How To Market Your Music Teaching Business On Instagram
Have you ever wondered how to market your music lessons on Instagram? Perhaps you’re already active on the platform but would like to see better engagement and results. The key to attracting more music students on Instagram is strategy. You need a plan of action. A plan that will improve your music school marketing.
Music Lessons and Marketing
I got the idea for making this video after running a survey in the Facebook group, . I’m going to share with you the results from that survey, but if you are not a member of that Facebook group, we’d love for you to join us, hop on over to and join the conversation.
Promoting Your Music Studio On Instagram
I conducted a survey in the Facebook Group Music Lessons and Marketing which posed the question; “What are the different themes you use in your Instagram posts?” Student performance and behind-the-scenes activities were number one. I was surprised that student awards didn’t receive more votes. I notice quite a few music studios focusing on, kids holding up awards or trophies. I have seen a music studio; that’s all they do is one picture after another of kids holding up an award or a trophy.
Your Followers Might Not Get the Joke
Another thing that I was surprised wasn’t mentioned is musical humor. I see a lot of studios that feature jokes or cartoons about music. I’m sure you’ve all seen the treble and bass cartoons. I’ve seen some jokes where it’s a cartoon and the message is being communicated through sheet music through the notes on the staff. That’s great if your ideal customer is a musician, a seasoned enough musician to even know what those things are. Some of your students will get these jokes. That’s what’s great about Instagram; unlike Facebook, Instagram does allow you to engage with both parents and kids.
Why Your Music Studio Should Be On Instagram
Obviously, you want your current parents and student to be following you on Instagram. Most likely what’s going to happen with Instagram is what happened with Facebook; as more and more adults move in, more and more kids move out. When the grown-ups show up the kids flee to newer and shinier platforms.
We’re seeing that already with TikTok and Snapchat. Instagram is an opportunity to engage with prospective customers; people who fit the profile of your ideal customer.
Define Your Objective
One question I encourage you to ask yourself is what do you want to achieve with each post on Instagram?
- Do you want more sales?
- Do you want more engagement?
- Do you want more followers?
You probably want all of the above. If that’s the case, some of your posts have to be designed for sales. Some have to invite engagement. Some have to be also about attracting more followers.
You’re Not Just a Music Lessons Business
Author John Jantsch once said that you should think of your business as a publishing company, which is a completely different way to think about your music studio, that you’re constantly publishing material to think of all these, digital tools, these digital platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok YouTube, of course, use these as opportunities to publish content. What type of content? Well, let’s break it down.
These are the five different post types I encourage you to consider when you’re on Instagram or any other social media platform, entertainment, culture, building sales, engagement education. So let me break these down
Entertainment
Posts that entertain are an opportunity for you to attract people that don’t have any current interest in your music studio, who don’t really have any awareness of your music studio. For example, if you created posts of your students, making videos with their pets, everyone loves pets on Instagram and Facebook. Having your students create comedy skits. The whole function of those is to be entertaining, to stop moms in their tracks, who really aren’t necessarily thinking about music lessons, but are drawn to those videos because of what’s being featured in those videos.
I encourage you to ask yourself what kind of posts can you create that exist purely for entertainment’s sake. It’s a great way to get new eyes on your business. It’s fun for the kids to create a framework for your students for creating videos at home, or create a framework for skits that they can do.
Celebrating the Culture in Your Music Studio
Even at the school, interviewing the students, all of that can be a source of entertainment. The next post type to consider is culture building, making your current students feel more connected through social media, celebrating your students through social media, explaining your culture in the studio, through social media, you can do a behind the scenes video, which got a lot of votes in the poll.
Maybe it’s just joking around with the office staff. Perhaps it’s talking to parents in the waiting area. These types of videos will capture the attention of people who aren’t in your studio. As something about the video is eye-catching.
Think of Your Music Studio As a TV Show Set
This gets back into what we’re going to talk about next week is how your space is the design and thinking about the interior of your space in terms of how it’s going to look in the video, How it’s going to look in a photograph because that’s going to determine how it looks on social media and the big one that everyone’s doing most people are doing are kids playing their instrument or student performances. Those definitely have an internal appeal to your current customers. And they do have some appeal to people who maybe aren’t actively engaged with your brand.
Cute Isn’t Always Enough
I do encourage you to be careful about posting videos of kids playing music when the child doesn’t necessarily sound good. Hey, mom’s going to feel good about it. The kid’s going to feel good about it, but when someone who’s not a part of your studio, a part of your culture scrolls down and they click on it to listen to it. And the kid can’t play in time or is fumbling all over his notes and might not have an impact on that person. That you’d hope for the, that video is not going to cross over into the realm of entertainment, a video of the kid that can really play well when that now becomes entertaining, which is what’s so great about music studios is it doesn’t take much for you to create a video that has some entertainment value to it. Student awards, you know, the kid holding the trophy or the certificate, that’s really going to only have appeal to the kid and the parent.
Creating Balance and Harmony
Maybe if that parent shares the post, it’s not going to have broad appeal. I see a lot of studios leaning into these student awards as being their main play on social media. I think it’s fine to put that into your strategy, which we’re going to talk about next week, but you want to have a nice balance between these different post types. The kid holding up the sheet of paper is not going to have as much appeal as three of your students clowning around at your studio, having a good time, and capturing that on video.
3 music studios said that they use Instagram as a way to share studio updates such as school closings and recital information. Can you turn that studio news into something creative that the setting or the way it’s presented now becomes of greater interest? What if you set up this mock little cable news station, a black tablecloth over it, you create some type of backdrop. Maybe you have a green screen behind it and you pull up some kind of cable news channel-looking image, and you have this news microphone and students dress up like news personalities. Now that is going to catch people’s eyes. You can use Instagram as a little portal into what your studio looks like, feels like, and believes in.
How to Promote Your Music Lessons on Instagram
So let’s talk about sales on Instagram. You certainly don’t want to overuse your Instagram account by selling all the time. Remember, you’re on a social media platform. So social is the name of the game not selling, which leads me to the next category, engagement. This is the real social part of social media. From the survey that I did on Facebook, nobody was talking about engagement. Engagement would be posted where you’re asking a question where you’re speaking directly to people. You’re soliciting a response from them. These questions don’t necessarily, and probably shouldn’t be about music to go back to the question; Who are you trying to appeal to with your Instagram account?
Your Target Audience: Mom’s or Musicians?
Are you trying to appeal to musicians? People like you? Or are you trying to appeal to moms who might be interested in music lessons? Are you trying to appeal to kids who can play really well? Where are you trying to appeal to kids that don’t know how to play and might become interested in playing? This is where you need to really understand and know your ideal customer and ask them questions that they’re going to be excited to answer. What type of things are moms and your community currently thinking about currently worried about? And how can you ask a question that is going to be inviting for them to answer and perhaps even therapeutic for them? This is where the engagement factor comes in. They might see your question and have no idea what business this is coming from. I mean, they’ll see, once they look up and see, Oh, this is from Springfield Music Academy. I don’t know who they are, but I really like this question because I haven’t thought about this.
Adding Value on Instagram
I’m curious to hear what other moms have to say about this. You then begin to position yourself as someone that they like, someone that they trust, and someone that they might eventually buy from. If your strategy on Instagram is just to get sales, you’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for. If you’re using Instagram as a way to celebrate your students, to attract followers who can eventually become customers, you’ll be much more pleased with the results you get on Instagram. Last, I want to talk about education, and adding value and Instagram inspirational quotes is a great way to do it. Quotes about irritating quotes about kids. What is your ideal customer interested in finding that out. You’re only gonna find out by asking them and then find quotes that relate to that topic. Let’s say your ideal customer’s really into fitness. Well then maybe you find some good quotes about fitness posts.
Do Mom’s Really Care About Jimi Hendrix?
Them create a nice little image in Canva and posted on Instagram has nothing to do with music, of course, but it has everything to do with your customer and your customer’s interest. How would I avoid quotes about music that Jimmy Hendricks said? I shouldn’t say to avoid them. I’d be selective in how you use them. I mean, it’s, you know, something expected of a music studio.
If you quote something inspiring that Ludwig Van Beethoven said about music, okay, that’s expected of a music studio, but Hey, I’m a 35 year old mom. I don’t really know Beethoven’s music. That’s just not going to register with me if I’m a current customer. And I’m really connected with your brand that might register a little bit more with me also, let’s say Italian cuisine is really popular in your city. So you ask a question, what is your favorite local Italian restaurant or adding value? You’re providing information, providing inspiration to your ideal customer. Okay. So this concludes the creative side and a very, you know, broad level, the creative side of Instagram in different post types. Next episode, we’re really going to get into the nuts and bolts of making your Instagram account work for you.
