Back in March, an official statement from Instagram revealed the fact that a new ad format was undergoing testing on a specific set of brands.
Mainly, the company offers branded content ads to all advertisers, allowing them to set up ads with the aid of organic posts received from their influencers. It is said that the branded content ads will be gradually made available to everyone that advertises on Instagram, whilst the branded content designed for Stories will up-rise, too.
An important fact we observed is that the influencer or the content creator for the said post must allow the brand they’re promoting to access the content. Once this is set up in the Advanced Settings page, the brand will have in the Ads Manager Section the influencer’s post, in the area designated for Existing Posts. This will permit users to set up an ad within the Instagram newsfeed or Stories format.
Why is this update important?
The reality is that during the past years’ influencer marketing gradually increased and became an important part of any brand`s promotion strategy. A new analysis from Socialbakers showed that Instagram influencers started to post 150% more sponsored content than it was the case with the previous year. Of course, an Ipsos researched done by Facebook showed that up to 68% of daily Instagram users admitted they use the platform to connect with creators.
We say this is an expected outcome because a multitude of creators offer branded content that users constantly seek to consult just to see what their favourite influencers are up to. So, transforming the overall process into a simple task for advertisers to set up ads from influencer content is a great way to save time and design efforts for the advertisers. Anyway, Instagram benefits from this greatly, as brands will get access to distinct advertisement options related to an influencer’s effort of pulling together a creative post that ultimately will be used as an announcement.
We believe that promoting content from influencers is a manner of boosting both authenticity and brand awareness, as a notable rise in engagement rates can be viewed when this technique is applied. Yet, when a brand opts for using an influencer content as an ad, the post will feature `Paid Partnership` language that adds the brand’s name on the post.
What`s new
- To sum up, as we already mentioned, Instagram declared officially this branded content ads update earlier this year in March. It was only accessible for a select few advertisers at the time.
- A Marketing study for 2019 signed by MediaKix showed that 8-9% of marketers noted that the influencer marketing ROI is as good or even better than other marketing channels. Also, two-thirds of those that participated in the survey admitted they were aiming to boost the influencer marketing budgets for 2019.
- Another tested update from Instagram was the removal of like counts for posts. This gained positive reviews, as influencer marketing agencies predict it will lead to more qualitative content from an influencer.
