YouTube and TikTok draw music lovers, but Meta says that Instagram is the home of superfans

Music consumption is fractured across multiple social media hubs. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music lead the way in terms of listening traffic, TikTok brands itself as a driver of pop music culture, and YouTube offers unbeatable reach thanks to formats like Shorts.

What about Instagram? The Meta-owned app has a unique relationship with music fans, and a fresh set of data explains what that connection looks like. According to a study conducted by Meta and Luminate, Instagram is the go-to platform for so-called “superfans,” whose combination of passionate consumption and disposable income makes them a powerful audience.

Meta and Luminate defined superfans as consumers who “pull five of 13 different engagement levers with an artist.” Examples of those levers include concert attendance, support on Patreon, and word-of-mouth ambassadorship.

According to the study, the highest concentration of those superfans can be found on Instagram. Among a “base audience” of consumers who use social media and listen to music, Instagram boasts a 38% engagement rate. When only the superfan data is considered, that rate jumps to 58%. That’s the largest percentage increase among all measured platforms.

Meta is not just claiming that Instagram’s music consumers are fervent. The tech giant is also arguing that its audience spends freely on concerts and other live experiences. 45% of the app’s “daily music engagers” attended at least one live event over the past year, and 25% of that group attended three or more shows. Both of those percentages were higher than the equivalent figures on YouTube and TikTok.

That data point is particularly relevant to Instagram’s marketing plans. Meta was one of several presenters that used its 2026 NewFronts pitch to promote ad formats that put brands at the center of big cultural moments. A popular tour or album release is a perfect example of the kind of tentpole Meta is talking about, and positioning Instagram as the go-to platform for that form of engagement demonstrates the potential of the newly announced ad products.

As an example, Meta and Luminate’s report used Alex Warren as a case study. The singer-songwriter delivered one of 2025’s biggest hits with “Ordinary,” but the track didn’t fully take off until Warren launched Instagram activations in March of that year. Three months after Warren made that move, “Ordinary” saw its streaming traffic double, and the song reached #1 on the Billboard charts.

A study conducted on Meta’s behalf may not convince marketers to shift budgets away from YouTube and TikTok, but the company formerly known as Facebook doesn’t think that music activations need to be a zero-sum game. The study claims that 18% of the base audience engages with music content on Instagram but not TikTok, and 13% engage on TikTok but not Instagram. Therefore, the most effective campaigns will span multiple platforms, and Meta is making sure that marketers know where Instagram’s specialties lie.