Build your fanbase from scratch with Instagram

Endlessly pitching your playlist, hoping that a curator, who may or may not be trustworthy, accepts your song for their playlist.. Hoping that one piece of content will go viral (spoiler: it probably won't).

Do you really think this is the way to build a genuine fanbase? Well, my friend, I have a different perspective on this.

What’s the secret then? Instagram.

Look, I was able to get my band Slowchamber from 0 followers on Instagram and 0 streams to more than 4,200 followers on Instagram and 76,000+ streams in just a few months spending $5 to $15 per day on ads and with organic content.

Even if we posted just 15 times in 4 months (shame on us), we tried to stay active and engage with fans on Stories.

Now the guys in Internet Frendz are doing the same thing and getting even crazier results.

The cool thing is that this is something that works to go from 0 to 5,000 or from 100,000 to 1,000,000. It’s that scalable.

Now, how do you do the same? Let’s dive in!

Table of Contents

• Step 1: Get the most out of profile visits

• Step 2: First impressions are important.

• Step 3: Instagram Ads - The setup

• Step 4: The content for your ads

• Step 5: Targeting

Step 1: Get the most out of profile visits

Did you know that when you run ads to promote your music, about half of the people out there will actually take a peek at your Instagram profile before clicking?

And guess what? The other half will most likely swing by your profile after listening to your music.

So how do you make sure you’re capturing additional conversions when a new potential fan visits your Instagram profile?

Well, with a proper link in bio. And I’m not talking about a broken Spotify link. I’m talking about a proper landing page with all relevant links you can send people to.

This is crucial because before driving traffic to streaming platforms and before attracting potential followers to your account, you want to make sure they have a way to check out more of your stuff.

Linktree-type links is one of the feature we offer at Smart Noise, so I’ve used that for Slowchamber. Tech CEO, mfs.

Step 2: First impressions are important.

Whether you admit it or not, we humans are a bunch of visually obsessed creatures.

We can't help but be drawn (initially) to things that are easy on the eyes. It's like we have an involuntary reflex to gravitate towards all things aesthetically pleasing.

In other words, make sure your page looks good when someone visits it.
This doesn’t mean you can’t post raw-looking content, not at all, but you need to have a proper visual identity to be easily recognizable.

Step 3: Instagram Ads - The setup

How many times have you ‘boosted’ a post via the Instagram app and left disappointed with the results?

Believe me, you are not alone. Fortunately, there’s a new, better way to run ad campaigns to promote your music: Smart Noise Conversion Ads.

Instead of running ads optimizing for clicks (that no one care about), your ads will be optimized to find you actual music fans that are more likely to listen to your music and become a fan.

Also, you will be collecting remarketing data to run ads just to people who already engaged with you and skyrocket your return on investment.

That’s how it works:

Step 4: The content for your ads

I can’t stress this enough. Content is everything. For your organic efforts, and for your advertising efforts too.

Luckily, we've got you covered with awesome tutorials and ad templates. You can easily watch and learn from them to successfully run your own campaigns.

You can use:

1. ‘For fans of’

2. A clip of your music video with text overlay

3. A clip from a movie with your song playing

4. ‘POV‘

5. Live clip

6. Stock video + caption

7. Storytelling

8. ‘Looking for people who..’

9. Reaction

10. Odd scenario

These are just a few examples, but we have invested a significant amount of money in testing them just in the last few months, so trust me when I say they do work.

Step 5: Targeting

After creating solid content, it’s important that the right people see it.

The best targeting combination you can start with, no matter if your main objective is Instagram growth or streaming growth, is to combine similar artists to you (or the one you’re promoting) with ‘audio consumption’ interests, such as the interest ‘Spotify’.

This is how it looks directly on the Meta Ads Manager:

Type the artists you sound similar to. If available, the interest will pop up.

And then use ‘Define further’ to layer ‘Spotify’ as an interest.

This method works, it’s just very time consuming. Most of the time the artists you enter are not even available to target so you’re spending 30 minutes just to find the ones you can actually target.

You can generate interests you can actually target on Meta using Smart Noise in just one click by entering one or more artists as reference. It’s that simple.

This may seem like a ton of work, but there are many useful tools that will save you time and energy. As you grow your fanbase, your most important tool is your marketing platform.

There are several that can do the job, but Smart Noise was designed specifically with creators like you in mind.  

For one thing, our pricing structure doesn’t punish you for growing.

Instead, you choose a plan based on whether your music career is in a Starter, or Growth phase.

Every plan has unlimited features. No limit on campaigns, links, ad spend, pre-saves, or emails.

More importantly, you don’t have to put a lot of time into the technical side.

Our self-serve ad playbooks are easy to use and get you results.

Getting your first 1,000 fans is a major milestone. If you want to get there sooner, and take advantage of that growth, give Smart Noise a try for free.