Branded Content on Instagram: How It Works for Brands

In one of our previous articles, we have covered branded content on Instagram from the influencers’ perspective, how it works and how it’s useful for creators.

Instagram defines branded content ‘as a creator or publisher's content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value (for example, where the business partner has paid the creator or publisher).’

Branded content means you compensate the creator either with money or with something else for making a post featuring your product.

So the advantages for creators are obvious: they are more likely to get paid for the post. But what’s in it for brands? Let’s find out.

Branded Content on Instagram for Brands and Businesses

When making a branded post, creators must tag the relevant brand or business partner. When they tag you and publish the post, the Paid partnership with @your_username label appears below the creator’s username. Thus everyone who sees the influencer’s post in their feed, might click on your handle and go to your profile.

For you, as a brand, Instagram branded content can be any content created by an influencer, creator, or ambassador as part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

Besides, you can control if an influencer can tag you as their paid partner and get insights of the post’s performance as well as the influencer who originally posted it.

This is how it works if you’re a brand and want to make branded content post on Instagram together with an influencer:

1. The influencer creates a post, story, or Reel as they normally would and tag you as their business partner.
2. They search for you in the brands search field and tag you.

💡Note that creators can only find you in the search results if you have a business account. If you don’t, they simply won’t find your handle in the list.

3. If you’ve toggled on manual approval of tags in the settings, you first need to approve the partner request from an influencer. The partner label won’t have your brand name unless you approve. If you reject the request, the paid partnership label will be removed from the creator’s post.

The default Instagram settings for businesses oblige you to manually approve partnership requests but you can disable that in settings: Settings → Business → Branded Content tab → Manually Approve Tags→ Off.

The influencer will get a notification upon approval.

You’ll receive a notification every time an influencer tags you in their branded content post, and be able to see their post's performance insights.

Note that creators can tag up to two brands per post.

Which Businesses Can Create Branded Content: Eligibility

Make sure your brand account meets Instagram’s Eligibility Standards before you start.

As a brand, you must have a Business account to be tagged as a paid partner, comply with Instagram's Community Guidelines, and reside in an eligible country.

Can Instagram Branded Content Be Advertised?

As a brand, you can promote an influencer’s post if the influencer hasn’t banned that in setting when making the post. When a creator shares a branded content post or story with their organic audience, they can give you permission to turn that content into an ad. Both businesses and creators can use this guide to create a branded content ad.

If you're a business that wants to create a branded content, make sure that these conditions have been met:

1. The creator has shared the content as a post or story.
2. They've tagged your business and have enabled your business to boost your branded content. A creator can also give your business account-level permissions.

Other things to consider:

• Check that the creator's post meets Instagram's Advertising Policies.
• For Stories ads, creators must turn on Stories archives.
• Make sure that the post you want to boost is a single image or single video post for feed.

Once all the conditions are met, businesses will see the post in their Ads Manager under existing posts, and can choose to run it as an ad in feed or stories format:

1. Start creating an ad as you normally would.
2. Pick one of the objectives that are available for branded content:

• App Installs
• Brand Awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Video Views
• Conversions
• Page post engagement (feed only)

3. Continue creating your ad.

At the Placements step, select Instagram feed, Stories or Explore.

4. At the ad level, hit Use existing post. Here you'll see the list of available branded content posts and stories in the Creative section.

5. Choose the branded content post or story that you want to promote. You can run your ad on all Instagram placements (Feed, Stories, and Explore).

6. You'll see a preview of your ad. Then, finish creating your ad and click Confirm.

How to Check Branded Content Performance

You can view insights for branded content that you've been tagged in, including feed, Instagram video, Stories, Reels and Live.

💡Suggested read: A Definitive Guide to Instagram Analytics and How It Works

When you’ve been tagged in a post or a story, you'll be able to see organic insights on the Branded content section of Page Insights.

🟣For feed posts, you will be able to see reach and engagement.

🟣For stories, you will have a 14-day window to see reach, taps forward, taps backward, replies and exits. Creators will continue to see metrics directly on Instagram insights, as opposed to Page Insights on Facebook. Stories insights will only last 14 days.

🟣Live insights will be available to you for two years or until the live has been deleted.

View branded content insights in Business Manager

There are two possible ways to track the performance of your branded content posts: Business Manager and the Instagram app.

View Branded Content Insights in Business Manager

1. Go to All Tools in Business Manager.
2. Find the Analyse and report tab and click Meta Brand Collabs Manager.
3. View your insights.

View Branded Content Insights in the Instagram App

1. Go to your notifications to view the Activity screen.
2. Click Monetisation to view a list of business partners who have tagged you.
3. Pick the three dots and select the content the performance of which you want to check.
4. Click View Insights.

Here's how Instagram branded content works for brands and influencers. Don't forget to check its performance and how it helps you achieve your business goals!