Influencer marketing is a great way to promote your brand and reach new, engaged audiences. A study conducted by Vamp found that 80% of marketers believe that influencer-generated content performs the same or better than brand-created content, and it is often a cheaper way to promote your brand. Instagram’s Branded Content ads are a way to take your influencer marketing to the next level. With branded content ads, businesses can tell their brand stories through influencers’ voices, reach new audiences and have more ability to measure impact.
So, what are branded content ads?
Back in 2017, Instagram introduced the Paid Partnership tag. This tag is a marker that social media influencers add to the top of their Instagram post or story in order to provide more transparency over paid collaborations. Instagram is now allowing influencers and brands that are using the Paid Partnership tag to create Branded Content ads. Branded content ads allow the brand to turn any influencer partnership posts into ads, amplifying the post or story beyond a creator’s organic following. These Branded Content ads will say “sponsored” at the top of the post and will have a “paid partnership with …” tag underneath the post.
Why are Branded Content ads so good?
Rather than having to rely entirely on an influencer’s audience, brands can now target specific audiences with their sponsored content, reaching an audience far wider than the influencers organic following. Brands will also have the ability to measure the sponsored contents’ performance using the Facebook ads platform; optimizing and testing campaigns against the brands set goals.
Using Paid Partnerships as an advertiser:
Before you can run branded content ads with your influencers, you will first need to give your influencer partners permission to tag your business in their posts.
- Open settings within the Instagram app and select business settings.
- Select branded content.
- Turn on the “require approvals” section.
- Add your influencer partners’ handle to the approved accounts section.
Creating a branded content post as an influencer:
- Add a post as normal; adding in the photo or video, caption, effects and filters.
- Before sharing, click on advanced settings.
- Tap “tag business partner” and search for the business.
- Next, turn on the “allow business partner to promote” option.
Once an influencer has tagged your business in a branded content post and given you permission to promote it, you can get started creating your first branded content ad. To learn more about social media advertising, get in touch!
