Twitter, which is the digital equivalent of writing a quick note on a scrap of paper and passing it to your friend.

There’s Steem - like a canvas that prints money!

Then there’s a canvas/social media platform that I underrated for many years, but which is one of the most popular in the world: Instagram.

A Few Instagram Facts

• Instagram Daily Active Users: 500 Million
• Average User Spends 20+ Minutes Per Day On Instagram App
• Instagram has the highest engagement rate of all social media platforms

In addition to the above numbers, Instagram is a clean interface for artists. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Insta provides the opportunity to focus on one post at a time without additional advertising or other headlines to glance at.

It’s a rich medium: Sound and visual, video, filters, even mild video editing features. You can do a lot with a little on Instagram.

Here’s an example of one of my recent Instagram posts:

On Instagram, there is a huge and hungry audience waiting for your content.

Almost all artists want to reach a larger audience. Therefore creating art on a canvas that is (1) easy to use and (2) has the chance to reach a lot of people, is a good idea! These are the good points of the Instagram app. Now let’s look at some of the obstacles that stand in our way.

The Challenge of Instagram

The big challenge is that Instagram is a huge ecosystem with tons of people creating content. 95 million posts are shared per day on average.

If you thought it was hard to stand out on Steemit, wait until you try Instagram. It’s much harder!! In fact even though I have been playing around with the app for the last year or so, I am barely making progress with getting new followers. Right now I’m hovering around the 400 follower mark…

I only have ~700 posts so that probably explains some of it. On Steem I have thousands of posts.

The question is: How do you make content for Instagram that people want to see, that stands out from the crowd, and even has the potential to go “viral” to some extent?

There are several variables at play: The content, the schedule, the use of hashtags, the use of collaborations, even possibly paid advertisements… It could take years to explore through all of these things and find the best options.

I feel like an old man on this one. My cousins who are ~7 years younger than me do extremely well on Instagram just by posting about their lives, they get hundreds of likes. I’m not sure if that’s a generational difference (all of their friends are on Insta too, moreso than mine?), a content / popularity difference, or some other thing.

On Steem I feel like I understand the ecosystem. On Instagram I have no idea.

What I do know is: Like Steem, Instagram encourages real creativity. I find myself making a lot of new music for Instagram, which is awesome.

What is Your Instagram Experience

Do you create & post content on Instagram? What is your experience like? Do you know of any “educational resources” (loosely speaking) that are useful for people looking to up their game on the Instagram platform?

I could use any advice or guidance on this one, folks.

BTW — Follow Me on Instagram