MARKETING
How Marketers Can Utilize Instagram’s Branded Content Tool to Boost Their Influencer Marketing Results
Brands are dedicating more of their marketing dollars to influencers every year – in fact, in a recent survey, 57% of businesses said that they were planning to increase their influencer relations budgets in 2020. And the upward trend is more than bandwagon jumping – influencer campaigns are generating results. Some 80% of the marketers we surveyed said that influencer-generated assets performed the same or better than their own branded content, while 61% of 18- to 34-year-olds have, at some point, been swayed in their decision-making by digital influencers.
But brands still want more. They want to know that they’re reaching the right people, they want to test which pieces of content are generating the most engagment. And, of course, they want to see optimal return on their investment, and have the ability to measure business results consistently.
The problem is that while the amount of brands investing in the influencer marketing is increasing, only 18% of marketers say that they’re able to integrate influencer marketing into overall digital marketing ROI calculations.
This is why more marketers should be paying attention to Instagram’s Branded Content tool.
Released last June, the option provides new ways to maximize influencer campaigns, target key segments, and better track performance
The problem is, not many know what it is or how it works. Here’s an overview of the how and why of Insta’s Branded Content ads.
Social advertising evolution
Back in 2017, you might remember that Instagram introduced the Paid Partnership tag.
As shown here, the tag is a marker which influencers add to the top of their Instagram post or Story, in order to provide more transparency over paid collaborations. With influencer partnerships rising on the platform, Instagram introduced the tags to avoid confusion, and clarify the process around disclosure of such processes.
Then last year, Instagram stepped it up a gear. For brands and influencers that were using the Paid Partnership tag, Instagram added a new option called Branded Content ads.
Branded Content Ads enable brands to turn the content created through influencer partnerships into ads, providing a simple way to amplify these posts and Stories beyond a creator’s organic following. And importantly, the option enables brands to promote these influencer-created posts under the influencer’s profile, as opposed to re-sharing from a brand handle. This helps to make the posts feel more native, as opposed to the more clearly signaled brand promotions.
Of course, it still says ‘Sponsored’ on each post, and there is still a ‘Paid Partnership’ tag at the bottom, but the simple fact that the post/Story comes from an influencer handle is significant, and can lead to improved results.
The benefits of Branded Content
So what are the key benefits of Branded Content Ads?
First off, let’s look at reach. When a brand invests in branded content, they, logically, want to reach as many people as possible with their post/s. Branded Content ads can scale a creator’s post to reach a creator’s followers – and then some. While influencer marketing relies on organic reach, Branded Content extends beyond that and can get your brand into the feeds of people who don’t follow that particular influencer.
Then there’s targeting. As a brand, you’ll have your key target audience in mind – their age, their gender, a geographic region, etc. It’s unlikely that any influencer’s following will match each of your key targeting criteria perfectly, which means that your influencer-originated content might only be reaching part of its intended audience, limiting your ability to achieve your goals. Branded Content ads can be targeted with precision, helping you reach more of the people that matter to you.
With this option, brands are free to choose influencers who create the very best content, without being preoccupied by their reach.
Finally, thanks to Shopping Tags, Branded Content ads also enable a frictionless shopping experience.
The rise of mobile and social commerce is changing the way people shop – these days, if a social app user sees something they like, they want to be able to tap and buy straight away, no redirection, no waiting. Branded Content ads give brands the opportunity to turn a browser into a buyer seamlessly.
The majority of influencers can’t make their regular posts shoppable just yet, but Branded Content ads take that same relatable, aspirational content and make it entirely shoppable through the Instagram Ads process.
Make it work for you
While early adopters of this tool are reaping the benefits, some have also found the process to be more manual than other more established ad options.
But there are things you can do to streamline your system:
1. Set a transparent brief
When briefing influencers, be sure to let them know that you intend to use the Paid Partnership and Branded Content options, so that they realize what’s happening from the get-go. This will ensure that crucial steps in the early days of the campaign go smoothly – for example, if you intend to boost Instagram Stories, they’ll need to be free of GIFs and hashtags.
2. Streamline your Ads Manager
Another helpful preparatory step is to upload your influencer list to your Facebook Ads Manager before they create content. That way, when the influencer adds the Paid Partnership tag, you won’t need to manually approve each influencer.
3. Have a clear goal in mind
Branded Content is perfect for driving conversion, whether that’s boosting sales or app downloads. When setting out the objectives for your campaign, think business metrics over vanity metrics (like engagement), so you can measure its impact and ROAS effectively.
4. Learn from organic performance
If you’re running an influencer campaign first, use the influencer’s organic post performance to learn which pieces of content are highest-performing and worthy of boosting. While this is not a foolproof science, as different influencers will have different engagement rates, a high-performing piece of influencer-generated content could hint at what will resonate best in the Branded Content phase.
Essentially, Instagram’s Branded Content Ads enable you to add extra fuel to your influencer campaigns, and reach your target audience, as opposed to relying on their own, established following. That can deliver significantly better results – it takes some extra work, and management to get a clear understanding of best practices and opportunities. But it may well be worth the extra effort.
MARKETING
Trends in Content Localization – Moz
Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.
Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.
Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.
MARKETING
How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy
MARKETING
More promotions and more layoffs
For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.
The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.
Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes
Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643.
Here are the median salaries by role:
- Senior management $199,653
- Director $157,776
- Manager $99,510
- Staff $89,126
Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.
One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%).
Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.
Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams
Employee turnover
In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”
Men and Women
This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.
In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.
Methodology
The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents.
Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.
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