Why it’s important to use hashtags when promoting music on social media, and which ones are most effective.
Hashtags are one of the most important elements when promoting music, or really anything on social media. No matter the app, hashtags allow people to view, share, and interact with your post. If you’re trying to find the right hashtag to promote your music, look no further. These are the most popular hashtags used for promoting music, and how to use them.
Hashtags are the connection between your content and the other people on an app or website. They help get your content where it needs to go, and allow people to interact with what you’re sharing. The trick is to find the right niche, and the right hashtags to suit your content. If people are looking for content like yours, it will be easier for them to find if they can search for a hashtag and yours will pop up.
It’s important to find and use hashtags that will be effective. Do your research and find some that match your content and have proven successful. For instance, you could go onto a musician’s TikTok or Instagram and look at what hashtags they use. Then, you can use them in your photos and videos. You can also go into the search bar and search up some hashtags you might think are popular and see how many interactions they’ve received.
On TikTok, you can search for anything. If you type in #music, for example, it will tell you how many views that hashtag has gotten. Make sure you use multiple hashtags; don’t overdo it, but make sure you have enough to where multiple people will interact with your account and content. If you’re willing to invest in your social media presence, you can use sites like RiteTag. These sites will save you the time of trying to find the right hashtag. Based on your content, it will generate popular hashtags for you to attach to your content.
Every social media site is different in their algorithm. If you’re using TikTok, the popular tags will be different from Instagram or Twitter. To check for popular tags on TikTok, go to the search bar and type a keyword like #music or #pop. Then, tap “Hashtags.” This way, you’ll see a list of hashtags relating to the one you typed in and it will tell you how popular it is.
Some popular ones on TikTok are:
On TikTok, there are a couple hashtags that should be included in every post to guarantee views. These are: #foryou, #fyp, #foryoupage, #viral, and whatever challenge is popular at the moment.
Upon looking up some musicians on TikTok for inspiration, you may find people like @sprubin.
This video they created got 7.2 million views, and 1.2 million likes. They used the following hashtags: #oboe, #violin, #musician, #fyp. From this, you may gather that using a few hashtags such as what instrument you’re playing, and then the basic #foryoupage and #musician will allow you to show up where you need to.
Now, hashtags aren’t everything, as the algorithm can have a mind of its own, but they certainly help guide people who are looking for content similar to yours.
As you post more content and develop a following, your page will only grow. Hashtags are a great way to start up and develop a solid foundation to your following, but it’s important to keep up with your content and keep using the best hashtags.
For example, a very talented guitar player on TikTok, @JonDretto, has 3.7 million followers, and his two pinned videos have over 30 million views. Let’s take a look at what hashtags he uses.
Contrary to what you might think, his hashtags are fairly simple. In one of his videos, he pretends that he’s a beginner and goes into a guitar store and then surprises him with his professional abilities. He uses the tags #music, #guitar, #funny, #prank, and #public.
These are good to use because he will attract musicians, people, looking for entertaining and funny videos, and people who may be looking specifically for guitar videos. It is a good idea to use a variety of hashtags to ensure you’re reaching as many audiences as possible. For example, if you’re playing a song by The Beatles on guitar, use a few like #thebeatles, #paulmccartney, #abbeyroad, #guitar, #music, and #vocals. Not all of the hashtags need to be exactly what’s in your video, but something related that will draw people in.
On TikTok, it may be hard to get noticed at first. This is simply because there are millions of people on the app, and millions of videos circulating. If you’re looking to promote your music or music in general, don’t get discouraged if you don’t get millions or even thousands of views right away. If you continue to post content consistently, and use popular hashtags, people are bound to come across your videos. For more information on TikTok music hashtags, check out this post.
Similar to TikTok, when looking for specific tags, search your keyword in the search bar and hit “Tags.” Here, it will show you the hashtag you put in, plus related ones, and how many posts it has. Contrary to TikTok, which shows you how many views the tag got, Instagram will show you how many posts have used the hashtag. This can be less helpful, because you don’t necessarily know how helpful the hashtag was, but the ones used the most are probably the most successful.
On Instagram, some popular tags to use are:
You can either look up some popular ones, or you can research some on google. Similar to TikTok, Instagram’s main source of content now comes from Reels. They have taken over the app recently, and now posting Reels is the best way to get views. Many people will even post their TikTok videos as Reels on Instagram to get more attention.
A musician who has a decent following, @filmclip19 on Instagram, posts reels on Instagram and uses tags like #guitarist, #guitarsolo, #riffwars, #michaeljackson, #jazzmusic, #johnmayer, and #fender. These are great to use because people could be looking for videos of guitarists, or they could be looking for something more specific, such as a John Mayer guitar cover. His videos get anywhere from 500-5,000 likes. It’s clear that TikTok is a better platform for guaranteed views, but Instagram can be a good place to add your content along with TikTok. Any platform can be beneficial, and if you have more than one, it makes you more accessible, which is a good thing.
Hashtags are the most important element when it comes to sharing content on social media. They create important ties between content and audiences. Especially on TikTok where our feeds are tailor-made for our interests, hashtags will help your videos reach the right people.
If you don’t know where to begin, start by defining your content and know what you’re going to be putting out into the world. Once you’ve identified yourself, choose which platforms you’re going to be using. Then, pick your hashtags. Research hashtags in your niche, either by looking them up on the social media site itself, or doing some research on Google. Once you’ve come up with popular hashtags that get people likes and views, all you have to do is attach them to your content and post! For more information on Instagram hashtags, check out this post.
Again, don’t get discouraged if you don’t go viral right away. It might take some repetition and patience, but keep using those hashtags to ensure people are seeing your content!
