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Influence.co Community Posting Guidelines

Influence.co is a global community for influencers, businesses, and industry leaders to encourage professional development and connect and collaborate with like-minded people both online and offline. We encourage all types of people to use the power of this community to elevate their careers and become better at influencer marketing, and we believe an open forum will only embolden this.

That said, being a diverse community of people from all backgrounds, it’s important that we cultivate a respectful, encouraging environment. For that reason, the following behaviors will not be tolerated in the influence.co community:

Hate speech
Harassment
Racism and xenophobia
Sexism
Homophobia and transphobia
Inciting or encouraging violence
Promoting illegal activity

We are not interested in non-authentic methods of building an audience such as follow for follows, shout for shout, comment pods, etc. Any posts or comments that encourage this type of activity are strictly prohibited. Self-promotion is also not allowed. We want our members to create value in our community, and these kinds of posts take away from that mission. Spammy behavior such as promoting the sale and/or purchase of fake followers, sharing affiliate marketing links, buying, selling or trading items, and link dropping on posts are also not allowed.

The Influence.co Community Team will delete any posts that do not adhere to these guidelines. Additionally, if a user repeatedly violates this policy, the Influence.co Community Team reserves the right to remove their ability to post and, in extreme cases, remove them from the site altogether.

We value each and every one of our community members, and we encourage all questions, comments, and feedback to help us improve your experience. We hope that all of our members will engage in valuable and encouraging discussions with one another, and we just ask that you keep these positive values in mind when posting and commenting:

Remain polite
Respect other people’s opinions
Stay on topic
Treat each other with kindness
Be transparent and honest

Together, by adhering to these guidelines, all community members can help each other find their influence.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Ways The Government Has Quietly Become Interested In Social Media Usage

August 23, 2019 / Kat Manos / Comments Off

A few weeks ago, Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri introduced a new bill entirely devoted to curbing social media addiction. The bill, nicknamed the SMART Act, or the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act, aims to regulate and prohibit common practices that affect almost any and every mobile phone user who engages with social media apps.

Firstly, Hawley’s bill wants to eliminate the “infinite scroll” feature on apps, which would require users to manually refresh their feeds if they want to consume more content. Additionally, each app would include a pre-set 30-minute daily limit, popping up to remind users when they’ve reached said limit. Users can manually adjust the time themselves, but it will reset back to 30 minutes every month.

These proposed changes primarily affect apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but rules aren’t restricted simply to them. For YouTube, once you’ve finished watching one video, another video will not automatically start. On Snapchat, so-called “Snapstreaks” will be eliminated as they encourage and promote users to come back to the app every day to keep their streak up.

A similar bill that was proposed in June of this year, dubbed the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, requires platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to “prove they are ‘politically neutral’ or face liability for their users’ content,” according to NBC News.

In July, the FBI announced they’d be looking for a “Social Media Alerting Subscription,” or a type of A.I. tool that could comb through the posts and content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and others, to help determine if an individual could potentially be a threat to national security. Reason Magazine was quick to call the idea “like a meme-illiterate Facebook-stalking precog from Minority Report.”

Regardless of one’s politics, the growing involvement of the government’s interest in policing social media is noteworthy. It’s not uncommon for average people to remark that we all spend too much time looking at our phones, or think that people who only post selfies are narcissists despite the fact that one recent study found absolutely no link between a selfie-filled account and narcissism. CNN reports that a study that involved 10,000 UK-based children between the ages of 13 and 16 concluded that teen girls are the most negatively affected by social media consumption, so it’s not untrue to think that mental health is affected by online activity.

But should measures to curb online experiences become a government-related issue? Steve Krakauer at NBC News is quick to point out that the SMART Act makes no distinction between how adults and children engage with social media, and allowing the government such control could mean sacrificing free speech online. According to Axios, companies like Facebook are similarly attempting to regulate how their platform is being used – specifically targeting “manipulated media – everything from sophisticated AI-enabled video or audio deepfakes.”

So, what does it mean that both the government and big tech companies aim to control the average internet users’ online habits? Although many of us would agree that social media apps can greatly affect someone’s mental health, do we think these attempts at creating policy are the best bet we have? Should social media be regulated at all, even in the face of rampant bullying and even more serious hate groups spreading like wildfire? One thing is for certain: all the ways we experience social media are currently under a microscope and that can’t be ignored – and yes, they will impact influencers.

Photo by Lance Anderson on Unsplash

Why Successful Influencer Marketing Means Focusing On Social Videos

August 15, 2019 / Kat Manos / Comments Off

We recently discussed in a previous Influence.co blog post that influencers can make more money creating videos for brands as opposed to simple social posts. But now, studies show there’s a greater incentive for creators to stick to video – and it has everything to do with the changing social media audience.

We all know about the latest algorithm change from Facebook, which was announced earlier this year. Essentially, Facebook aims to reward three-minute videos that can capture a viewer’s attention for at least one minute straight. If videos garner repeat viewings, that content creator will certainly reap even more rewards as the reach for that video becomes larger and larger.

GlobalWebIndex recently reported that 60% of all internet users watch videos on social media – including live streams or social videos that pop up in their feeds. This statistic seems par for the course – but it’s upon learning who exactly is watching said video content that things get interesting. In this report, the numbers reveal that 72% of the social media audience consists of people in the age group 16 to 24 years old. So, overwhelming, the vast majority of people consuming video content were born between 1995 and 2003.

Digital Information World believes these numbers are slightly skewed because younger generations spend more time online and understand technology a bit more than those born before them. The “older” audience will eventually catch up and level out, but for now – these numbers are significant when considering how to create content. This young age group – along with those aged 25 to 34 – also have the highest number of social media accounts compared to any other demographic. With an average of just over nine accounts online, young people are most likely going to be watching videos across all of them. They are consuming the most content in more spaces online, so why not consider making content exclusively for them?

Influencers would be interested to know that, according to the GlobalWebIndex report, 40% of internet users follow brands they like and actually use, while 25% of users follow a brand because they intend to purchase from them in the future. Digital Information World remarks that these statistics prove that “influencing people via is easier if the target is more towards entertaining them rather than selling them with visible ideas.” The emphasis on entertainment feels so important knowing the social audience is young; instead of being inundated with information at every turn, young people value influencers telling them something through performance. And what better way to perform than through videos?

While it requires a bit more of an investment compared to writing social text posts, social video creation currently and will continue to hold so much value in the influencer marketing sphere. Remembering to focus on the audience first can shed light on not only what that audience would like to hear from an influencer, but how they’d like to hear it. Finding the sweet spot between successfully developing branded content for an employer and the audience meant to consume it should be the first priority of any influencer. After all, the numbers prove it.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

What Influencer Marketing Studies Reveal About Creator Pay Gaps And Lack Of Diversity

August 13, 2019 / Kat Manos / Comments Off

Studies on influencer marketing have seem to hit an all-time high in 2019 as more and more brands and advertisers have begun to embrace the social trend. The Association of National Advertisers reported last year that 75% of ad companies employ influencers – but what exactly are the demographics of the most successful ones?

According to ZDNet, several studies were recently performed on influencer pricing according to platform, gender, and industry after surveying 2,500 social influencers – and the results are pretty illuminating. Namely, brands must be willing to pay top dollar for YouTube-based campaigns, or take the cheapest route with a Facebook post-based campaign. Instagram posts can range anywhere from $100 per post for nano-influencers (or those with less than 5,000 followers) up to just over $2,000 for celebrity influencers with over half a million followers.

Most interestingly, regardless of platform, a significant pay gap exists between male and female influencers – particularly on YouTube. Despite the fact that women make up more than 75% of the industry, men reportedly make around $100 more a post in every industry category except for travel. In that industry, male influencers make up 39% of the demographic and earn $570 per post while females earn an average of $615 per post.

PhD candidate Sophie Bishop at Paper Magazine, meanwhile, has spent the last four years researching the demographics of UK-based beauty influencers, as well as the artificial intelligence that brands utilize in the industry. Her findings reveal something deeply problematic about not only A.I.’s role in influencer marketing, but the severe lack of diversity across the beauty industry.

Prominent beauty brands like Sephora, Clairol, and CoverGirl implement an A.I. tool from influencer marketing network StyleHaul called The Eye. The Orwellian name refers to monitoring software that tracks “real-time, creator-fueled social conversation about products,” essentially measuring the success of social media campaigns with creator demographics like age, face shape, skin tone, and ethnicity. Simply put – the software scans faces to determine which “type” of influencer garners the most engagement socially.

Using the data gathered by The Eye, Paper Magazine created a composite of the “ideal” influencer – and it features a white woman with almond-shaped eyes, a button nose, and a heart-shaped face. Not only do these results suggest a sinister conclusion about the social audience, but pinpoints another result that Bishop addresses in her writing: some A.I. algorithms struggle to even recognize black faces, particularly the faces of black women.

These studies reveal that much work needs to be done when it comes to implementing influencer marketing across diverse creators. Whether discussing the pay gap between male and female creators, or advertisers prioritizing white creators over underrepresented minorities, there is much work to be done in the influencer marketing industry.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

The Future of Influencer Marketing is Here

August 6, 2019 / Niel Robertson / Comments Off

Today we are thrilled to release what we’ve been internally calling Montage. Montage has been over a year in the works and is the foundation of the vision that helped us recently raise an amazing venture capital round (more on that soon). With this release we’re ushering in the second act of our company and hopefully contributing to the second act of the influencer marketing industry in general.

The Problem

We’ve heard from both influencers and businesses that there is no easy way for everyone to keep in touch. Our users tell us they don’t fill their Instagram feeds with businesses they might want to work with. They also say it’s a crap shoot if they approach a brand with a collaboration proposal, as the business might not even be running a campaign at the time. At best, influencers hear about collaboration opportunities by having accounts on multiple influencer platforms and constantly checking the opportunities there. Conversely, companies put tons of work into outreach and discovery of great influencers when they are in campaign-mode, but don’t have anywhere to keep the conversation going between campaigns or with influencers who weren’t a fit at the time but might be later on. The whole process of building relationships between influencers and brands just doesn’t exist. The most advanced companies we talk to still use giant spread sheets of influencer names and data that they admit are out of date and cumbersome.

But we all are very used to keeping track of companies we’re interested in online. We are all used to the idea of following a store we like on Facebook or Instagram in case they announce a sale or following companies we might want to work for on LinkedIn in case they announce the job opening of our dreams. Why doesn’t this format exist for the influencer-business relationship? With Montage, now it does.

The Solution

With the Montage release, we have completely redesigned our Business Pages. Every member who had a brand or agency page before has been upgraded to the new Business Page format. Business Pages have all the information that existed on brand and agency profiles before but now also include all the members of that businesses’ influencer community. With a familiar post and feed format, businesses can keep their influencers up to date in only a few minutes a week. We’ve already heard from our charter Business Page users that they can’t wait to use their pages to announce the steady stream of opportunities they have for influencers. These might be campaigns or even local events like pop ups or activations that influencers can get involved in. They also want to show off the amazing work their influencers and ambassadors are doing, and their pages are a great place to do this.

Keeping Up On The Industry

We also heard loud and clear from influencers that information about the industry is very fragmented. Some go to blogs for news, some get it from YouTube or newsletters, and few have any idea what their peers are really working on and thinking about.

Your home screen on influence.co is now a familiar feed-based format that is a collection of what’s happening on the platform, industry news, original content from our shiny new content team, and amazing work from our community. We hope that this feed becomes your influencer marketing homepage online – a place to start your day and keep tabs on the most important news from the industry and community. Best of all, it’ll give us all a place to start having discussions and dialog around issues that matter to the influencer industry and to our own community.

Building Your Professional Presence

Lastly, the Montage release is taking the first step towards providing you a more complete toolset for you to build and manage your professional presence as a member of the influencer marketing industry online. Past our beautiful, dynamic profiles, we give you growth stats, access to shareable demographics, the ability to follow brands and your peers, and the ability for them to start following you. As you add more content to your profile, you can keep your peers up to date on who you’ve been working with, what tools and techniques you’re learning, and how you’re growing as a professional in the industry.

We’re Learning Too

We love feedback! The good, the bad, and even the cringe-worthy, and we’re going to need a lot of it with this release. There are many concepts we’re introducing that are new ground for everyone in the industry. What activities do you want to share? What could the value of building an audience of your peers be? How do you talk to influencers on an ongoing basis and keep them engaged in your brand? If you want to give it to us privately you can always DM @influenceco on the platform. If you want to give it to us in public forum, feel free to comment on the @influenceco posts we’re putting out. We can’t wait to see what you all think.

More than anything, we’re just over the moon at how quickly our community has grown and the acceleration we’re seeing right now with influencers and businesses. We hope to earn a tab in your browser every morning, and we’ll keep working hard to make that the case.

And from me, the CEO of influence.co, a hat tip to the incredible team we have working on this project. Everyone red lined it in July to get this done and I could not be more proud of how we all pulled together to make it happen. Ryan, Shane, Faith, Dom, Paul, Jeff, Brad, Lynn – awesome work all around. Here we go!!

-Niel and the influence.co Team

How to Build an Influencer Agency

August 31, 2018 / Angela Lopez / Comments Off

You’ve dealt with digital marketing for quite a while, and you want to expand your product offering with influencer marketing.

Or maybe you want to build a marketing agency that specializes in influencer marketing.

With the increasing demand for influencers, there’s no doubt that you’re going to find a lot of clients to work with.

However, you need to make sure you can deliver quality work and help your clients achieve their goals if you want to maintain long-term success.

This post is going to guide you through how you can build a successful influencer agency that’s beneficial for all parties.

Why Influencer Marketing?

The first question you might have is how influencer marketing can help your agency.

How will it benefit your business?

First of all, it’s a great way to easily add one more revenue stream to your business.

You can also develop a broader relationship with your clients since you have much more to offer them than your usual services.

What’s great about influencer marketing is that the campaigns tend to be high margin.

So there’s a possibility of raking in massive revenues.

You don’t even need a highly trained staff with technical knowledge to get into it.

The process of pitching to influencers is standardized so you can follow the same map each time.

Plus, it’s very straightforward and you can easily nail it even as a beginner.

What You Need

For your brand to execute successful influencer marketing campaigns, you need to invest in a comprehensive influencer tool set.

This tool needs to fulfill the purpose of discovering ideal influencers.

Look for one that has multiple filtering options so you can easily narrow down the search based on the needs of each client.

You should also be able to keep track of the influencers’ activities and get detailed reports of the campaign ROI from the platform.

In other words, the tool should be able to reduce all the manual labor involved in influencer marketing.

At the same time, you should still be free to run the process with your own preferences and requirements in mind.

Look for a tool that can work across all social media channels.

This is necessary because someone who has massive reach in one channel may not be extremely influential in another.

And if your clients want to run a campaign on a certain social media network, you should be able to easily assess all the viable influencers on that channel.

Influence.co is perfect in all these respects.

What’s even better is that you can align it with your business model.

And it won’t compete against you in the market because the team doesn’t run campaigns themselves.

Plus, there isn’t much financial commitment involved in using the platform so your team can easily master influencer marketing without a huge investment.

Even if you’re working as a team, the platform is perfect to collaborate effectively with every team member.

As a team, you can discover influencers and manage your list of potential influencers right on the platform.

You can also create, manage, and monitor campaigns here.

What You Should Do

To help run influencer marketing campaigns, there are a few basic steps involved.

As an influencer agency, you’ll have to:

Discover Ideal Influencers – Help your clients define what their ideal influencer looks like based on their brand values and business goals.

And then conduct a search on the 50,000+ influencer profiles created on Influence.co.

There are more than 20 ways to filter your search including influencer age range, follower count, rate range, gender, and more.

Connect with Influencers – Once you’ve finalized which influencers to collaborate with, you will have to approach the influencers and send them a proposition on behalf of your clients.

You can create outreach templates that you can personalize based on each influencer.

Build a Campaign – You will have to create a campaign brief to provide influencers with a clear idea of what your campaign is all about.

You’ll have to outline the goals and requirements as well as the type of influencers you need for the campaign.

The brief should also provide influencers with a clear idea of how they could benefit from the campaign.

Based on this brief, the influencers will be able to create content that helps accomplish your clients’ goals.

Monitor Campaigns – Once you’ve executed the campaigns, you have to closely monitor them to see how they are performing.

It would be ideal to keep an eye on how each influencer is performing so you can tell which ones are delivering the desired results.

You can then make adjustments to the campaign based on your analysis.

Conclusion

These are some of the essential steps you need to take when building an influencer agency.

You need to know exactly what is involved in an influencer marketing campaign.

And you should be equipped with the tools necessary to execute such campaigns.

Message Inbox

July 27, 2018 / Niel Robertson / Comments Off

Today we introduced a long-awaited feature – Message Inbox

When we started influence.co, making it easy to contact influencers was a primary mission of ours.

Most companies in the space required you to fill out lengthy sign up forms to even see who was in their network (most still do).

We pioneered the concept of public profiles where influencers could make themselves freely and easily contactable.

Since then, our community of nearly 70,000 members has developed to include influencers, brands, influencer platforms, digital agencies and reps who work at them.

Not only do we see brands contacting influencers but we see influencers contacting brands (we have over 6500 brands now), brands contacting digital agencies (we have nearly 1500 agencies), influencers contacting talent agencies, agencies contacting brands, and even influencers contacting other influencers to organize collaborations.

As we have always known, messaging is core to community.

When we started, we kept messaging very simple: initiate a conversation on influence.co and then take the rest of the conversation to email.

That worked well in the start until brands and agencies started talking to 100s of influencers at a time for campaigns.

Having to store and sort emails from 100 influencers gets very hard, very fast – especially because influencers’ email addresses rarely have much to do with their instagram handles.

Just finding an influencer in your email can be tough.

We needed an upgrade.

Today we present the first version of this upgrade.

Message Inbox allows you to have complete conversations with anyone on the system, see information about them while chatting (e.g. their follower count, location, etc..), and access their application history with you and your team.

You’ll see it feels a lot like other business-centric messaging systems and a lot less like email.

We can still notify you of new messages in email so don’t worry, you don’t need to check in 10 times a day.

If you’re an agency, we’ve considered what you and your team might need as well.

The new Message Inbox has a shared inbox model.

Any team member in your agency can see and respond to any conversation and influencers will see both that the conversation is with you and who the actual team member is they are interacting with.

No more fear that valuable conversations are locked in your team members emails or careful planning about who is going to respond to which influencer.

We think these features alone will be transformational for some of our over 1400 agencies.

While we have a lot more in store for Message Inbox in the coming months, we look forward to hearing your feedback on it.

To find your Message Inbox simply look on the menu under your profile picture.

10 Amazing Instagram Feed Themes You Must Try Right Now

July 11, 2018 / Angela Lopez / Comments Off

With the level of competition on Instagram, to make your page stand out, you need to be willing to go an extra mile.

Whether you’re a brand, an influencer, or someone looking to show their artsy side, you should consider using an Instagram feed theme.

Having an eye-catching theme makes it easier for you to set yourself apart from others in your niche.

More than that, it gives your feed a well-thought-out and professional look.

It mirrors the kind of person or business you are, and helps reassert your brand image.

Having a cohesive look and feel might even cause users to linger on your profile longer and click that all important “Follow” button.

Given what’s at stake, we decided to scour Instagram looking for some brilliant themes.

We’ve compiled this list of our favorites that we think you should consider trying out for yourself.

1. Color Block

If you’re the kind of person who loves color, this is the theme for you.

It’s quite the trend on Instagram right now.

This kind of a color popping gallery adds a young and playful vibe to your page.

You could try using high saturation photos or ones with light pastel colors.

Try to fill as much of the image with bright colors as possible – the bolder the better.

Image via Instagram

2. Minimalistic

A minimalistic theme like the one below leaves your gallery looking neat and organized.

Beautiful to scroll through, it also challenges your creativity as a user.

A key element of such a theme is using negative space photos and fillers.

Sticking to a few key colors will add an additional cohesive element to the theme.

Image via Instagram

3. Monotheme

If you’re particularly passionate about something, then this theme suits you best.

Posting about a recurring subject will help get the most out of this concept.

This is another theme that requires you to have a creativity game that is on point.

Image via Instagram

4. Color Coordinated

Color coordinated themes have a way of looking gorgeous in their own right.

Choose a color palette that you like, and make that your theme.

Work around one, two, or three central colors.

Opting for this will require a great deal of strategy and planning on your part.

You’ll have to ensure that all the photos you post on Instagram have a color from your palette in it.

Image via Instagram

5. Black and White

Now, this is a classic, and you simply cannot go wrong with this one.

Easy to produce, it makes for a powerful statement.

Without any color distraction, it allows your followers to appreciate the theme and subject of the photo.

It depicts a certain rawness of the subject.

You can even experiment with it using different textures, shadows, unique camera angles, and silhouettes.

It’s the ideal theme for your thought-provoking and inspiring works of brilliance.

Image via Instagram

6. Flatlays

Flatlays are a recurring theme with brands wanting to showcase their products.

It is the art of taking a photo from above.

These are particularly rare, and will add a different flavor of uniqueness to your Instagram feed.

If you want to tell your story in one quick snap, flatlays are a great way to go about it.

Let your imagination run wild, and share with the world snippets of your life.

This could range from a product or your hobby, to plates of food or the outfit you plan to wear that day.

Image via Instagram

7. Color Splash

Although this one calls for some time and effort, it’s arguably the most creative Instagram theme on this list.

The concept revolves around making everything in a photo black and white with the exception of one or two highlighted colors.

It might require you to polish up your photo editing skills, but it will be totally worth it.

Have a look at just how brilliant it can be.

Image via Instagram

8. Same Filter and Tint

Another relatively easy way to achieve consistency and cohesiveness in your feed is to use the same filter and tint in all of your photos.

In an instant, your gallery will start looking more organized and well thought out.

Play around with a few filters till you find one that suits you best.

Subsequently, that will become your trademark.

It makes you more recognizable, and people will know it’s a post by you the second they see it in their feeds.

Like Doen and their vintage Bohemian look and feel.

Image via Instagram

9. Puzzle

This is a really big undertaking.

Your feed fits 9-12 photos before someone needs to scroll down to view the next set of posts.

Fill all of those tiles with small slices of the same photo.

They need to be carefully organized, but if done properly, the visual appeal is unmatched.

This is something brands typically use for any big announcements they might have.

The trickiest part of implementing something like this is maintaining a high-quality image after you’ve split it.

You also need to ensure that every individual photo makes sense by itself.

Image via Instagram

10. Checkerboard

Often also called the “tile theme,” this can make your Instagram feed look very chic.

The idea is to use each square as a tile.

A popular way of implementing it is to share a photo and quote alternatingly.

This makes you look consistent and allows followers to know what you will post about next.

And you don’t necessarily have to use quotes either.

You could use a drawing, an emoji, or even the title of your next blog post.

Image via Instagram

Conclusion

These Instagram feed themes are a sure fire way for you to keep your audience engaged and growing.

With a little effort and some planning, you’ll stand out from the rest of the crowd.

And as an influencer or a brand, you’ll outshine others in your niche.

And if you’re looking for more tips or ideas, you could always use Influence.co to connect with other influencers.

What is an Instagram Shadow Ban?

July 11, 2018 / Faith Hartley / Comments Off

You might have heard the term “Instagram shadow ban” being used quite a lot recently.

You might also know that it can have an impact on your reach and engagement on Instagram.

But what exactly is an Instagram shadow ban, and how does it affect your performance on the platform?

We’ve decided to give you a more detailed look at the issue so you can make preparations to avoid or fix it.

When you have been affected by an Instagram shadow ban, your hashtags will no longer be discoverable by people who don’t follow you.

You may be able to use hashtags, but your posts will only show up in your existing followers’ hashtag feeds.

This means you will no longer be able to attract a new audience, even when you’re using relevant hashtags.

So your post reach and engagement will naturally decline.

How to Tell If You’ve Been Shadow Banned

There are some common symptoms of shadow banning such as:

Lower engagement rates
Fewer comments
Decrease in impressions
Decrease in reach
Slowed follower growth

However, experiencing all of these problems doesn’t necessarily mean you have been affected by an Instagram shadow ban.

To make sure you’re experiencing shadow banning, you will need the help of a friend.

Ask them to unfollow you and then search for a hashtag that you’ve used in a recent post.

If the post doesn’t show up in their search results, it means you’ve been affected.

It’s probably worth using an uncommon hashtag so you post will appear close to the top of Instagram’s hashtag search results.

What Causes an Instagram Shadow Ban?

Although Instagram hasn’t released any official information about the cause of shadow banning, it’s obvious that a violation of their terms of use would be one of the main reasons.

Here are some possible reasons why you may get shadow banned on Instagram:

Buying Followers, Using Bots, or Using Automated Services

If you’re using an application that violates the terms of service of Instagram, there’s a good chance you will get shadow banned.

This includes using bots to grow your following, automating your posts, or automating your likes and comments.

In other words, you should avoid using any software that will automate how you engage with other Instagram accounts.

However, this doesn’t include applications that send you a push notification when it’s time to publish a post.

Using Broken or Abused Hashtags

Instagram has millions of people using it on a regular basis.

So there can be limitations in terms of controlling what kind of content people share on the platform.

Even harmless hashtags like #clothing could get overrun with content that’s inappropriate.

When Instagram notices such issues, they remove the hashtag entirely or limit its usage.

So when you use such broken or abused hashtags, your post stands a chance of getting shadow banned entirely.

It will have an impact on the other hashtags you are using in the post. In other words, the post will not show up at all in any of the hashtag searches.

To find out if you’re using a broken or abused hashtag, you will need to conduct a search for the hashtag.

You will still get results, but you wouldn’t be able to view anything beyond the first page.

And as you scroll to the bottom, you’ll get a message as shown in the screenshot below.

Abusing Daily and Hourly Limits of Instagram

Instagram has a limitation on the number of actions you can take in one day.

This includes the number of photos you like and comment on, as well as the number of accounts you follow and unfollow.

The limitations may vary depending on how long your account has been active.

However, it’s best not to like more than 150 photos in an hour.

Similarly, comments, follows, and unfollows should be limited to 60 per hour.

And you should also avoid activity surges, which may trigger Instagram to shadow ban you.

Being Reported Regularly

The easiest way for Instagram users to warn the platform about an account that’s violating their community guidelines or terms of service is by reporting said account.

And when users find an account that’s infringing copyrights, spamming, or publishing inappropriate content, they may report it.

If your account gets reported regularly, Instagram could end up shadow banning you.

In the worst case scenario, your account may be disabled altogether.

Conclusion

Now you have a clearer idea of what Instagram shadow banning is, and the likely causes of it.

And you also have a better idea how to avoid getting affected.

These insights can help you whether you’re an influencer or you’re running a brand account.

Influence marketing graphic on black chalkboard

How to Write an Effective Influencer Marketing Campaign Brief

July 11, 2018 / Angela Lopez / Comments Off

One of the essential steps of launching an influencer marketing campaign is to clearly communicate with your influencers about what you expect out of the campaign.

This involves creating a campaign brief that lays out all of the campaign requirements such as your campaign goals, what type of content you need, how many pieces of content you need, etc.

You’ll need to create two different types of campaign briefs.

The first one will include all of the important campaign requirements.

This is what you display in the public campaigns page so an influencer can decide whether or not they’re interested.

The second will go into the details of the campaign requirements and will be sent to an influencer once recruited.

First Campaign Brief

As mentioned earlier, this is the brief that will be viewable on your public campaigns page.

It has to contain all of the major requirements of your campaign, so influencers can quickly go through it and decide whether or not they would like to participate.

Your first campaign brief should contain the following information:

About the Brand – The brief should have a summary of the brand and what they sell.

It should perhaps talk about the brand persona and a bit about the history.

It should also talk about what the brand is trying to achieve out of the campaign.

Influencer Requirements – You should clearly define what kind of influencers you’re looking for.

What’s the minimum follower count?

What’s the minimum engagement rate an influencer needs to maintain?

Do you wish to work with influencers from a specific location?

Is there a gender requirement?

You should also define the social media channels your ideal influencers should be on based on where you wish to execute the campaign.

And be clear about it if you’re looking for influencers who maintain a specific style and voice – whether it’s funny, quirky, fun, sexy, etc.

Other Info – The first brief should also clearly mention what influencers will be getting out of the campaign i.e. compensation details.

It should also talk in brief about what they will need to do for the collaboration.

Second Campaign Brief

The second campaign brief will be a bit more detailed and should be sent to influencers whom you’ve recruited.

It should clearly talk about the point of contact – the person who will be in charge of influencer communications.

In addition to this, here are some important details you should cover:

Posting Details – You should clearly mention the expected posting timeframe.

How many posts do you expect during a certain time period?

This will ensure that the influencers are prepared to produce the exact number of posts you require before the campaign deadline.

Do they have to tag certain accounts such as your brand’s social media account?

Maybe you expect them to use a certain hashtag and encourage their followers to do the same.

Or maybe you want them to mention some details about your product in the caption or video.

Which benefits and features do you want them to highlight?

Be clear about all these expectations so you don’t have to keep going back to the influencer asking them to make changes.

Speaking of changes, do you expect influencers to submit their content for approval before they post?

While some brands don’t necessarily require this, it might be a good idea just to ensure that the influencer is doing everything you expect them to before their post goes live.

Product Shipment and Ownership – If you’re dealing with physical products that need to be shipped your second brief will also have to lay out shipping details.

There may be shipping limitations in terms of timeframes and locations, which the brief should talk about in detail.

And make sure you also clearly define whether or not the influencer gets to keep the product.

Compensation Details – Another crucial detail that you shouldn’t miss is the compensation detail.

What will you pay your influencers?

Are you providing monetary compensation?

If so, make sure you clearly define the compensation plan – whether you’re paying them a certain amount per post or a certain percentage for each conversion.

You should also define your payment method so there’s no confusion later on.

And make sure you clearly mention the date of payment.

This will ensure that there’s no miscommunication or false expectation between you and your influencers.

Conclusion

These are some of the details you should include to ensure that you write an effective influencer campaign brief.

You can include additional details as necessary.

Got any questions that you’d like to ask?

Feel free to leave a comment below.

Tag: For Agencies (page 1 of 3)

The Problem

The Solution

Keeping Up On The Industry

Building Your Professional Presence

We’re Learning Too

Why Influencer Marketing?

What You Need

What You Should Do

Conclusion

1. Color Block

2. Minimalistic

3. Monotheme

4. Color Coordinated

5. Black and White

6. Flatlays

7. Color Splash

8. Same Filter and Tint

9. Puzzle

10. Checkerboard

Conclusion

How to Tell If You’ve Been Shadow Banned

What Causes an Instagram Shadow Ban?

Buying Followers, Using Bots, or Using Automated Services

Using Broken or Abused Hashtags

Abusing Daily and Hourly Limits of Instagram

Being Reported Regularly

Conclusion

First Campaign Brief

Your first campaign brief should contain the following information:

Second Campaign Brief

In addition to this, here are some important details you should cover:

Conclusion

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