**Guest post written by Evan Price, Music Mentor and Founder of Artist Collective.

"We at Artist Collective absolutely love Instagram! Not because of all of the Insta-models or foodie pics, but because it is an incredible platform to build a music career. The interface is not built around witty statuses like Facebook, or short thoughts like Twitter. Instead, Instagram focuses in on content gold like photos and videos. Luckily for us, they are still running an interface with few ads that allows pages to be grown easily. Careers have been built on the back of strong Instagram followings and I’ve seen it work. The incredible networking and fanship opportunities we see on a daily basis prove that your next “big break” could just be a couple comments away.

+The Musician's Guide to Instagram

INSTAGRAM SUPERFANS.

If you follow my Instatips Newsletter or follow me on Instagram already, you know I love to talk a lot about “SuperFans”. It’s been proven time and time again that a small number of dedicated fans can facilitate an incredibly successful career. These superfans are individuals that are ideal fans for you and are interested in your lifestyle. I’m talking about the fans that comment on every post and that highly correlate with your brand. I’m asked all the time,

• “How do I get there on Instagram?”
• “How do I create a brand for my artistry?”
• “How do I find and cultivate these superfans and turn them to customers?”

First, you must determine who you’re really targeting…

WHO ARE YOU TARGETTING?

To identify your target audience, there’s a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection that needs to occur. In order to find the essence of your “brand”, you need to start asking yourself about the message you would like to spread. I believe it’s very important to stay genuine to who you truly are.

To find the answers, break down the following:

• Describe your lifestyle in three words.
• Does that correlate with the type of music you want to share?
• What is your mission statement for your artistry? (the message)
• What/who is your target audience?
• Where and on what does your target audience spend their time and money?
• What type of content does this group enjoy engaging with?

I start this discovery by having clients list their favorite things; favorite artists, tv shows, brands of alcohol, public figures, colors, artwork, other passions, and anything that they enjoy. More often than not, those are the exact types of people your music and your “brand” are attempting to target. Starting with those folks that are like you will help snowball your growth. I call this the “Passion List”. This strategy paints the picture of your target audience and the angles needed to reach them. All of this is branding!

+Stop Selling To Everyone. Find Your Dream Fan Instead.

BRANDING ON INSTAGRAM.

Branding isn’t a logo or a fancy website, it’s the culture you build around yourself and your music. Once you develop a target audience (as discussed earlier) you can start to create content that directly speaks to them. The Instagram pages that you see with skyrocketing numbers and comments for days are doing this, and they are obviously doing it very well! They are simply creating content that speaks to the audience they attract, driving traffic to their pages, and providing genuine and engaging experiences after those fans have arrived.

Let’s say you are a rock band that enjoys leather jackets, cheap beer, and watching Sons of Anarchy. I think you have a good picture in your head of your target audience. Creating content that’s genuine to you and to your target audience will speak volumes to the new fans coming to your pages. It creates a genuine connection with them and they can relate to you. It all comes down to being a lot more strategic with your Instagram page.

+Your Band is Your Brand

MONETIZING INSTAGRAM.

The word “Instafamous” rings across every news platform more than “millennial” these days and that’s because there are more ways than ever to make Instagram a huge source of income & fame. Artists can obviously use their Instagram pages to sell merchandise & share Spotify links, but it goes deeper than that. Being strategic about creating customized products and services for your audience will give you much more success than posting a picture of your new band pencil for sale. For example, I mentioned a biker crowd previously and I’ve seen bands create custom airbrushed motorcycle helmets that sold like wildfire at their events. This is badass PR and is much more memorable than a sticker or a koozie.

A lot of folks don’t even know that at 10k followers, the option to swipe up in IG Stories opens the floodgate to daily promotion to ANY link you’d like. Redirecting your newly acquired SuperFans to things like your upcoming Kickstarter, your email list, tour dates, ticketing sites, etc, you can further optimize your efforts, reaching the masses quickly.

+23 Ways Musicians Can Make Money

DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR INSTAGRAM.

Now I may be a little biased however, I think the single greatest tool for any up and coming artist is our Instagram Growth Program. This program is strategically handled by Artist Collective’s marketing team and myself to guarantee conversions of your ideal fans. Yes, your numbers will “grow”, but even more important, you will begin to find and create SuperFans along the way that will be the backbone of your success. However, it’s much more than simply driving eyeballs to your page. Artist Collective also provides weekly up-to-the-minute application updates, Pro Tips, walkthroughs, and insights that we’ve collected and created over nearly a decade of artist development. These incredible tools are created and delivered personally by myself, Evan Price, the founder of Artist Collective. We have taken the tools that the industry has greedily kept to themselves for years and we’re eager to give them to artists all over the world! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to supercharge your social media and reach new heights of success!

I’m so eager for artists of all types to try our new program, so for a limited time, I’m giving away the first month for free! 30 Days of our incredible program on me. Let me show you the impact it can have on your career and sign up today!"

1 MONTH FREE TRIAL

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+7 Musician Rules For Instagram / Snap Chat Stories

+An Intro To Video Marketing in 2018