With over 80% of people following a business, brands are an important part in Instagram. According to surveyed marketers, 89% showed that Instagram was the most important social media channel for influencer marketing. The Instagram influencer market is not saturated yet, which is a good sign for brands who still want to try the strategy out and have budgets for it. There was a big need for Instagram to come up with some kind of tool for content branding between influencers, consumers and the brand.
Imagine that nearly two-thirds of marketers will increase their spending on influencer marketing this year in 2020.
On the other side of the field, Instagram ad revenue is projected to be at 30% of the entire company’s ad revenue at the end of 2020. Therefore they are predicting growth as well.
When it comes to engagement, brands see on Instagram a median engagement rate of a 1.60% median engagement rate per post in comparison with 0.09% per Facebook post. So Instagram really kills it in terms of user engagement.
This data shows a significant difference between the two networks when it comes to budgets and Return on Advertising Spent (ROAS). Hopefully, you now have an overview why brands should to be on Instagram and why content creators and influencers facilitate that. Let’s dive in below into the what branded content tools are.
What are branded content tools?
To make paid brand sponsorship more obvious for people, Instagram has created tagging features and insights for business and creators on the platform: Instagram branded content tools.
According to Instagram branded content is “a creator or publisher’s content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value (for example, where the business partner has paid the creator or publisher).”
By adding a label to a post as an official paid partnership, content creators can add an extra layer of authenticity to their content and be seen as a recognized brand partner.
Instagram’s branded content tools are designed to help businesses and creators work together in a more transparent way.
Instagram has expanded the access of the Branded Content tool to creators (celebrities, influencers, public figures, publishers) and business partners. Instagram’s branded content tools are designed to help businesses and creators work together in a more transparent way.
So the “micro” influencers looking to build their reputation and gain more brand partnerships have now a chance to start right off the bat with this type of advertising of their favourite brands.
For the Stories, tagged business partners will have a 14-day window to see the metrics like: reach, taps forward, taps backward and exits. Creators will continue to see metrics in their app insights.
Paid partnerships between political parties and creators are allowed too, but posts must be published using their branded content tools, so each post has the “Paid Partnership with” label clearly visible.
Are you Eligible to Use Instagram Branded Content Tools?
To get started with Instagram’s branded content tools, you’ll first need to meet Instagram’s Eligibility Standards.
Here’s a short summary of the eligibility:
- Content creators/publishers must have a Business or Creator account
- Business partners must have a Business account to be tagged as a paid partner
- Content creators/publishers must have an “authentic, established presence.”
- Content creators/publishers must comply with Instagram’s Community Guidelines
- Content creators/publishers cannot be a government official who is subject to government rules or ethics. Find out more about it here
Once you meet these requirements, it’s really easy to get set up and start using Instagram branded content tools! Check your settings in Instagram, you might be able to activate them already. If you want a step by step guide, check the guides below to see how you can activate them either as an Influencer or a Business.
How Instagram brand content tool works
Once the creator and business partner have ironed out content details, the creator enters the creation flow in feed or stories.
Creators will then click on “advanced settings” if it’s a feed post or the link button if it’s a Story.
Next, they’ll click on “tag business partner” to search for the business’ name. The business partner must have an Instagram business profile to appear in search results. If the business appears in the search results but does not allow you to tag it, you must reach out to your business partner and ask to be approved. Once you have been approved by your business partner, you can edit your post by tapping the three dots in the top right side of your post to include the tag.
Once the tag is in place, the business partner will receive a notification and will have access to the post’s insights.
How to Set Up Instagram Branded Content
In order to start monetising on the Instagram branded content tools, there are a few steps businesses and content creators must take to make use of them. See the step by step guidelines below
Brands and Businesses: Approve Tag Requests Ad Hoc or Curate an Approved List of Partners
If you are a business, all you need is a Business account on Instagram to start being tagged in branded content posts from your partners, influencers or brand ambassadors.
By default, you’ll have to manually approve any branded content posts you’ve been tagged in — but you can disable this in your account settings.
Just go to your Settings, select “Business”, and open the “branded content” tab.
From here, you can toggle “Manually Approve Tags” to be on or off.
However, it’s generally a good idea to keep approval turned on all the time from the beginning so you can control who is labelling as an “official” brand partner on Instagram.
From this tab you can also review any “Tag Requests,” and control your own list of “Approved Business Partners” for the content creators and influencers you work with on a regular basis.
Adding a content creator as an approved business partner will make things move faster, as they’ll never have to wait for you to approve their request before they can hit publish.This will also form long-lasting partnerships, which can only strengthen an existing relationship and help improve strategies on both sides.
You’ll receive a notification every time they tag you in a branded content post, and be able to see their post performance insights in just one tap. Don’t worry, you can always remove someone from your “Approved Business Partners” list at any time!
Influencers and Content Creators: Set Up Branded Content Tools With Paid Partnership Tag
As a content creator, you’ll need to set up branded content tools on your account before you can start tagging businesses in your branded content posts.
To do this, follow these 5 easy steps:
- Tap the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of your Instagram profile.
- Open “Settings.”
- Select “Account”
- Select “Branded content tools”
- Tap “Get Tools”
Once you’ve enabled branded content tools on your account, you can now start tagging business partners in your posts.
To do this, select “Advanced Settings” on a photo or video post after you’ve written your caption and applied all effects and filters.
Select “Tag business partner” and then search for your chosen account.
Note: Business partners must have a business profile to appear in the search results.