Distributing music to Instagram like the big label artists might seem like a daunting task at first, but in reality anyone can do it. Here’s how to distribute your own music to Instagram with ease.
Instagram Music Distribution
You may have noticed when using Instagram that certain content such as reels may include music overlaid to the video, which is then listed at the bottom. This, and Instagram Stories, are the main features where having your music on Instagram can benefit you. There isn’t a direct upload button for music to be found though, which means if you want to do it by the books then making use of a digital music distribution service is the way to go.
Using a cheap online music distribution such as Distrokid (click here for 7% off by the way [affiliate]) will allow you to publish your music onto all sorts of platforms which would otherwise be inaccessible. This includes dozens of huge avenues for gaining new fans, such as Spotify, Apple Music and TikTok, not to mention Instagram too. Online music distribution services have come a long way in terms of the level of service they provide, and in 2022 I can happily say that using any of the major services will be a breeze, although I highly recommend DistroKid above all else for how quickly and easily you can get your songs out there.
How To Upload Your Music to Instagram
So, once you have got a DistroKid account, it’s all plain sailing. Firstly, you want to log in and navigate over to the “upload song” button:
Once on the “Upload music” page, you can see a list of services you can choose to distribute your music to:
- Spotify
- Instagram / Facebook
- Amazon
- Deezer
- ClaroMusica
- Anghami
- Tencent
- Joox
- Adaptr
- Snapchat
- Apple Music
- TikTok
- Twitch
- Tidal
- Saavn
- KKBox
- Qobuz
- Kuack Media
- Flo
- iTunes
- YouTube Music
- Pandora
- iHeart Radio
- BoomPlay
- Netease
- Triller
- Yandex Music
- MediaNet and many more
From this list, you can either choose the outlets you wish to distribute your music to, or simply leave them all selected if you are happy for your music to be published to all of them. The key feature DistroKid has that we need here is the “Instagram and Facebook” upload ability. As far as I’m aware, most online music distribution services require you to upload to both Instagram and Facebook together, since they are owned by the same parent company (Meta).
If you have never released music via DistroKid before, you will need to come up with a new artist name, or use an existing one if you already have music released beforehand. You may need to find your artists profiles and provide links to DistroKid if you already have music out on Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music.
This is the important part: be sure to select “No – Artist doesn’t yet have a profile on Facebook” and “No – Artist doesn’t yet have a profile on Instagram”:
From here, all you need to do is upload your album art (DistroKid prefers your album art to be a 3000x3000px PNG). Make sure it has a “parental advisory” label if your music contains explicit content. Also, make sure that you don’t have any brand references in your album art, and that the image is original (or you have the right to use it).
The rest of the upload process is very straightforward, and DistroKid walks you through exactly what to enter in each box.
A quick bit of advice – just for the sake of ease and consistency, use Title Case for the title of your song. This will help guarantee that all of the platforms accept your music. The last thing you need is to give Instagram a reason not to upload your music.
Now that you’ve uploaded your music to Instagram, you will likely have to wait a few days for them to process and distribute it before your song is live. You can check if it’s live on Instagram by making an Instagram Reel or Story, and then searching for your song to use as background music. If it is all in the clear, searching for either your artist name or song title should hopefully bring your song up in the search bar.
And there you have it! Releasing and distributing music to Instagram is easy once you know how. For the remainder of this article, I will cover some quickfire FAQs as concisely as possible.
Can I Release Music to Instagram For Free?
In theory, yes. There are some online music distribution services that are free, but a majority of them either take a royalty cut or don’t support releasing to Instagram yet.
How Much Does DistroKid Charge To Upload To Instagram?
DistroKid don’t charge anything extra on top of the basic subscription fee for you to upload to Instagram (currently their cheapest plan is $19.99 per year).
Does Instagram Pay Music Royalties?
Yes! But not a lot… If you want to read more on this, check out my article here, “How Much Does Instagram Pay For Music Royalties?”
How Does Instagram Pay Me For Music Royalties?
Instagram will pay you for your royalties via your online music distribution service, such as DistroKid.
What File Format Does DistroKid Want My Song To Be?
DistroKid want you to upload WAV files when you are releasing music.
