Facebook has already made a series of exciting announcements at its F8 Conference which got underway yesterday. Among these announcements, the company also revealed its new direction for Instagram too. And it is clear that Instagram is slowly becoming a full-blown money-making platform for Facebook by the looks of it. Because Facebook has announced that Influencers and Creators using Instagram will be able to directly see items from their posts and Stories.
At the moment, there will be a very limited number of items available to purchase directly though. This is because Facebook will, for some time being, only allow items from the businesses which are enrolled in its new Checkout Beta program. Additionally, this program is only available for U.S. users as of now.
On top of that, Instagram has announced even more monetization options for its Creators. At its developer conference, Facebook says that Instagram will now have Donation Stickers. With the addition of Donation Stickers, you can donate directly to your favourite Instagram Creators from right inside the app itself.
Also, Instagram is opening up its product tagging feature for creators and influencers which was previously available only for brands and businesses. This means that more and more users will be able to tag products and let users click on them. However, Instagram says that users will not be able to earn revenue from users clicking on those product tags.
According to the company, this is to solve the frequently asked questions by users to their Creators such as to “what they are wearing” etc. Facebook’s spokesperson says that “People are already shopping from creators by asking product questions in comments and Direct,”. This feature, according to Facebook, would be beneficial for all parties involved.
Although Instagram is not giving revenue cut to its Influencers at the moment, it will still show shopping insights as well as engagements for the products tagged. This means that Influencers can ink deals with brands later on for their long-term benefits.
