Do I Need to Use Royalty-Free or Commercial Music in My Hummingbirds Content?

No — commercial or royalty-free music is NOT required for your Hummingbirds campaign posts or Reels. You are free to use trending songs or music from Instagram’s general library for your content.

We want your content to feel authentic, fun, and effective — and in most cases, royalty-free music just doesn’t deliver the same impact.

🎧 Quality:

Royalty-free music often lacks the vibrancy and appeal of trending sounds. It can feel generic, outdated, or even awkward — like background music in a corporate slideshow. This can make your content feel less engaging and less effective in capturing attention.

📈 Reach & Engagement:

Trending sounds are key to discovery and performance. Instagram and TikTok prioritize content that uses popular audio, meaning your posts are more likely to be seen, shared, and engaged with when using trending music. Since many brands are especially focused on Reels, using low-performing audio can hurt the visibility of your content.

🐦 Bird Experience:

Finding true royalty-free music on Instagram is hard. The platform doesn’t clearly separate royalty-free music from copyrighted tracks, so it’s tricky for creators to know what’s actually compliant. That’s why we don’t require it — we want your experience to be smooth and creative.

If you’re invited to do a Collab post with a brand (the campaign will state if a brand is open to this - please do NOT ask a brand to collaborate unless it states they'd like this in the campaign), it’s important to know that some brands cannot accept content that uses copyrighted music. Even if the song is trending on Instagram, it may not be cleared for commercial use, which prevents brands from reposting or collaborating on the post.

If you do want to use royalty-free music, it can be a little tricky to find through the Instagram app — but here’s how:

• Open the music search bar when creating a Reel.

• Type in “royalty free music” to see a list of songs Instagram identifies that way.

• Look for audio with “royalty-free music” in its description to help ensure it’s safe to use.

For even more music options, there are lots of websites and apps that offer truly copyright-free or royalty-free music. Other hummingbirds have shared this recommendation:
👉 https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music