Instagram introduces new marketing tools for influencers

Earlier this month in New York, Instagram previewed a new set of tools for influencers and brands to help increase transparency of influencer marketing. As reported by Vogue Business, the updates will include the ability for brands to boost sponsored posts, meaning they can pay to promote and target sponsored influencer posts so that people who don’t follow that influencer still might see the content. Prior to the launch of these new tools, sponsored posts were only seen by the influencer’s following and brands would pay influencers to “boost” posts themselves, Nik Speller, head of campaigns at influencer marketing platform Influencer, said to Vogue Business. The brand or agency would be left with only screenshots for analytics, leaving the potential for actual results to be manipulated.

In addition to these new tools, Instagram will also be expanding its paid partnership hashtag so anyone can apply for it, allowing brands to expand who they can work with to promote their products. Previously, brands were most restricted to working with influencers with large followings who already had access to the partnership tag.

Smaller influencers, those in the range of 10,000 to 100,000 followers, will now have a better chance at being able to compete. In addition, Instagram will also be cracking down on those who buy likes, followers, and comments.

With Instagram influencer marketing reported by Mediakix to be a 1.7 billion dollar industry, these new guidelines can actually be expected to further increase that figure as now the scope of who brands can used has expanded. This month Instagram has also introduced checkout on their platform, so users can purchase within the app.

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Photo credit: via Instagram Twitter page