MUSICGRAM – MUSIC MARKETING AND INSTAGRAM

Today at INsight Room, we talk about how Instagram strikes a musical chord with marketing music and reaching millions in a spectacularly short period of time or to say it in our industry’s favourite term – go viral. Let’s quickly dive in to discuss about MusicGram!

Today, every second piece of content we consume is in the form of video content. No agency – client meeting is complete without stressing on the need to create a video strategy to keep people engaged with their most preferred content format. The reasons are simple – video content is easier to remember, enables storytelling and adds interactivity.

But you’d ask, with so much video content around us, how does one piece of content stand out from the rest? And how does music marketing fit in the scheme of things? First and foremost, for any content to stand out, it has to be interesting to elicit a response, which we digital folks classify it as engagement. Secondly, relatability and influence help your message travel – which means leveraging topics and trends (read memes and moment marketing) that people instantly recognize, and content creators who are widely followed with daily dose of entertainment. Lastly, it’s equally important to follow what content format people enjoy the most (Reels, Stories, IGTV, Feed)

Now add music and Instagram to the mix. Instagram is where the audiences are today, and so are the content creators. We are found sometimes (read most of the times) scrolling endlessly thanks to Instagram’s algorithm to deliver content that interests us the most, one video at a time. Then there are influencers and content creators dancing, entertaining and educating us all the way, one reel video at a time

While we consume a variety of content, music inherently adds to the experience that makes video content so highly engaging and popular. Instagram allows you to add music to everything you create and share, with its latest update even allowing users to add music to a static post on your feed. Music is in itself is content now, not just a mere background element. There are plenty of examples where music communicates the message or the emotion – popularly seen across content produced by creators, pages and users in reference to situational content, trends, memes and more.

With extensive usage of music across video content formats, we’re often discovering new music which we otherwise might not explore. Haven’t you come across new music and genres while browsing through your reels section? The lo-fi slow reverb music elevating travel and food videos, the peppy tunes accompanying trending videos, the dance challenges, etc. We’re always discovering new music while consuming content from our favourite sources, irrespective of the genre or even the language.

With all the music exploration happening, it stands to greatly benefit music artists to popularize their work on Instagram at a viral pace. For example, a catchy tune or fun lyrics could pave the way for one’s music to sit on a variety of reels video.

Another way in which music is often popularized is when influencers and creators produce content using a specific song/tune. This often results in taking the music to a large set of audience and discovery takes place in a short span of time with the massive reach.

Then there are dance and fun challenges and trending videos that float across Instagram with accompanying music, leading to more reach and popularity. Aspiring creators and bloggers, general users and brands leverage trending music as it helps them boost reach for their content. There’s a library for top trending music on Instagram reels (check the audio tab on your reels section)

While there are plenty of creative and strategic ways in which music can be promoted on Instagram, our objective was to touch upon how music marketing finds a sweet spot on Instagram to help artists from the music industry enjoy increased popularity for their work.

We hope you enjoyed reading our insights on MusicGram. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas and we’d be more than happy to discuss your thoughts. Stay connected to INsight Room to discuss, learn and share all things branding, advertising, design and digital.

Insight Room is a property owned by Creative Injection. Creative Injection is a 11-year young independent full-service creative and digital agency based in Mumbai.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

We consume and get exposed to tons of information everyday. We also come across a plethora of designs on a daily basis. But we only remember a few of them well. Why is that?

hen we look at various designs, there’s a lot we derive out of it. Whether we get the message clearly is upon the placement of text, colours, layout and other aspects that constitutes for a good design to communicate the message effectively.

This is one of the most important things that make us remember some designs / ads over others. This brings us to the topic of Principles of Design, where we lay down some essential principles to help your design stand out

Before we begin, let’s answer a quick question – What is Graphic Design? Well, graphic design is the ‘art’ of communication combining text, colours, images and symbols. These are elements of any form of design that is created by using Layouts, Images and Typography.

Though all these are used by every designer, how one uses is what makes the difference. Let’s now look at the key principles of design that can lead to success stories for graphic designers.

Rules – Over the time, the debate over whether to apply rules or no has been constant. Some experts believe, design should follow rules strictly while the other set believes freedom is essential in creativity. While both the arguments are true, it is important to understand the rules to be able to break them. Yes, not all piece of art can follow every rule to get great work done. But, in order to create something extravagant and different, one needs to know the rules perfectly only to be able to play with them.