What's the guest collaboration feature on Instagram Live and how can artists use it?

Instagram Live allows up to four people in one broadcast through its guest collaboration feature. This is huge because if you’re terrified of going live alone, you can grab a friend, colleague, art critic, buyer, or fellow artist to join you. Each guest you add creates a beautiful collaboration where your audience becomes aware of them and their audience becomes aware of you—you’re essentially sharing audiences. This mirrors what’s happening in the music industry right now, where collaborations have become dominant. Only one out of 100 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 is a true solo effort now, and the average hit has 6.6 collaborators, up from 1.7 in the 1970s. The music industry has discovered that combining audiences through collaboration is a tremendous way to extend reach, and Instagram has built this capability natively into live broadcasts.

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Asked by synthesized teaching point · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2026-02-24