7 Tips On How To Effectively Promote Music Events Using Hashtags

Instagram is currently one of the most appealing platforms for creators and lover of music alike. The popular photo sharing network's hashtag feature provides an excellent marketing opportunity, provided it's used correctly. Here we look at seven key hashtag strategies.

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Guest post by Brandon Stanley 

Instagram is the best social media network that appeals to music lovers and producers. Because you’ve started reading this post, I’m inclined to believe that you have a precise interest. Whether you want to promote your music or a specific upcoming music event, you’ve come to the right place.

The music industry – like every other – changes very rapidly. Ten years ago, musicians were promoting their music mostly through producers. Today we have the digital environment, which happens to give us amazing opportunities to make ourselves known.

Instagram is a goldmine for music producers and bands. It is so especially due to its popular #hashtag feature. Promoting music events on using Instagram hashtags is one of the easiest ways to improve the popularity of your music and shows. In today’s post, we’re presenting 7 hashtag strategies that you can leverage to better market your music hits and live performances.

Make Your Hashtags Relevant

Hashtags are supposed to help the social user find relevant content. That’s it – simple and on point. Unfortunately, many musicians fail to understand this aspect. They’ll simply list as many #hashtags into their Instagram posts, hoping that they’ll get access to more and more people.

The quantity over quality attitude is not effective when it comes to hashtag marketing. You can’t exaggerate with the hashtag use and you cannot just throw in some hashtags, especially if you’re promoting a music event. Nobody will buy tickets unless they actually like the music which will play. So, in order to find the people who like your music, you must use the most relevant hashtags that will lead your prospects on the right path.

Keep It Short but Distinctive

Your hashtags could be comprised of a set of words or a set of short phrases that directly direct readers towards your music brand or towards a specific music event.Your main purpose is to draw the attention of your prospects and bring them closer to your brand. By writing way too long hashtags, you’ll only manage to distract your future customers.

Moreover, they don’t even perform well. It’s been proven that the use of 11+ hashtags per Instagram post will improve your campaign’s overall engagement rates. Moreover, be use distinctive hashtags that lead the prospect exactly to what he expects. For example, if you’re promoting a retro night event using #retro, you’re doing it wrong because you’re using terms that are too general.

Develop One or More Brand Hashtags

Brand hashtags are absolutely necessary for standing out from the crowd. Every musician feels that need of originality or uniqueness. And that is great because diversity is good. Now. In order to differentiate yourself from the rest, you must have a branded #hashtag or a set of branded #hashtags.

For example, #YesWeCanis one of those branded hashtag campaigns that had a significant role in Obama’s popularity. The #ALSIceBucketChallenge was another viral hashtag term that closely relates to the “ALS Association”, which also happens to be a brand.

Create your unique brand hashtags and use them consistently in most of your posts. This way, you’re improving the awareness and reputation of your music brand or music events.

Appeal to Emotions

If you’re serious about making your music event popular or even viral, you need to acknowledge everything that it takes to generate that effect. The most effective and commonly used technique by marketers today is the sparking of emotions. Online campaigns that make prospects feel things will get a much better social engagement.

Add a bit of emotional impact to your hashtags so people will be actually eager to share your event with others. As an example, Coca-Cola company significantly improved its sales performance by launching and popularizing the “#ShareaCoke” campaign. When people #shareacoke, they have the feeling that they’re giving a gift to someone, an aspect that will always bring them satisfaction.

Find Popular Hashtags and Leverage the Buzz

In order to make your music appreciated on Instagram or to build up engagement for the music event you’re promoting, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. In fact, you can simply work smart and leverage the trends that are already popular at the present moment so you can improve the engagement of your own campaign.

“You should associate the hashtagsfor your music event with a topic and hashtag that’s extremely popular at the moment. Popular equals abig flow of traffic. The more relevant the popular hashtag is to your genre and music the more targeted prospects and future customers you’ll reach.” – Harley Cuban, Marketing Specialist at Rushmyessay UK.

Put the Hashtags in a Comment

Instead of enumerating all your hashtags in the description of your post, you should use the comment section to do that. They respond the same and they work entirely the same. The only difference is that your actual content will look better without being surrounded by so many “#” and words. By doing so, your Instagram post will also look less spammy.

There’s another benefit to adding your hashtags to the comments section. When your followers begin to engage with your post and they start commenting on it, the hashtags will “retreat” and therefore become invisible at first sight. Nevertheless, their effect remains the same as people will be able to stumble upon your content whenever they click on your posts’ hashtags.

Research the Competition

Make a list with all the similar artists that appeal to the same target audience that you’re appealing. So if you’re a rapper, make a list of all the rappers that represent a direct competition for your music band or your music event. Are there any other music events in the same town? In the same country?

Find your direct competitors and study their #hashtag use. Go through all their posts and learn as much as possible. You might find goldmine opportunities and hashtags that you would have never implemented on your own. When you research your competitors’ hashtag marketing with much care and identify patterns that make them successful, you will immediately gain competitive advantage.

Takeaways

Promoting music events is definitely tricky. However, the more tools you have at your disposal the easier it gets. Hashtags have proven to be very efficient for many small and big musicians. If you’re a great singer and also a great music promoter, you’ll soon experience what people call “success”. Instagram marketing is both an art and a practice. Put your art into play!