Recently, Facebook announced that brands will be able to promote content created by influencers in the users’ feeds, even to those who don’t follow the influencer’s account. This way, brands can utilise their influencer’s unique perspective and voice and reach audiences beyond the brand’s and creator’s Instagram accounts, with a more “organic” ad experience.
If you are an advertiser, this new possibility will excite you as it allows you to use your influencer’s post and display it beyond their and your audience, and measure its performance via Ads Manager.
What is Instagram Branded Content
Instagram branded posts have a “Paid partnership with…” label displayed below the influencer’s Instagram handle. This means that the person who made this post has a commercial relationship with the business that is mentioned, and they were compensated for this post in the form of money, product(s) or service(s).
Why should I create Branded Content Ads on Instagram?
With the increasingly limited reach organic posts are receiving on Instagram, Branded Content Ads are a great way to promote organic-like content created by influencers to your target audiences. Since the majority of the Instagram users turns to influencers for inspiration, brands can create ads with content from the influencers handle and get significantly higher engagement and perhaps drive even more conversions.
Getting started with Branded Content Ads
If it is the first time working with an influencer, then both you (as a business) and they need to configure your settings in order to be able to establish a branded content partnership. The process is similar to setting up a Facebook branded content partnership.
Approving your influencer’s request to tag you
This process is only available from within the app and only if you have an Instagram business account.
Head over to your Instagram’s account business settings and click on “Branded Content”.
Make sure that the “Require Approvals” toggle is on, add your influencer’s Instagram handle in the “Approved Accounts” and click “Done”.
Promoting your influencer’s post
To be able to use your influencer’s organic Instagram branded post as an ad, they need to enable the “Allow Business Partner to Promote” option from their side.
To do so, they need to access the “Advanced Settings” during post creation, search your business’ Instagram handle in order to tag you to it.
Once the tagged post has been made, the influencer will need to edit the post enable the “Allow Business Partner to Promote” option via the toggle.
At any moment, the influencer can add the “Paid partnership with…” tag to an existing Instagram post by editing their post and choosing “Tag a Business Partner ” via the three dots menu.
Setting up an Instagram Branded Content Ad
At this moment, you can create an Instagram Branded Content ad using the following objectives: Brand Awareness, Reach, Video Views, Traffic, and Post Engagement.
To get started, head over at Ads Manager and create a campaign the way you normally do. At the “Ad Set” section, choose the “Use Existing Post” option.
Find your influencer’s Instagram post under “Branded Content” and click “Continue”.
Check the preview to ensure that everything is OK and proceed with the rest of the campaign creation process as usual.
What you should know before creating Instagram Branded Content Ads
- You can only promote a post where you were tagged as a business partner.
- The influencer will be notified that you promoted their post.
- Your influencer won’t be able to edit or delete their post unless you delete the ad containing that branded content.
- Once your campaign is up and running, the influencer cannot toggle off the “Allow Business Partner to Promote” option.
- The influencer cannot promote the branded content post from their side.
- The influencer will be able to see only organic-related insights, no ad performance.
- An influencer’s Instagram organic branded content post can be used only with the Instagram Feed placement.
- You cannot explicitly target the influencer’s audience.
- When using your influencer’s post as an ad in stories and feed, your brand’s name will appear in the “Paid parntership with..” tag.
At the moment Branded Content Ads for Instagram feeds and stories will be available to all advertisers in the coming weeks.
