Having a celebrity endorse a product through branded content is nothing new—in fact it has been a popular marketing tactic for decades. However, despite its ubiquity, this type of branded content promotion wasn’t allowed on one of the largest social networks until a few days ago. Prior to last week, it was against Facebook’s policies to post branded content unless that content was part of a paid advertising campaign on their platform.
On April 8th, Facebook announced in a blog post that they have updated their terms to allow certain types of branded content, with the caveat that the posts must tag the marketer or brand being promoted. Now influential Facebook users like Lady Gaga can extend their collaboration with brands like Intel onto Facebook via sharing branded posts like the one below.
Facebook also announced the roll out of a new tool that will allow the tagged marketer to access “high-level post insights, including engagement and reach metrics, along with total spend” on the branded post. Marketers and brands will also have the option of sharing and boosting this content on their own end.
We have seen many clients align themselves with a publisher or leverage the influence of a brand, but the formats in which we are able to leverage these types of collaborations are ever changing. It’s great to see that Facebook has finally responded in favor to these types of influencer and brand relationships.
Vivian Ung
Just Media, Inc.
