This month Instagram launched a new tool that will allow brands to pay to amplify influencer’s posts that have tagged them through the “paid partnership” tool. Prior to the introduction of this capability, brands were limited by the audience size of each of their individual influencers.
Now, posts uploaded by creators will feature a toggle that says ‘allow my business partner to boost’. The feature will give the brand in question a chance to appear in the feeds and Stories of a wider audience, even if they don’t follow the influencer.
The new content is referred to as ‘branded content ads’. Instagram said the addition of the tool was one of the top requests it had received from its advertisers.
Why does it matter? This new functionality will drastically improve the ability for marketers to leverage their influencers. The need to target and partner with many influencers has been reduced, which can save time and money spent researching and negotiating. Now, marketers can find a few partners that fit their brand exceptionally well and put money behind a wider audience seeing the content.
For Instagram users this could mean even more sponsored content in their feeds so let’s hope that brands are only paying to promote their best influencer content.
