📷 Image Credit: Forbes 👆
By: Cathy Applefield Olson

The music industry has changed A LOT in the past year! The cancellation of all live in-person concerts drove fan interaction and artists to rely on their online platforms 100%. Because of this, Instagram is stepping up to the plate and wants to help artists make money with a new tipping option, as well as artists being able to sell merchandise through the app. The hope is that this will allow artists to grow their audiences further and have another profit funnel for the artists to help with lost revenue.

Through the past year, we have seen Instagram used by artists in many different ways. 6ix9ine live-streamed a rant on Instagram that got 2 million viewers, and Miley Cyrus has done interviews over Instagram live. While these interactions were pushed to the social media platform Instagram due to the pandemic, they aren’t expecting these types of artist interactions to stop once we return to in-person life. With direct fan payments, Instagram has found a way to enhance and evolve artist interactions with their fans. Direct fan payments will be made through a feature called Badges. These Badges will allow users to get added special call-outs or benefits from the artist…just another way to show fan loyalty and build an audience! It’s pretty cool!

Written by: Sofia Christensen, Intern

Edited by: Lisa Knight, COO & Mentor