We all love making our Stories and Reels a little more special with music. Whether it's a fresh offering from our favourite artists or a trending new track that's been circling on socials, music will always bring an extra spark of fun and creativity to our day as we swipe and scroll on our phones.
These days, diving through Instagram and Facebook Reels has become a way of music discovery. From Lady Gaga's 'Bloody Mary', Fifty Fifty's 'Cupid', Lola Amour's 'Raining in Manila', to Simple Plan's 'I'm Just A Kid', music from different genres and eras have made massive waves and often times received second lives thanks to Reels and Stories. The catchiness of a track seeps into your mind. You know everyone is listening to it. There are even moments where you realize you can't escape a certain song. Whatever the situation, you can always count on music from your next favourite artists to be a part of your day, any day.
Bandwagon caught up with Dona Inthaxoum, Head of International Music Label Partnerships, Meta, APAC, to talk about the music features on Facebook and Instagram, how Reels and Stories help support artists, and more.
Tell us about the music features on Facebook and Instagram that artists can use to help build communities and engage with their fans.
People are using Meta’s platforms for more than connecting with friends and family – they’re also powerful tools that enable people to discover and engage with what is most important to them.
BANDWAGON TV
From our recent Meta trends report, Culture Rising, we know that music is a rising global conversation on Facebook (FB) and Instagram (IG). Music fans around the world want to have closer access to their favourite artists. This desire for social connection is changing how music listeners discover and share new tracks and artists – and social media is proving to be an effective place for fan engagement and for nurturing these connections, especially among teens and young adults. Unlike other single-destination music services, we bring music into all the places where people are already sharing and connecting. That makes our opportunity with Music even more distinct: we work with our music partners to build social music opportunities for artists, writers, and people across our family of apps – in particular, FB, IG, Messenger, and Oculus.
Our partnerships have enabled people to share music through music products we’ve built that enable self-expression:
● Music Stickers on Instagram and Facebook Stories
● Music in Reels on Instagram and Facebook
● Music in Notes on Instagram (available in selected countries in Asia Pacific)
● Music in Photos and Carousels on Instagram
Even FB and IG features that are not solely related to music, help artists engage authentically and deeply with fans around the world. Benson Boone is a great example: he engaged fans using Instagram’s "Ask me a question" sticker to gather questions ahead of his visit to Singapore for a 45-minute IG Live at Meta’s studio on 2 August, which reached more than 15K accounts and 10K comments.
View this post on Instagram
How can artists utilise said tools to create and sustain their audience?
Today, artists are using Meta apps to tease new projects and create authentic connections with fans – by sharing everyday moments on Stories, inspiring and entertaining fans on Reels, hosting living room concerts or live announcements on Facebook and Instagram Live, raising money for important causes through the donate button in Facebook Live and Stories.
Our music product suite complements and deepens the way artists connect with fans, and the way fans connect with one another. Music in Facebook and Instagram Reels enables artists to get creative as they promote a new track through a wide range of fun features such as Templates, Collabs, or Lyrics. They can increase fan engagement with Remix, Polls, and Stickers on Reels; and share personal updates, day-to-day life and even tease upcoming releases or tour dates in a more personal way to fans who have opted in to join the artist’s Instagram Broadcast Channel or WhatsApp channel.
A great example of artists using Reels to build fan engagement comes from the new boy group PERSES (from Thailand). They have a constant Instagram follower growth rate thanks to their frequent use of Reels, which they use to connect and engage with fans. At the end of last year, they grew their fanbase by 1290% in just two months, by creating Reels content reflecting their own style and personality, collaborating with other musicians and creators using Collabs to amplify their reach, and commenting on their fans’ reactions.
View this post on Instagram
Just recently, The Teskey Brothers (Australia) went from 165K IG followers to 831K (+386%) in one month by posting a series of performance Reels showcasing the soul voice of the lead singer which resonated with audiences beyond Australia. These Reels also contributed to a spike in streaming for their focus track.
How does Reels help innovate artist and label marketing strategies?
Reels is a key part of our discovery engine, driving incremental engagement across the platforms. As Reels continues to grow, the opportunity for discovery also grows - with people re-sharing Reels across our apps more than 2 billion times every day.
Reels has been unlocking new international audiences for Asia Pacific’s growing music talents and has become a key marketing tool for both labels and artists to promote new music due to the feature’s ability to reach unconnected audiences at scale.
Many artists have found success on Reels, for example, in Japan, Mina Okabe‘s track 'Every Second' has been used more than 5 million times on Reels with a total of more than 7.5 billion views to date. It’s been trending worldwide and its success on Reels led to a peak in streams globally.
View this post on Instagram
Artists are also using Reels to bring fans behind the scenes while on tour. The Australian rising artist Budjerah created 13 behind-the-scene Reels during his Australian tour with Ed Sheeran to share what it was like for him and his crew to work with one of the biggest pop stars. Using Reels helped him to grow his fanbase by 51.4% and led the song 'Therapy' to reach the top 100 of the Spotify AU charts. We’re excited to see that by creating BTS content and connecting with fans, Budjerah’s song was able to break through competitive international charts – reaching new audiences for an emerging artist.
View this post on Instagram
In terms of innovation, Peach PRC brought to life the concept of official short-form videos to Reels which resonate more with her audience than traditional music videos. She released 6 official short-form videos uploaded to Reels, with each video illustrating a single from her new EP Manic Dream Pixie. The official video clips were accompanied by six dramatized scenes used as teasers on Reels – all the clips were later combined into a final video. The artist shared several exclusive behind-the-scenes Reels showcasing her journey in making those videos. Those Reels contributed to the EP becoming a #1 ARIA Album campaign, and the final video is now nominated for Best Music Video at the ARIA Awards.
How is Meta working with artists and music labels from APAC to support artist discovery and sustain engagement? Growing international audiences? Supporting music releases?
We partner closely and deeply with labels and artists across the region, with the goal of helping them utilise our platforms to find success, in addition to better understanding their needs, so we can continue to optimise our platforms.
For emerging artists who are trying to build awareness, we help them navigate the use of our tools with a focus on Reels and Live, encouraging them to engage in comments to build their own stories. For big artists, the scope of the products gets much bigger. We think about the most suitable solutions to create a strategy that will have the biggest impact towards their goals. For example, they can use our tools to create fundraisers for social good – raising money for a cause that's important to them. For us, it's a playground to pull all these pieces together, and we have the luxury of building a web of products that are specifically tailored to an artist’s needs. We ask, "What's the best way to tell a story on the platform", and collaborate with the artist and their team to build the greatest impact, whether that’s buying a ticket, listening to a song, or buying a t-shirt.
To us, education is key. We organise workshops for music labels, publishers, and artists to learn more about our music-related products and best practices, so they are well-equipped to drive music campaigns on our platforms. We are in touch with our partners every single day. No one day is the same.
Are there any artists that Meta is focusing on to push out right now?
Part of the magic of what we're building isn't just big moments, but the everyday ones. Giving artists the platform to tell bigger stories around their music, which makes the ordinary feel extraordinary, e.g., Troye Sivan pre-releasing 'Got Me Started' on Reels for fans.
View this post on Instagram
It's also exciting to see the evolution of our products, e.g., Peach PRC adapted her latest EP into several official Reels to give life to her overall story; Fifty Fifty released a sped-up version of their global trending track ‘Cupid'.
Like what you read? Show our writer some love!
-