Everything we learned from Instagram’s first Creator Week

To show this commitment, Instagram recently hosted its first-ever Creator Week – a three day streamed event inviting thousands of creators to attend interviews, panels and presentations designed around the platform to shed some light on how creators can make the most of the opportunities, including new features and more insight into how the Instagram algorithm works.

With more brands utilizing influencers as a core part of their marketing strategies, competition is heating up across the social media landscape to woo creators to ensure that those who already have a substantial following on the platform don’t take their audiences elsewhere.

Here’s a quick round-up of some key takeaways from the event, along with some other recent new features on the platform, that we think you ought to know:

A native affiliate tool is coming to help creators earn more

A new native affiliate tool will enable creators to recommend products and earn commission on any sales made, allowing them to get rewarded for any purchases that they drive. This means that creators will be able to discover new products available on checkout, share them with their followers and earn a commission if that leads to a purchase – all within the Instagram app. To ensure appropriate disclosure, if a creator features a tagged product in an affiliate post, it will be marked “eligible for commission”.

The tool will be tested with a small group of US-based creators and businesses initially, including Benefit, Kopari, MAC, Pat McGrath Labs and Sephora, before expanding to more partners in the future. With the launch of Affiliate, this finally answers the age old dilemma of how to prove ROI from influencer activity on the platform, as well as giving creators a new way to monetize content and offering brands the chance to drive revenue from gifting initiatives if an influencer posts organically and utilises the tool.

A new “badge” for live videos will allow viewers to tip creators

Instagram has made some improvements to its Badges on Instagram and Stars on Facebook to help creators unlock more earning potential from their supporters. They include: adding the ability for supporters to purchase multiple badges during an Instagram livestream and testing options for fans to send Stars during recorded content. Creators on Instagram will also be eligible to earn an extra payout when they hit certain milestones while using badges in Live, which includes things like going Live with another account.

Yet again, with this move Instagram is providing creators with increasingly diversified ways to monetise their content, incentivising them to stay within the Facebook ecosystem.

Boosting ecommerce with new ‘Drops’ product showcase

Instagram’s Creator Week followed hot on the heels of a new product showcase feature available to brands called ‘Drops’ which highlights the latest new releases and product launches from brands that consumers have engaged with or are related to their interests. Essentially, it’s a step up from the product reminders option which first launched in 2019, as the platform makes a further play into ecommerce as a means to facilitate more direct purchases through the app – curating all these notifications into one place. Here’s a great piece in Social Media Today that talks about this new feature in more detail.

The launch of Drops plays into the tried and tested formula of limited editions, exclusives and one-off launches in the fashion and beauty worlds, which drives hype and awareness amongst the younger customers of today. It’s a clever way to leverage the gen Z desire for newness and – again – keep potential customers shopping on platform.

Instagram sheds more light on how the algorithm actually works

A blog post written by Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has explained how the algorithm works and has been developed since it first launched in 2010. The handy guide breaks down how the app ranks content through Feed, Stories, Explore and Reels – and explains a whole lot more about why certain posts get more views than others. You can read the full blog post here.

Brands who already use Instagram heavily for marketing and social engagement are always looking for innovative ways to engage with their core consumers on the platform, so it’s important to keep up with what’s going on in the world of Instagram and beyond. We’re here to help navigate that journey and optimise your strategies of how to activate talent + influencers.