As someone who spends about three-quarters of their time thinking about music, at least my Instagram doomscrolling comes with a decent soundtrack.

For a while now, I’ve noticed that Instagram has been serving me an increasing number of emerging bands and artists. And, surprisingly often, the recommendations are spot on. Meta seems to know me pretty well. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

There’s a bigger story behind this kind of discovery. According to Deloitte’s 2024 Digital Media Trends research, 82% of Gen Z respondents and 70% of millennials discover new artists or music through social media or user-generated video platforms. For emerging musicians, these platforms offer a way to reach listeners who have never heard of them, without relying entirely on an existing fanbase.

What caught my attention, though, is not just the music itself, but the way these artists present it. Rather than relying on polished campaigns or established fanbases, they experiment with creative ways to involve new users/fans in their journey. These approaches turn the search for visibility into something more personal and playful, inviting people to become part of an artist’s story without asking too much of them.

Here are three of the most interesting patterns I’ve come across.

1. Algorithmic Flattery: A Music Connoisseur

Everyone likes to think of themselves as an opinion leader or an early adopter. We want to spot trends before everyone else, discover things before they become mainstream and be the person who can say, “I knew them before they got big.”

This is precisely the feeling many emerging artists tap into.

Their Reels show them doing all sorts of everyday things while their latest song plays in the background. They might be walking down a street, enjoying something delicious, hanging out with friends or simply doing whatever reflects their personality and lifestyle. Each video offers a glimpse into the band’s world: their clothes, their favourite places, their aesthetic and the mindset they want to convey. The outfits and situations change from Reel to Reel, but one element remains remarkably consistent: the music.

Over the course of 20 or 30 Reels, the same latest track can keep appearing in different contexts, becoming a recurring soundtrack to the band’s visual identity. The videos may look different, but the text overlays often follow a familiar pattern, addressing viewers as if they were among the first to discover something special. They create the impression of a small, emerging act speaking directly to its audience, almost on equal terms, and inviting them to be part of its journey from the very beginning.

The underlying suggestion is that you have discovered something special before the rest of the world. This is not just about liking a song. It is about what discovering that song supposedly says about you.

There is another layer to this that I find particularly interesting. My own Instagram recommendations rarely seem to feature rap. Instead, I get indie and rock bands, synth-pop acts and Eighties-inspired retro artists. And the recommendations extend well beyond the music itself. I see their clothing, their lifestyles, their favourite locations and sometimes even the interiors of the spaces they inhabit. Much of this visual world appeals to me personally.

The connection is therefore built on two levels: the music and the imagery surrounding it. The repeated use of the same track makes the song increasingly familiar, while the visuals communicate a lifestyle and a mindset that viewers can identify with. By the time the track has appeared in dozens of different situations, it may already feel familiar, and the artist’s world may feel familiar, too.

There is a real mechanism behind the discovery, even if the flattering explanation is pure marketing.

In April 2024, Instagram announced changes designed to give smaller original creators a better chance of reaching people who do not follow them. Eligible Reels can initially be recommended to a small audience of non-followers. If that audience responds well, the content can be shown to progressively larger groups. TechCrunch reported on the changes.

In January 2025, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri identified watch time, likes and sends as the platform’s three most important ranking signals. Sends are particularly relevant for reaching people who do not already follow an account. Source: Social Media Today.

Instagram recommends content it predicts a person may enjoy. It does not say that a recommendation means the viewer has exceptional taste or has been personally selected as an opinion leader.

That is the clever part of the tactic: the platform delivers the song, and the artist turns the discovery into a compliment. The algorithm may have introduced you to an unknown musician, but the overlay suggests that you have discovered them because you are exactly the kind of person who recognises talent before everyone else.

2. Engagement-Baiting: Where Are You Watching From?

Another recurring format starts with a claim along the lines of: “Instagram never shows my music outside Brighton. Where are you watching from? Let me know in the comments if you’re somewhere else.”

The artist may already have a song that performs reasonably well with their existing audience, or they may be preparing to release their first single. Instead of promoting the track once and moving on, they create a stream of Reels using the same audio with slightly different footage. The videos may look similar, but the text overlay gives each one a fresh reason to interact.

The location prompt is particularly effective as a low-effort call to action. All viewers have to do is type the name of their city.
No elaborate opinion is required, no personal story needs to be shared, and no commitment to follow the artist is necessary.

It also creates a small sense of surprise. If you live nowhere near Brighton but Instagram has shown you an artist who claims to reach only people in Brighton, you may feel like an exception. You have discovered someone outside their supposed local bubble, and the artist is explicitly asking you to confirm it.

In marketing terminology, engagement baiting describes content designed to elicit a specific response, in this case a comment. The geographic angle adds a local-discovery hook to the tactic.

But does it actually help the Reel travel further?

In January 2025, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, identified watch time, likes and sends as the platform’s three most important ranking signals. Comments were not among the three signals he highlighted. That does not establish that comments have no influence on ranking. But there is another important mechanism at play here: the time people spend watching the Reel while interacting with its comment section.

Think about what happens when you see the question. You might want to know where the other viewers are from. Has anyone else in Germany seen the video? Am I the first person from Hamburg to comment? Could I be the first from Harvestehude? Suddenly, a simple location prompt becomes a small discovery game. You scroll through the comments, look for familiar places and check whether anyone else has already claimed your city.

Meanwhile, the Reel keeps playing. You may watch it again while reading the comments, and again while typing your own response. By the time you have finished exploring the discussion, you might have watched the same video three times without consciously deciding to do so.

This is where the tactic becomes particularly interesting. The artist is not necessarily trying to conduct a genuine headcount of their fans or find out where every listener lives. The location question can also serve as a way of encouraging behaviour that affects several video performance metrics at once. It prompts a comment, gives viewers a reason to stay, and can lead to repeated plays that increase total watch time.

That distinction matters because Instagram’s published ranking guidance identifies watch time, likes and sends as its three leading signals. A location prompt may therefore do more than generate comments: it can create the conditions for viewers to spend longer with the content. The precise ranking effect of this particular format has not been publicly established, but the underlying logic is clear.

The artist supplies a song and a question. The viewer supplies a city, explores the responses and potentially watches the Reel several times in the process. What looks like a simple attempt to find out where the audience lives can also function as a carefully constructed engagement mechanism, designed to increase interaction and viewing time, with the broader aim of improving the Reel’s visibility.

3. Copy Link: Asking the Audience to Help Beat the Algorithm

A third format makes the platform mechanics themselves part of the appeal. Emerging artists ask viewers to copy the link to their Reel, often with a message such as: “I’m a small artist. If you want to support me, please follow me and copy the link. It helps me so much.”

The appeal is straightforward. Copying a link feels like a small favour. It gives viewers a specific action to take and lets them feel they have helped an artist who is still trying to find an audience. The request has become a familiar tactic among artists and creators looking to give their content an extra push.

There is a real algorithmic idea behind the request. Instagram’s published ranking guidance identifies watch time, likes and sends as its three leading signals. Sends are particularly relevant when it comes to reaching people who do not already follow an account. Instagram has also reported that Reels are reshared more than 4.5 billion times every day across Instagram and Facebook combined. Source: Social Media Today, January 2025.

Copying a link is not the same as sending it to someone, and Instagram has not publicly confirmed that the Copy Link button itself is an established ranking signal. Nevertheless, the tactic continues to be widely promoted by creators as a way to support an artist’s reach. The reasoning is easy to understand: if sharing content helps it reach new audiences, encouraging viewers to share a link is an attempt to set that process in motion.

The bigger picture is that emerging artists are competing in an environment where simply releasing music is no longer enough to guarantee discovery. According to Luminate’s 2025 year-end data, streaming services received an average of approximately 106,000 new tracks every day. By the end of the year, their catalogues contained around 253 million tracks. Even more strikingly, 88% of those tracks received fewer than 1,000 streams over the course of the year. Source: Music Business Worldwide, January 2026.

In this environment, social media visibility can play an important role in helping artists break through. A study published in April 2026 by Luminate in partnership with Meta found that artists whose off-platform streaming activity was strongly correlated with their Instagram engagement recorded median streaming growth of 23% between Q2 2024 and Q2 2025, compared with 3% for artists overall. The study does not establish that Instagram engagement alone caused this difference, but it demonstrates the relationship between activity on the platform and listening beyond it. Source: Meta and Luminate Music Impact Report, 2026.

That is why these seemingly small tactics matter. When hundreds of thousands of new tracks enter streaming services every week, emerging artists need ways to attract attention before listeners ever search for them on Spotify or another platform. Reels can put a song in front of potential fans; comments and shares can encourage further interaction; and a growing audience on Instagram can help create momentum beyond the platform itself.

The music remains the product, but visibility is the gateway. For emerging artists, learning how to turn a few seconds of attention into a discovery, a share or a new listener has become an increasingly important part of building a career.