How latest Instagram changes impact influencer marketing
Instagram’s Original Content Algorithm Ranking Affects Influencer Marketing
By: Lora Reuther
In the ever-evolving world of social media, change is the only true constant. On April 20, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced that the app’s algorithm will favor original content going forward, ranking fresh reels and feed posts higher than reposted content. The Instagram changes mean reshared memes and other people’s posts will no longer catch the algorithm’s eye in the same way, Mosseri tells us.
As expected, a Q&A exchange between Adam and his followers quickly followed on Twitter and many social media experts took to their blogs to respond to these changes.
As Andrew Hutchinson pointed out on socialmediatoday.com, Adam Mosseri was quick to confirm the algorithm change will not penalize content created outside of the app and then uploaded to Instagram. Content aggregators will also be the focus of the algorithm’s discerning crawl, looking closely at the content history to detect whether users rely solely on reposting others’ content. This new change will be constantly evolving as Instagram works out how to determine if a post is real or not – Mosseri admitted they don’t know for sure just yet.
These new Instagram changes are already affecting businesses who rely on user-generated content to fill their social media calendars. The obvious solution is to create and share more original content. However, another big factor that isn’t being discussed as much is how this new change affects your relationship with paid influencers. Many brands that lack the resources for traditional marketing campaigns look to influencers to provide them with images and videos to share on social media. The new algorithm update will change influencer partnerships, but before you give up on influencer marketing as a tool for obtaining user generated content, consider these tips.
Purchasing User Rights to Content
Now that there is less incentive to reshare influencer posts on your social media, purchasing content user rights might seem like a thing of the past. Companies won’t be the only ones to feel this change. Influencers also rely on offering usage rights for monetary compensation. With the need for original content being more important than ever, this is an opportunity to work out partnership agreements that can benefit both. Discuss a package that includes posts shared by the influencer, but also a couple of extra images or a video that you can solely share on your social media. As influencers get less requests for ownership over the content they share and create, they will be more open to discussing additional content that you can own and use.
Get Tagged in Collaborations to reshare content
It might feel like you can never share influencer content on your profiles again, but that’s just not the case. If you are occasionally working with influencers, you can still reshare the posts, just be sure to have a lot of original content in your feed. Better yet, you can also request influencers to tag you in a collaboration post that automatically shares the post to your feed. This prevents the need to use a third-party app to repost and will save you time and the hassle.
How Influencers Should Repost Content
With the new Instagram changes, influencers will need to be mindful of how they share content to platforms. If you arrange for an Instagram Reel and TikTok post, make it a requirement that the video is created off the platforms. That way, there aren’t any visible watermarks when someone uploads it to a profile. For example, Instagram announced earlier this year that the algorithm picks up on TikTok video watermarks and will not favor these posts.
Influencer Takeovers
If user-generated content is what you are after, consider an influencer takeover partnership. Brands don’t explore this type of campaign enough. It’s a creative approach to getting original content from influencers. Invite them to post directly on your Instagram account by providing your credentials and set the amount of time and posts they will share. Ensure the content will be original and not reposted so you can benefit from having fresh content but also create excitement for your followers when they see and hear from the influencer directly from your page.