Martin Garrix: The succes behind the Instagram kid
There is arguably no artist in the electronic music industry that has achieved success at a more exponential rate than Martin Garrix. Although one of the youngest artists to become a globally recognised DJ, Garrix’s age has never held him back from world domination and he continues to increase his influence year after year. As an inspiration for budding young artists, there are many out there who hope to recreate his path to success. Much of this success stems from his Instagram growth, where he has continued to the dominate feeds of fans around the world. We’ve taken a look at exactly how he became such a worldwide success on the platform and how this success can be recreated.
Although he had already released three songs prior, Martin Garrix’s real breakthrough arrived when he released his fourth single, ‘Animals’. The track instantly became a viral hit and Garrix seemingly became a household name around the globe overnight. The success of the track left many stunned, as it was previously unheard of for such an unknown electronic artist to make such a huge impact on the mainstream charts so quickly, without having previously established themselves as a producer. ‘Animals’ really put Martin Garrix on the map, kickstarting his career and catapulting him into the limelight. Over the next few years he continued releasing hit after hit, collaborating with artists such as Afrojack, Sander van Doorn, Firebeatz and DVBBS. Each release lifted him to further heights and increased his domination in the music industry as a whole.
From 2013 to 2015, Martin Garrix cemented himself as a producer that was truly here to stay, continuing to build support in the electronic music scene. It was in 2015 that he made his next break into the mainstream, collaborating with iconic vocalist Usher. From then on, the Dutch megastar was completely unstoppable, releasing hit after hit, storming charts worldwide and defying expectations over and over. Fast forward to the present day and he now owns a vastly successful label, STMPD RCRDS, hosts his own residency at Ushuaïa Ibiza, has been crowned world number one DJ by DJ Mag for the last two years running, and has achieved four platinum selling singles.
Throughout the years, the backbone of his success has ultimately been aided by his huge level of Instagram support. Currently, Garrix has over 15.2 million followers on Instagram and has published 2,662 posts, which translates as 5,710 followers gained on average per post. Looking at his Instagram, it is clear exactly why he has been able to achieve such dominance, as he consistently delivers content that fans are able to enjoy with each and every post. As an artist, there are plenty of lessons to be learned by looking closely at Garrix’s Instagram, we’ve taken a closer look at some of the methods that can be used in order to recreate his success.
Analytics
One of the main aspects of becoming such a leading Instagram star is the in-depth analysis of analytics. Without looking back at the success or failure of previous posts, it is impossible to really improve your content in the future. Through looking at the posts that performed the most effectively, you will be able to ascertain how to recreate this success with future content. While focusing on posts that performed less effectively, it is imperative to learn from your mistakes and ensure not to make the same errors in the future. Even posts that don’t perform well are not simply a waste of time, as they provide much-needed details on the content that your followers will not respond well to in the future.
Tailoring content
Through every single one of Martin Garrix’s posts, he ensures to keep his audience interested. He posts images of sights that he knows his followers will be interested in and ensures to make every image as visually enjoyable as the last. When tailoring your content to your audience, it is first necessary to research your demographic thoroughly, this can be done using Instagram itself as well as applications like Iconosquare that provide vital statistics on the location, age, and language that your followers speak. By knowing these statistics it is much easier to adapt your content to provoke a positive response from fans online. Content must always be geared towards your audience in order to avoid becoming irrelevant over time.
Timing
When using Instagram, timing is also key. When looking at Martin Garrix’s Instagram profile, it is instantly clear that he never leaves his account empty for any period of time. All artists struggle to find the time to update their social media, the key is to always use scheduling tools to make sure your Instagram will feature fresh content even when you are unavailable. This ensures that your Instagram is never completely quiet and that your engagement level wont suffer as a result. Consistency is one of the most important aspects of social media usage as an artist.
Highlights
In celebration of his most recent single, Martin Garrix’s profile features an Instagram highlight feed which simply includes an audio preview of ‘So Far Away’, acting as the perfect promotion. Story highlights are ideal for making sure your followers focus on a specific aspect of your content, for example a new single or a merchandise release. In order to really maximise the potential of highlights, make sure not to overcrowd your profile with several highlight feeds, simply focus on the most important, Martin Garrix himself only includes one highlight reel to ensure that the focus is there.
Advertising
Although it is impossible to assess Martin Garrix’s Instagram advertising without seeing the back end of his account, it is extremely likely that he will have utilised Instagram’s advertising options over the years. After switching your account to business, it is possible to advertise in a variety of ways. One option for advertising is photo and video ads that fall into users’ main feeds. This option is ideal for driving users to an external link, for example sending users to listen to a particular track on Spotify. It is also possible to advertise using Instagram stories, the key with this kind of advertising is to make your content seem as natural as possible in order to prevent users from skipping forward and missing out on your content. In this case, natural simply means not overtly advertising, but covertly advertising content without overwhelming viewers.
Stories
As well as advertising using stories, organic stories also provide a great deal of engagement and exposure for brands. Martin Garrix’s stories regularly provide details on where his travels have taken him, including beautiful shots of locations around the world. In order to ascertain which story posts your audience enjoys most frequently, Instagram offers the ability to delve into analytics and take a closer look at exactly how users behaved when viewing your story. Each individual clip can be analysed to see exactly when your audience showed interest in your story and when they lost interest. When looking at these analytics, Instagram provides data on how many users skipped forward to the next clip of your story, illustrating exactly which clips didn’t prove as interesting for your audience. This is a good indication of the kind of content you should avoid publishing in future, as it illustrates exactly where your audience lost interest. Skips backward are also interesting to look at as they provide insight into which clips your audience chose to view multiple times. If a clip is viewed multiple times by a number of users, this is the kind of content you will want to attempt to recreate in future in order to keep your audience interested.
Throughout his career Martin Garrix has maintained a huge level of influence across Instagram. He has consistently stayed ahead of trends and provided content that provoked a positive response from his audience. Knowing your audience is vitally important when marketing yourself online, by knowing exactly what your audience enjoys seeing, you will be better able to cater to those needs and experience increased engagement. Martin Garrix’s Instagram remains the go-to online location for finding out the latest news about his upcoming releases and current campaigns. By making your own Instagram interesting for your audience, you ensure that fans will check back regularly to find out about your latest news and current campaigns.
Instagram is a powerful tool in helping artists expand their reach, it offers worldwide viral capabilities, plus ideal opportunities for affordable advertising. With all social media platforms, it is the quality of the content provided and the consistent flow of material that makes the difference between success and failure on the platform. It is important not to be disheartened if your content does not immediately achieve global reach, this level of dominance takes time. Although it may often appear that quickly rising artists like Martin Garrix had a smooth ride to the top, with cases like these it is often the hardest work that goes unnoticed and is hidden behind the scenes. No success stories happen overnight, even the most awe-inspiring journeys required a huge degree of hard work on and offline in order to allow the artist to reach their full potential. In Martin Garrix’s case, it is his work with social media platforms like Instagram and his huge campaigns that helped him reach the top.