Instagram Turns Influencers’ Organic Branded Content Posts Into Ads: Impact?

Until recently, brands who paid influencers to post sponsored videos or images on their Instagram profiles have had their reach limited to that particular influencer’s following on the platform.

Now, posts uploaded by creators using Instagram’s paid partnership tool (which signposts when content has been paid for) will also contain a toggle that says ‘allow my business partner to boost’. This tink 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 social media star.

Dubbed ‘branded content ads’, Instagram said the addition of the feature was one of the top requests it had received from businesses. Branded content ads will be available to all businesses 100% from June 17.

“We hope this update will add value by strengthening the collaboration between businesses and creators. We also hope to improve the experience between creators, businesses and people – who will be able to discover more brands they may be interested in and shop with the creators they love,” it said.

The latest initiative from Instagram will allow brands and creators to increase the reach of paid for posts and target them towards relevant audiences in a landscape where influencer, particularly microinfluencer content, is widening its reach across Asia.

What does this mean. Well, it could create more #sponscon (the hashtag that is used to flag overtly paid posts) mentions in users feeds  – with the risk of them switching off. That said, over 80% of the posts of the top five Instagram influencers from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore don’t even comply with FTC regulations according to a report from research agency BrandHero, making us wonder if Instagram’s latest measures would really matter in the region.