With influencer marketing becoming more attractive as source of audience acquisition and organic engagement we look at some of the recent updates on instagram offering new guidelines on how you can accurately market content without misleading consumers.
We reviewed some of the latest releases in 2019 to summarise a few of the points you can use to help keep your channel growing with strong organic engagement in this channel.
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It’s OK to say your posting sponsored content
Fashion and beauty Instagram partnership manager, Kirstie Dash has now began to urge influencers to ensure that they are no longer afraid to label posts as ‘sponsored’. This is down the the attention that has come from the disclosures which have been made by users where they appear to be promoting brands for payment.
Continuing, she went on to further emphasise Instagram has no data which is able to prove that sponsored posts do not perform as well as ones which are regular. It has also been found that if an influencer feels concerned about being authentic and has been reluctant to be clear in partnership posts, they should begin to rethink their agreements with brands.
Kirstie said: “Nobody wants their feeds to feel like one big ad and so, I get why there is a hesitancy, about being transparent with posts. At the end of the day, if you’re not being transparent with your followers, you’ll lose trust over time.”
2) Understand the shadowban rule
Earlier this year agencies and retail brands also voiced concerns over instagram having possible shadow bans in place making it harder to grow organic reach using hashtags to reach followers that aren’t already membered on your own channel. What constitutes towards a shadow ban is a liberal explanation is anyone who displays a spammy or inappropriate behaviour. Since it’s not 100% clear between what is spam and what’s an inappropriate behaviour this leaves you open to a challenge.
The point of introducing the shadow ban metric of assessment to the search feed was essentially to allow instagram to hide your posts from users who don’t follow you, which impacts your ability to grow your account and get more followers. If someone who doesn’t follow your account searches for one a popular hashtag you’ve used frequently to attract followers, the end result is that they just won’t be able to see your post. Which means the use of strategic hashtags to grow your community then becomes totally obsolete.
3) How to avoid this happening to your feed
It’s actually quite simple. Read the terms, and keep updated with instagram updates to understand exactly how to manage your marketing content in this channel. Simple things like these can help you keep your account active and growing an engaged audience.
- Don’t use broken hashtags in your posts.
- Don’t use unapproved automatic scheduling software as it could put your account at risk of being banned.
- Curate good content that your audience will engage with and like or share (make it interesting, helpful and if you are promoting something, say so!)
- Avoid being reported for content or conduct that could be construed as unsolicited or falls outside of instagrams rules and terms of use.
