Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement on April 27th, 2021 which confirmed that Instagram is working on new tools to help people who do creative work generate more revenue from the content they create. This includes having a platform that matches brands with creators whose content fits the audiences that they are trying to reach.
According to Adam Mosseri, who is the head of the Facebook-owned image- and video-sharing service, “Instagram to play a more involved role in helping brands discover emerging creators.”
“We should be able to help brands find creators that are uniquely aligned with the work they’re trying to do and vice versa,” Mosseri said on an Instagram Live broadcast with Zuckerberg.
These features come as Facebook adjusts to a recent development on Apple’s iOS ecosystem which will likely make it more challenging for the social media company to get ads to reach users of iPhone and iPad. By keeping more commerce and sales directly on its apps, Facebook seeks to better deliver personalized ads to users and show the effectiveness of those ads to advertisers.
In the announcement, Mark also talked about creator shops, which will allow content creators to sell goods to Instagram users directly through their profiles on the social network.
In 2020, the company rolled out Facebook Shops and Instagram Shops as part of a push to bring more commerce directly onto Facebook’s service. These shops allow businesses to sell directly to users. Some top creators, such as Kim Kardashian, already have shops on their Instagram profiles. Creator shops would allow more creators to sell through the social media platform.
“That’s been especially important in the last year. A lot of physical stores have had to close during lockdowns, but online stays open,” Zuckerberg said on the Instagram Live with Mosseri. “It can be a more personalized and convenient experience.”
Additionally, Zuckerberg announced an affiliate platform that would allow creators to get commissions for products that they recommend while sharing their content. According to the CEO, “People look to creators for recommendations about what’s good, especially in the places that they’re the experts on.”
The executives at Facebook are yet to give the actual for the release of these features.
