Top 5 Instagram Partnership Tools Influencer Marketers Need in 2023

As the tried-and-true channel for influencer marketing, it comes as no surprise that Instagram continues to reign as the priority channel for many marketers and creators. In fact, 87% of marketers and 90% of creators say they’re investing more into Instagram this year. 

As Instagram has evolved, the company has built new partnership features and phased out old ones. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 5 Instagram partnership tools you need for your 2023 campaigns. These are the tools that will empower you to scale your program, connect with the perfect creators, and boost performance in a way that hasn’t been available before. Let’s get started.

1. Creator Marketplace

Every influencer marketer knows that a successful influencer marketing campaign starts by finding the right creators. But oftentimes, you can find yourself spending hours manually searching for creators who may not even respond to your collaboration proposal. That’s where Aspire’s Creator Marketplace steps in. 

Brands simply have to create a proposal detailing their campaign and set it live to Aspire’s Creator Marketplace, where creators can browse and apply directly to work on any campaign they’re interested in. This means you can submit your campaign to the Marketplace on a Friday afternoon and come back to hundreds of inbound creator applications on Monday morning.

Last week, we even opened up access to our Creator Marketplace to over a million new creators, ensuring that brands can continually find fresh talent and more creators can work with industry-leading brands.

Last year, Instagram also launched its own Creator Marketplace to help brands find creators they may want to connect with, but it was on an invite-only basis to a select number of brands in the US. In April of this year, the company extended its Creator Marketplace API access to its exclusive partners, including Aspire, for more brands to be able to access the marketplace from third-party creator marketing platforms. This has allowed us to add new integrations to our arsenal of influencer marketing tools — which brings us to our next must-have feature. 

2. Instagram Direct Messaging Integration

Another essential influencer discovery tool is our Instagram Direct Messaging (IGDM) integration. Leveraging Instagram’s Creator Marketplace APIs, we built Instagram Direct Messaging capabilities integrated directly into our platform.

With the new integration, brands can connect their Instagram accounts to Aspire and send campaign invitations to creators via Instagram DMs. Brands won’t ever have to leave Aspire for these conversations, and creators will have these DMs directly in their priority inbox on Instagram. It’s a win-win.

You can view Instagram Direct Messaging in action in our partner webinar, Meta + Aspire Present: The Power Of Personalization.

3. Shoppable Product Tags

If you run your brand’s Instagram account, you know the thrill of getting tagged in a post, whether it’s from one of your influencer partners or a loyal customer. Now, with product tags, it’s even more exciting when you get that notification. 

Instagram product tags are a feature that allows users to buy products directly on Instagram, without ever leaving the platform. Brands, creators, and even regular consumers can now tag products featured in their feed post, allowing people to discover more information about the product and perhaps even purchase the product right away on Instagram. 

With a growing number of young consumers using social platforms over Google for discovery, it’s becoming increasingly important to set up your social commerce capabilities across all social platforms — and Instagram product tags are the perfect place to start. 

So when you partner with influencers, have them tag the specific products they’re featuring in their posts. That way, you can create a frictionless path to purchase for your influencers’ audiences and maximize conversions on every post they create. 

NOTE: Instagram recently announced that it will be phasing out onboarding of new Shops without checkout on Facebook and Instagram enabled by April 2024, basically requiring all Shops to enable checkouts for consumers to purchase directly on Facebook or Instagram, rather than on their own ecommerce sites. With the shut down, Shops without checkout enabled will no longer have access to product tagging, either. Make sure you have checkout enabled on Instagram in order to continue using the feature. 

4. Instagram Collabs

With an Instagram Collabs post, two accounts can co-author one Instagram post. Here’s how it works:

1. Creators can post a feed post or Reel as usual.
2. Under the “Tag people” menu, the creator can invite your brand’s account as a collaborator. 
3. Once you accept the invite, your @handle will be added to the post.
4. Now, the post will be shared to both accounts’ followers, and both accounts will be able to see all likes and comments on the post. 

There are several benefits to leveraging Instagram Collabs as a brand. First, the feature makes it easier for users to find and interact with your influencers’ content. Anyone following your account will now discover your influencers’ post and account — and vice versa. So if your goal is to increase reach and engagement, Instagram Collabs might just be your solution. 

Take this Instagram Collabs post, for example. When travel content creator @ashleesplanet invited Seoul’s tourism page as a collaborator, the Reel garnered nearly 3 million views!

Additionally, Instagram Collabs posts reduce the amount of duplicate content promoting your brand. If your collaborators are reposting the same content as your account, you’re competing with yourself for views and likes. With a Collabs post, a view from one account benefits both parties involved.

5. Branded Content Ads

We’ve always preached about the benefits of repurposing influencer content for paid channels, but Branded Content Ads take it to the next level. 

Branded Content Ads are paid ads created from influencers’ branded content that run under the creator’s handle with the ‘Paid Partnership With’ label. 

Because you’re turning existing branded content into ads, you gain increased functionality while leveraging the trust and creativity of the creators you work with. Plus, a recent Meta study has shown that running Branded Content Ads along with business-as-usual (BAU) ads in the same campaign can dramatically improve campaign performance. In a mixed ad campaign, the auction can automatically determine the ideal distribution of spend between the different creative approaches, leading to the most effective and highest performing strategy. 

In fact, a 2022 Meta analysis of 15 advertiser split tests showed that Branded Content Ads produces:

• 53% higher click through rates
• 19% drop in CPA
• 99% probability to outperform BAU ads only

Luckily, Aspire has built an easy and seamless way to run Branded Content Ads. To see how it works in action, you can view our partner webinar, Meta + Aspire Present: How To Lower Ad Costs With Branded Content Ads. 

Need help running your Instagram influencer marketing campaign? See the Aspire platform in action or talk to an expert from our Agency Services team.