Instagram can be wildly successful for artist marketing if used the right way but is easier for artists who have more established fan bases to see success on it more quickly, partially since its “For You” style page isn’t used as much as TikTok’s. For larger artists, especially, consumers desire to know what the artist’s next move will be. When will their album be released? What will it be called? Artists will do this by posting various content including behind-the-scenes content, cover art teasing or announcing the dates of the next single or tour, and more.

Another key to Instagram marketing, similar to that on TikTok, is the idea of personal values. During an interview with The Music Industry Podcast, Anya Du Sauzay, the head of marketing for Warner Music Group, showcased that it is most important for an artist to put their own true personality into their content (Du Anya 2021). This may take the form of an artist seeming more down-to-earth or approachable. Furthermore, she emphasized that it is important for an artist to focus on the avenues of marketing that they are more passionate about as the other avenues simply are not worth their time and effort (Du Anya 2021). 

Although Instagram is a platform that has seen great results for artists and continues to be influential today, there are caveats to today’s content culture, such as the rapid demand for them to be more active on social media that adds a whole other area of work to artists’ plates.

Chelsea Cutler discussed this on an Instagram post in January, expressing how these demands of social media as an artist have been mentally taxing for her (Cutler 2022). The post received 104,325 likes and 3,275 comments (Cutler 2022). She talked about how the pandemic accelerated this consumption, making social media feel more forced, and received support from artists who expressed feeling a similar way including blackbear, Julia Michales, Jonah Marais, Noah Kahan, Niall Horan, JP Saxe, and more (Wass 2022). In an interview with Variety, she made comments about how organic social media can be a great growth tool for artists and how it has been for her, but that artists have to have an open dialogue about the way the industries are changing and there needs to be a healthy balance between artists promoting their music on social media, focusing on creating their music, and still having time to take care of themselves (Wass 2022).