Everyday, millions of people make use of the Instagram to connect with their passions, creatively expressing themselves, and finding visual inspiration. With over 80% of people following either a business,or brands are also an important part of the Instagram community. Businesses and the creators thrive on this platform because they are able to build the relationships by just tapping into their audience’s interests and their passions.
One way we have seen businesses make very meaningful connections is simply by partnering with the creators (influencers and the publishers) to launch those branded content campaigns (also referred to as the Influencer Marketing). Through these partnerships, the Instagram users are now able to learn about the products and the services from the voices of the creators they are following.
We have recently tested some new tools to bring about transparency and consistency to the Branded Content on Instagram. The tools we tested consist of a tag to help the creators disclose when a post is the result of a partnership and the insights to help businesses access higher performance of their branded content campaigns. Ultimately, these tools that are tested bring transparency around Branded Content to the Instagram community.
We are currently expanding the access point of our Instagram Branded Content tool to contain more of our creators (celebrities, the influencers, the public figures, the publishers) and the business partners. We are also expanding the access to Insights of brands that already have an existing business page and are now implementing new policy and enforcement rules. You can check for some given examples of “songofstyle in partnership with amandawakeley and the stories example of HonestlyYum and Heinz.”
Partnerships on the Instagram is practically a core part of the platform at this junction, but that comes with needed regulations so it could help everyone stay above-board both in the terms of following the Instagram’s guidelines and the standard promotional laws, too.
It is very important that a creator’s audience knows when a brand is involved in the creating that #sponsoredcontent. The transparency builds the trust and it also promotes transparency. The branded content tool also helped with this, and in the month of January, the Instagram rolled out a few new features to further enhance it.
The Instagram Sponsored Post. These include the following:
1. The Branded content tags that have been expanded already to the Reels and also the Live content on the Instagram, with this, allowing every type of content to have that sweet, nice lovely “Sponsored” tag to identify all the paid content. Keeping in mind that all the branded content on the Instagram must use these tags.
2. Encouraging the disclosure and the communication with creators, including through the direct messaging on platform if need be.
3. A Trademark Reporting Channel, where the creators can report the content that they believe infringes on their rights. This may include the untagged branded content if it has violated the trademark.