How I scaled my Instagram Broadcast Channel to 7k people in 26 days

And why I started it in the first place

This week I eclipsed 250,000 followers on social media. 81k on Instagram, and 171k on TikTok. But the real value is the putyouon music club (my Instagram Broadcast Channel) of 7,000 people. And I grew this in 26 days. Here’s how I did it ⬇️

It all started with a single playlist

I started the putyouon music club in July 2022 with one goal: share new music with people and provide value to my followers

Every Friday I would find new release playlists, blogs, and resources to compile a list of my favorite songs that released that day, texting them to the music club. I thought this would be valuable, it gave me a great reason to listen to new music, and it was also really fun.

So one year later I had 52 playlists and about 100 people on the music club text list. Fast forward two years and the music club grew to 7800 people after our viral AM.RADIO video where in the video I wrote that the invites for these coffee shop sets were being sent to the music club. One tap into my bio link, the first thing you see on the site is a call to action, as well as this pop up 30 seconds after someone is on the site

This was amazing as 7800 phone numbers were about to be getting a weekly playlist and invites to all of our parties + events. However, there was one problem: Texts aren’t free. In the weeks following the viral video- I got an invoice from my texting platform for $2500. That moment, I realized that I could not keep paying thousands of dollars per month to share new music and invite people to free events… it just wasn’t sustainable. We officially were too big.

So I quickly turned to an Instagram broadcast channel and decided that if I wanted to keep scaling the music club that this was the most logical place to host everyone. So on October 31st I created the music club on Instagram. Less than one month later- we are at 7,000 members.

How I scaled this

So the obvious way to get traffic to the page was to text the OG music club text list. But I wanted to wait (because I calculated that each text was around $400) so I used the momentum of AM.RADIO to keep reminding people that if you want to get invited, the music club is where the invites are happening. So with each video (without fail), we were pushing people to the broadcast channel.

This compounded with the YouTube channel description (just crossed 200,000 views this month on YT), the TikTok captions, and the overall traffic happening from multiple pages posting content and directing people to the music club saw amazing growth. So now we’re almost back to the number of members we had SOLELY on text that took 2 years to build (plus a 5 million view video) and now we are saving $2500 a month. I finally texted the “old” music club (again... for $400 🫠) that we were moving everything to Instagram, and that boosted us by about 700 people. Lower conversion than I expected- but this was the text:

What I also love about the broadcast channel is you can see how many other people are interacting with the content. On a text only list- no one knew the amount of people who were also getting the texts and the social proof is awesome for anyone who is a music club member, or someone who ISN’T yet but “previews” the thread in the broadcast channel before joining. To me this is a large reason that people are converting to music club members so quickly.

So…How engaged is the club?

Now this music club is one of the most active communities in LA. As I mentioned in my previous post, AM.RADIO 003 got 2,000 RSVP’s in 42 minuets simply by me sending the RSVP link to the music club only. And again… it was a surprise set list. The Friday playlists are averaging 280 likes per playlist which will surely help out the label side of things as we scale there. So while the followers across social are great, the real value is in the music club and how active it is. I’m very careful on what I post in there- it’s not an engagement group, less is more in my eyes. I love the ability to post from my personal account in there so it adds the personal touch, and also from the AM.RADIO account so people are reminded that it’s the home of AM.RADIO.

P.S another value add is blessing random members with show tickets such as the recent ANOTR debut LA show. I’ll continue to do so whenever I get my hands on extra tickets.

-Steve