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Music Instagram Influencers

Sam Slaughter, Junior Planner at FRUKT London, looks at Instagram influencers and how it works as a medium for opinion leaders in music.

The world of Instagram influencers is now a massive thing. We’ve seen it in many forms too. From the unequivocal, crass product placement, to the genuinely respected authoritative voices in the industry that are defining what’s cool and what’s not.

The fashion world is probably most synonymous with Instagram influencers. Its visual nature complements the concept of style and fashion. And without getting caught up in a ‘chicken and egg’ debate, Instagram’s user base is weighted heavily towards women, meaning that fashion thrives on the channel.

However, music influencers don’t always fit so comfortably with the visual bias of Instagram. Twitter and Facebook do a better job of allowing tastemakers to express their opinions. Instead, Instagram for music influencers tends to be a visual diary of “where I’ve been that’s really cool” or “what I’m doing that’s really cool”, rather than expressing their thoughts on the best music out there.

A phenomenon we often see with influencers, is how certain people amass huge followings for no apparent reason. But, this often doesn’t work for musicians. Artists will tend to have several platforms that also have “followings”, like Soundcloud and Spotify, and so discerning fans can quickly ask the question - why does this musician have 180k followers on Instagram and less than 1k on Soundcloud? Put it another way, it's harder to fake it. You can either make good music or not and everyone can easily check that for themselves. 

Whereas in fashion, we can easily be duped by someone with enough money for expensive clothes, a good quality camera and penchant for selfies. As evidenced by Essena O’Neill’s Instagram meltdown last year.
 
That being said, there are plenty of genuine Instagram accounts where influencers have managed to build a visual story out of their careers. And if it started right from the very beginning it’s all the more interesting. We’ve taken a look at 5 music influencers and how they’ve utilised Instagram to full effect. It's not a list of people with huge and powerful followings - there are no Queen Beys in here. Instead, we’ve gone for more home-grown and authentic potential brand ambassadors:


JULIE ADENUGA

Julie Adenuga is interesting because of her gradual rise to success. Initially a daytime radio DJ on Rinse FM, she’s managed to secure a job as one of the three lead DJs for Beats 1, Apple's 24/7 radio station as part of Apple Music.


GILLES PETERSON

Having been an influencer in music for over 20 years; running multiple labels, djing for BBC Radio 1 and founding Worldwide Festival to name a few, Giles Peterson’s position isn’t born out of success on social media, but he still has a knack on Instagram to represent artists, new records, and promote any events that deserve credit.


KAYLUM DENNIS

At 19 years old Kaylum Dennis already worked for Link Up TV. Soon after, Kaylum became Stormzy and Section Boyz’ official videographer, and has travelled all over the globe. Obviously a natural link between photography and Instagram helps his cause, but where he’s been and who he’s with is really what makes his Instagram cool.


JAMAL EDWARDS

A big name in the music industry for setting up SBTV as a teenager, Jamal Edwards, now with an MBE to his name, regularly meets and works with important people from the likes of Prince William to Idris Elba. As a positive, entrepreneurial character, the content is innately inspirational.


DJ MOXIE

Moxie’s humble feed keeps us up to date of the cool things she’s doing. As both a touring dj and a radio dj (on BBC 1 back in 2014 and now at NTS), she’s usually traveling around and in interesting places. But as with all djs, they’re often limited to posting gig flyers to get the message out to promote their shows. With her career still its infancy we expect Moxie to become more of a mover and shaker as her fanbase builds.