Instagram Holds Creators Week, Launches New Tool That Allows Creators to Recommend Products During Checkout

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 09 June 2021, 03:06 pm

Instagram and Facebook launch their first-ever Creator Week. It is a three-day event that is geared toward digital creators, complete with virtual DJ sets and panels on Algorithm Mythbusting and raising money for nonprofit organizations that the creators support.

Instagram Creator Week

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement during the first day of the event and introduced new ways for creators to make money.

In the next couple of months, Instagram will start testing an affiliate tool that allows creators to recommend products available on checkout, share them with their followers, and earn commissions for sales that their posts drive.

When creators make these posts, the text "eligible for commission" will pop up beneath their username in the same way that sponsored content labels to appear.

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Creators will be able to link their shops to their personal profiles, and not just on their business accounts, according to Tech Crunch.

By the end of the year, all eligible creators in the United States will be able to partner with one of Instagram's merchandise partners, such as Fanjoy, UMG, Spring, and Represent, to drop exclusive product launches on the app.

During live Instagram videos, the viewers can tip creators by sending them a Badge, which costs between $0.99 and $4.99. Facebook Gaming has a similar feature called Stars, and one Star costs $0.01.

Starting this week, creators can earn bonuses for accomplishing certain challenges, like going live with another account.

In a promotional image, Facebook offers a bonus of $150 for those who earn 5,000 Stars, which is the equivalent of $50.

Zuckerberg stated that to help more creators make a living in the social media platforms, they will keep paid online events, badges, fan subscriptions, and their upcoming independent news products, free creators, until 2023.

When Facebook introduces a revenue share, it will be less than the 30% that Apple and other companies take, as reported by Variety.

Affiliate Tools

The updates on Instagram marks the latest push by the platform toward affiliate marketing and in-app shopping, like its redesigned Instagram Shop and Shopping in Reels, which debuted in 2020, according to AdWeek.

Zuckerberg said that their goal is to be the best platform for creators to make a living. If creators have an idea that they want to share with the world, they should be able to create it and get it out there easily and simply and then earn money for their work.

Creators may be drawn to experiment with these affiliate tools and shop features, since they won't lose some of their profits to Instagram for now. However, platforms like YouTube and TikTok offer monetization strategies that extend beyond e-commerce.

In July 2020, TikTok announced its $200 million TikTok Creator Fund, allowing posters to earn money from their videos. It is not clear how TikTok determines how much money to give the posters, but it will depend on the number of views, engaged views, and other factors.

In August 2020, the YouTuber Hank Green estimated that he would get about $700 from his 20,000,000 TikTok views in one month, around 3.5 cents per 1,000 views.