Instagram Has Just Launched Its Brand New @music Account

 
Alex Suskind: The main Instagram account is the most popular on the platform, and the main way we interact with followers. In starting the @music account, we’re hoping to build on what we’ve done, and interact with the global music community in the same way. It’s really going to be an extension of what @instagram is – highlighting and elevating the most creative members of the global music community. We have a dedicated editorial team, who will at as treasure hunters, looking for hidden gems, and then highlighting those gems on the main account. It’s about curating photos, but it’s also about interviewing artists and sharing stories. 

PTV: What kinds of artists will you be highlighting?

AS: Well, for starters, a quarter of the top accounts on Instagram are music related – you have Beyoncé and Taylor Swift and big people like that, but the reach goes way beyond that. In countries like Brazil and South Korea and all over the Middle East, there are a diverse array of musicians, who are huge on Instagram. K-Pop, for instance, is massive on Instagram. With the @music account, we’ll be highlighting everything, covering the big artists as well as the small, unsigned ones. We won’t just be covering musicians, either – we’ll be highlighting the community as a whole. That means you’ll see everything from instrument makers to sound technicians to music photographers, stylists, choreographers and fan art-makers on the site. We want to tap into the music community and elevate the most creative people we can find. 

Instagram’s @music logo, designed by Jared Eberhardt

PTV: The main @instagram account posts twice daily – will @music be similar?

AS: We’ll be doing six posts a week, Tuesday to Sunday, and we’ll be sharing those posts on the @music account as well as on the Instagram blog, where we share the bulk of our main posts. The music posts will be longer than the regular ones, they’ll go in-depth to highlight new artists. We’re organising our stories into a few different series. One of these is #LocallySourced, where we look at new and unsigned acts. Then there’s #Audiology, which highlights sound engineers and the more technical side of things. The one I’m most excited about is #15SecondLessons, where we’ll be bringing in musicians big and small to teach you a technique – a drumbeat, a riff, a record scratch, or something along those lines.

AS: I can’t say a lot right now, but we have a focus on a couple of Aussie-based artists. You’ll be seeing a few of them in the weeks after we launch.

AS: We’re going to be covering the big stars, the people making a lot of noise, but what I’m most exited about is shining a light on the people who aren’t getting a lot of coverage right now, who are doing interesting things behind the scenes, behind the cameras, and sharing those moments on Instagram. That’s what we’re most excited about – digging into untold stories and telling the world.