Instagram Reels is the perfect place to post creative video content and engage with your audience on Instagram at the same time. If you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to Reels or have a whole team to do it for you, there are a lot of ways you can still create them with existing content you already have. From behind-the-scenes clips to easy memes, here are some easy ideas you have to try…
Easy Instagram Reels Ideas for Independent Musicians
Share UGC (User-Generated Content)
User-generated content is genuine interactions from your fans, authentically created on their own by their own merit. What’s better than that? Plus, you can use this content in your own content strategy by creating Reels from them. Whenever you play a show, there are tons of people with their phones out recording the moment. Those people are most likely going to post those moments online to document the experience. While onstage, remind everyone to tag you in their posts! You can even tell them you’ll be reposting some of them to encourage them to do so.
One thing to keep in mind, however, is to always ask permission to do so and give credit where credit is due. Don’t just assume everyone is down to be shared without asking.
Clips From Shows/ Touring
On tour, you’re already taking so many videos of the experience why not use some for Reels? Whether it’s backstage sneak peaks, meeting fans, a look into how you prep or during the show itself, these are all great pieces of content to make Reels out of. Not to mention you can repurpose these into TikTok’s, grid posts on Instagram or even on all your other platforms for months to come.
Music Video Previews
While you’re working on that new music video, take behind-the-scenes clips during the process. Even better, you can tease final cuts of the video by posting them as a Reel before the launch date. You can do this by using captions like, “Coming Soon… 👀” with the launch date worked in. You can even link to Spotify for presaves, YouTube premieres, or wherever else they can find your music once it comes out.
Static Photos to a Trending Audio
If you don’t have a video to post, don’t worry! You can create a Reel with static images and add your music over top for an aesthetic recap from your last show, meet-up, or whatever you want to share.
If you don’t see your song available and want to get your music on Instagram, our partnership with Facebook (which covers Instagram and other services) makes it easy. If you’re a Symphonic client, we upload your content into Facebook’s systems in order to scan for anyone using that same content. Then, your music is available for use on Instagram and Lip Sync Live, Instagram Stories and the like.
Answer Questions
One of the best parts about social media as an artist is having a direct line to engage with your community online, and authenticity is a pivotal driver in keeping that community healthy and thriving. Reels is a great way to respond to commonly asked questions from your fans that goes a bit deeper than a comment under a post. With this, you can ask on your Story what questions your fans have and make a Reel responding to each of them. This is also a great time to work in some personal stories from your life or insights into what you’re working on right now. The more genuine the better.
Memes
Now, who doesn’t love a good meme? If you’ve got a funny bone, show it off with a Reel. This goes hand in hand with the idea above about sharing more about yourself. Humor is a great way to connect with others, and it makes pushing out content more fun, for you and the fans. The best way to do these is to keep track of things you find funny and take notes as you see them. Then, curate versions of those memes to your own experience. Easy peasy.
Collaborate with Other Artists
One of the best ways to create more content is to divide and conquer. If you have any features on your latest album, consider making a Reel with them. Whether it’s a funny skit together or an acoustic version of your track, you have tons of options for what you can create as a team. It also gives both of you the chance to tag each other and reach their audience as well as yours.
We did a version of this when we collaborated with artists going to #SXSW this year. With these, we asked them fun questions, got to know them better and created interview style Reels for our own audience. Of course, we tagged them as well for them to share on their own feed. We had a great time working with them and they loved creating something new for their fans!
Turn Existing IG Stories Into A Reel
Reels have been proven time and time again to improve reach and engagement. If you already post stories on Instagram, you can use those as Reels as well. If you don’t have a lot of time to create something brand new, this is a great option.
Create a Lyric Video or Graphic
If you’re a great lyricist, consider creating Reels that show off your favorite lyrics. Whether it’s a video with text playing over top or a static image with the lyrics written out and your music playing in the background, this is another super easy way to make a Reel that’s bound to be shared.
In Conclusion…
Just because you don’t have a lot of time doesn’t mean you can’t still create great content! If you’ve been on the hunt for easy Instagram Reels ideas, we hope this got the creative juices flowing.
It’s undeniable that TikTok has given many up and coming artists a chance at major exposure with its algorithm. As long as your music is on TikTok for you (and other creators) to use, you have the chance to promote yourself through challenges, trends and so much more. If you’re ready to promote your music on TikTok, here’s everything you need to know.
Back in 2019, we announced our partnership with TikTok which allows our clients to deliver their tracks onto TikTok for its millions of creators to use in their videos. This offers an amazing opportunity for our clients to spread their music through one of the most popular apps in the world, with us to guide them along.
In the meantime, think about what part of your track has the most potential for going viral. — That means 15 seconds of catchy, groovy greatness that you can imagine people singing or dancing along to. Don’t be afraid to dig into your back catalog to find songs that truly fit the bill. Oftentimes when one song goes viral, it may bring some of your other songs right up with it.
Hop On TikTok Trends
Every week, something new is trending on TikTok. Hell, it seems like something new has taken the platform by storm almost every day. Even if a trending challenge doesn’t necessary align with your brand, it’s still useful to get involved. If an unrelated video of yours goes viral, it may bring your other posts along for the ride.
Hopping on the latest trend is a great way to get seen by more people and blow up the engagement on your present and past posts. Whether you’re on the hunt for audio, effect or hashtag trends, there are tons of ways to find what’s popping off on TikTok. // To help you out, we wrote a whole post that gives you all the sneaky tips and tricks we know about how to find what’s trending.
Post Music Video Sneak Peeks
While you’re working on that new music video, take behind-the-scenes clips during the process. Even better, you can tease final cuts of the video by posting them as a Reel before the launch date. You can do this by using captions like, “Coming Soon… 👀” with the launch date worked in. You can even link to Spotify for presaves, YouTube premieres, or wherever else they can find your music once it comes out.
Create Your Own Challenges & Trends
If you want to go viral on TikTok, you’re going to have to get creative. The most popular challenges and trends on TikTok are lip syncing, dance routines and comedy type videos. That’s why it’s important to have songs on TikTok that are catchy enough to support these type of challenges.
Need some ideas?
If you hate dancing, you can tell your fans to create their own dances to your song and tag you on TikTok.
If you have a song with amazing lyrics, do a VoiceOver of you lip syncing along with the lyrics on screen.
Want fan engagement? Tell your audience to do covers of your song and repost them when they do.
Want to collaborate with others? Try the Duet, Stitch and Collaboration features.
Just how tagging other creatives can double your video’s reach, so can collaborations. Finding your niche is important in anything you do, as it helps engage a more loyal audience and helps you secure yourself in a more manageable, less saturated space. — Be sure to comment, like, share, duet, other artist’s work and encourage your followers/viewers to do the same.
Try Covers Of Your Song in Different Styles
One of my favorite trends that musicians like to do on TikTok is when they give new life to an existing song by creating new versions of it you would have never expected. For example, those videos captioned: “If my song, [blank] was a metal song” or “If my song, [song here] was an EDM banger”. As an artist, you have many strengths you can leverage when creating content. If you’re low-key really good at making beats, show off that talent with a cover. If you aren’t so good at another genre, you can ask your audience to do their own version.
Use The Right Hashtags
Hashtags are important on pretty much every platform. With the right hashtag strategy, you can increase the reach, engagement and visibility of your posts on TikTok in no time. Luckily, figuring out which hashtags will work best is fairly simple.
First, go ahead and open the app, tap on the “Discover” tab on the bottom of your screen and scroll through the previews of all the trending hashtags.
Now, let’s dive a little deeper. In the search bar at the top, go ahead and search whatever hashtags are relevant to you. Once you hit search, you’ll be able to see related hashtags and view counts for each of them.
With a quick Google search, you’ll see that the most popular hashtags for musicians are: #music, #singer, #artist, #songwriter, #livemusic, #newmusic, and the list goes on and on.
However, these are just the most popular, overall hashtags. If you’re looking for more interactive engagement with a more segmented fanbase, we recommend looking into artists like you on the platform and checking out the hashtags that are popular in their circles. Then, you can make a solid list of these and keep them in mind for your own efforts.
Try TikTok’s Promote Feature
With Promote, you can turn any organic TikTok video into an ad, right from the app. You can start reaching new audiences, build a following, and drive traffic to your business website. Once you run a Promote campaign, you also get insights into your audience and how your videos are performing to help you improve your efforts moving forward.
We wrote a whole post that breaks down exactly how to do this; you can check that out right here.
Utilize TikTok Analytics
Driven by machine learning and a technical algorithm, TikTok thrives on data and metrics. If you want to improve your content’s performance, understanding your profile’s detailed analytics is the first step to improving your efforts. With it, your data-filled dashboard is separated into three main categories: Overview, Content and Followers.
By clicking through each tab, you’ll be able to see videos views, profile views, follower count, and follow demographics in terms of gender and geography. With this information, you can see which videos are working and which aren’t. Then, you can adapt your strategy as you go to improve in the future.
Aside from being an addicting past time for most of us, TikTok is also a wonderful tool for your promotional efforts as an artist. If you work with the algorithm and all the features the platform has to offer, you’ll see your content start to thrive.
On that note… As you reach a wider audience on TikTok, you can funnel those users over to your socials and streaming platforms in the process. By taking steps like adding links to other platforms in your bio, cross promoting content on your feed and following the tips mentioned above, you can grow your audience everywhere in no time.
One of the most underutilized tools for networking in this industry are Facebook groups. Every day, tons of music industry-related groups are actively sharing knowledge within communities of like-minded individuals just like you. In these groups, you can ask for support, get advice, inquire about job opportunities and so much more. Here are some of our favorites…
Music Business Facebook Groups You Should Join
DIY Tour Postings
If you’re a musician planning a tour, DIY Tour Postings should be a staple in your bag of tricks. This one is a killer resource for those in need of gigs to play, opening acts, or even if you’re a talent buyer or scout looking for potential acts for your next show.
Last minute realizing you aren’t selling as many tickets to your upcoming show as you’d hoped? In here, you can promote yourself without censorship and they will help you to fill your concerts with people. This group is also full of seasoned tour vets who know the ins and outs of tour life and offer valuable advice for those who are new to the game.
Artist Managers Connect
Artist Managers Connect is a digital community of artist managers from around the world who are dedicated to sharing knowledge, advice, and opportunities in order to better serve our artists and the industry as a whole. Industry pros and newbies alike have a lot to gain from this group.
Everyone Knows Everyone In The Music Industry
Everyone Knows Everyone In The Music Industry is a group that has tons of cool music people who are all there to share information about jobs, gigs and opportunities in the industry. They have a rule about not sharing ads, so it’s the perfect place to see strictly great opportunities from like minded people. It’s a private group, but you can request to join right here.
Music Biz Besties
Calling out all the ladies in the crowd, this one’s just for us. Music Biz Bestiesis a private group for female musicians & industry leaders hosted and founded by Katherine Forbes. Katherine started the group with a love for networking and a yearning for a strong community of women all working together to turn dreams into reality.
In this group, you’ll have access to job opportunities, a community of music lovers just like you, and insights for how to make it in an industry that’s all about hustle and badass networking.
Nashville Music Industry
This Nashville Music Industry Facebook group is open to everyone who is in any way involved in the Nashville Music Industry. All you have to do is introduce yourself and let them know how they can help you! If you’re in Nashville, this is group is a must.
Symphonic Fam
Here at Symphonic, we’ve got our own FB group that fosters a supportive space for the indie music community to talk about the industry. Members can collaborate together to share knowledge on best practices, make valuable connections, and share related content. In Symphonic Fam, everyone is free to ask questions and share helpful tips and tricks with a supportive community of music industry peeps. This group is all about helping each other out by empowering independent musicians everywhere to do what they love.
Women Empowered Mentorship Program
In addition to out Symphonic Fam Facebook group, there’s also a group for our Women Empowerment Mentorship Program. The group is a community dedicated to empowering women and supporting each other on our professional journeys’. This group is a safe and inclusive space for women to network, connect, and uplift each other.
Here, you’ll find a platform for job postings, networking opportunities, and resources for personal and professional development. Our community members have access to exclusive content, including webinars, workshops, and guest speakers. Whether you’re looking for a mentor, seeking advice, or simply want to connect with like-minded women, this is the place for you.
As the years go by, creators have more and more freedom over how they want to distribute their music and with whom. Whether you’ve signed a record label deal, you’ve hired a publisher or you work with an independent distributor like Symphonic, it’s important to understand what you’re entitled to as an artist. Look no further, we’re here to break it down. Here’s what you need to know…
Is My Record Label Also My Publisher?
Let’s Talk Record Labels…
A record label is the entity responsible for releasing your master recordings to the public on retailers, streaming services, radio, etc.. Major parts of a record label’s work involve promotion, marketing your music, landing sync placements and more. In addition, major labels often pay out advances to cover the recording costs for the album or single in addition to paying to produce physical releases like CDs or LPs.
(Contrary to popular belief, an advance is NOT free money. — Learn the truth about advances here.)
Think of it like this: A record label is to master recordings what a publisher is to musical compositions.
It’s actually not uncommon for some record labels, especially the majors, to launch publishing divisions in order to exercise more control over the music they release. By acquiring administration rights for the musical compositions (as well as whole or partial ownership), they are able to exploit compositions for licensing opportunities, register songs, collect all publishing-related royalties, etc.
(For example, think Warner Chappell Music; the publishing division of Warner Music Group, or Universal Music Publishing Group; the division of Universal Music Group.)
Publishers
While a record label is only responsible for the recordings songs that they control, a publisher is responsible for the underlying music composition itself, which includes covers by other artists that may have been released to physical or streaming formats.
Music publishers handle the administration of musical compositions. They collect royalties and licensing fees, seek out sync deals for TV and film, register copyrights, negotiate licenses, and more. Similarly to labels, publishers can also involve advances within their publishing deals. Typical publishing deals can include administration only deals, full publishing deals, or co-publishing deals.
Publishing Royalties
The two most common music publishing royalty types, central to any independent songwriter’s income, are performance royalties and mechanical royalties.
So, is my record label my publisher or not?
Short answer is, maybe.
Your record label is not always your Publisher, unless the record label:
establishes itself as the publisher of your songs in your label contract,
registers your songs in royalty collection societies, and
collects the publishing royalties and distributes them to you.
If your record label claims to be the publisher but you have never received any publishing royalties (performance, mechanical, etc.) from your label or from your chosen PRO, then it’s time to confront your record label about this issue and get some clarity.
In Conclusion…
We hope this post has made the relationship between record labels and publishing a little easier to digest. With each service, you get different benefits as an artist. Depending on what you need, one path may be more beneficial than the other. — Regardless of what you choose, you are rightfully owed royalties for your published work. It’s important you understand what you’re owed and how to get it. Otherwise, you may be missing out on hard earned royalties and opportunities. Don’t just sit back and let corporate entities take control of your life. Get involved, do your research, and work with a team that has your back.
If you want to make sure you and your music are getting as much exposure as possible online, your SEO strategy can make or break your efforts. In this post, Dayna Young (Founder of Fred & Augustus, FANDA, and music marketer of 10+ years) gives the ultimate SEO rundown every musician needs to hear…
The Basics of SEO for Musicians
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization or, “SEO” for short. This fancy acronym is defined as “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.”
Simply put, for musicians, this means optimizing how you appear in search results so that you can grow both your online presence and revenue, and the number one reason you want to optimize your online presence is for your fans. After all, it is your fans who will search for you, your music, music videos, merch, and tour dates online.
When each fan does so, they’ll be at a different stage of their fan journey.
Fan Journey
A fan journey is the path that fans take between discovering you and becoming advocates for your brand. Perhaps they just read an interview about you, and now they want to search for and listen to the song mentioned. That’s the discovery phase; you’ll want to ensure you have an artist profile on all streaming sites. Perhaps they are in the exploration stage and want to watch the music video for the song they just listened to—do you have a YouTube profile?
At every stage of the fan journey, your fans are looking for varying degrees of detail and information, and it’s entirely within your power to curate their search experience.
What can you do?
The first step in any SEO project, whether for musicians or otherwise, is keyword research. To best structure your website, content, and online presence, you need to know what people are searching for about your artist brand. This means conducting research into your personal artist keywords, building a master list of those keywords, and then applying those keywords to your online strategy. (Don’t worry, we’ll address keyword research in a later section.)
We know that to be found online, you need a presence on key platforms. The most obvious and important place to start is with your own, branded URL and website. We cover how to build a functional website in this book, but for now, it’s important to know that an artist’s website is a key tool in engaging fans during the exploration, retention, purchase, and advocacy stages.
An artist website should draw fans further into your unique story. The essentials you need are a website with strong visual imagery, links to your music and social icons, and an email subscriber capture form. However in order to really engage and delight fans your website should also include music listening and video watch tools, your biography, your e-commerce store or fan club, tour dates—all displayed within an aesthetically appealing design.
However, your online presence extends beyond your website and across multiple platforms. In addition to your website, these platforms include social media, video, streaming, tour or ticketing sites, and your e-commerce presence.
Together your website and these platforms help infer information about you as an artist, and they are returned in searches fans conduct when they want to know more about you.
Keywords
Keywords are the words or phrases that fans use to search for your band online. There are three groups of keyword types:
Short-tail keywords: “Lady Gaga tour”
Medium-tail keywords: “Lady Gaga show Los Angeles” or
Long-tail keywords: “Is Lady Gaga playing a show in Los Angeles near me soon?”
You can break these keyword groups down into two main categories.
The first are keywords that can be used to build a brand. These are keywords that include your name, a song lyric, your band members’ names, album names, tour names, etc. An example of a branded keyword search might be “David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era.”
The other category is non-branded keywords, which typically don’t include anything specific to your project name, band members, or the music you play. For example, if you’re a heavy metal band in Hollywood, California, a relevant non-brand keyword might be the search term “heavy metal bands near me” or “heavy metal bands in greater Los Angeles.” This said, non-branded keywords usually won’t be useful to artists, unless you’re the type of entity that targets and plays performances at corporate gigs, weddings, and other community-focused events.
How to Research your Keywords
Firstly, create a spreadsheet, which you’ll use for sifting through the keyword suggestions. You’ll add what makes sense (based on larger search volumes or more immediate relevance to your project) to your spreadsheet. This process can take some time, and you might need to try different combinations yourself to really dig deep and find the best keywords.
There are a number of tools available for your keyword research. Some of the best places to start are Google AdWords Keyword Planner, TubeBuddy Tool for YouTube, Free keyword tracker, Google Trends, or even a simple Google search will give you results.
To wrap it all up…
Obviously, it makes sense to Google your potential artist or band name before you commit to it. In much the same way you’d research whether a company name is taken and if the domains exist for that entity, you should do the same with your potential project name.
Of course, there are circumstances in which a conflict might be unavoidable. For example, when you have a common name like Mike Johnson or when your band name includes the name of something famous or common phrases, In these circumstances, it will be even more important that you build your SEO ecosystem, research and implement your keywords, create an aesthetically pleasing and functional website, and implement SEO, voice search, and more to cement yourself in such a grand landscape. But with these tips, you’re on the right track.
