The value of collaborative posts on Instagram

Big brands tend to have big follower counts on social media, and the prospect of gaining access to that audience can be enticing for small creators. How valuable is the exposure to the brand's audience for a small creator trying to build their social media presence?

Assistant professor of marketing, Daniel Goetz, investigates the true value of "exposure bucks" through statistical modelling. Focusing purely on Instagram's collaborative post feature, Goetz looked at 260 of the largest fashion and beauty brand accounts on Instagram alongside small creators they created joint posts with. 

Goetz notes, "A big way of succeeding in the creator economy is to build your follower count."

But how many new followers do small creators gain from a collaborative post with big brands? Goetz's findings show that it's only about a week's worth, or 150 to 300 followers total.

Goetz says, "I found it exceptionally surprising how small the lift was. I thought that if you're a creator with a thousand followers, and you work with a brand that has 20 million followers, then for sure you're going to increase your follower account by ten or twenty times, right?"

Goetz discovered that the conversion rate of brand followers into creator followers was, "the same magnitude as the click-through rate of digital advertising." In other words, the number of followers gained by a small creator after a collaborative post is on par with the small number of people who purchase items they see through digital ads.

"It's not like Instagram is this magical place where people are super focused, and a brand can command a huge amount of attention."

A key moderating variable turned out to e the engagement rate of the brand's audience. A small brand with engaged followers could lead to just as many new followers for the creator as a large brand with inattentive followers.

Goetz continues, "Is it worth it? It’s something that creators need to decide for themselves, but they should know what they're getting into, like how many followers they should expect."

Creators should also be aware that follower gain is moderated by how the content they create for the brand compares to the usual content they create. Collaborative posts with very different content from the creator's typical posts lead to almost no new followers for the creator. 

To capture this difference, Goetz uses a large language model to describe the visual content of each collaborative post. This visual content is then translated into numerical embeddings.

Goetz explains, "It's a way of allowing the computer to basically convert the content of a post from unstructured visual data into a numeric space."

Goetz hopes his study aids creators and brands as they continue to build professional relationships with each other.

"I want creators to be aware of what they should expect when they are working with a company for exposure. I also want companies to see it because I want them to think about how they should motivate creators. They should try running some experiments. They should try different contracts."

The study can also inform policymakers as they regulate the social media space and policies around ad disclosure.

"This is kind of a grey area where you've got creators creating content for a brand, but it's also shown to the creator's own followers. Does it feel like an ad or not?"

Overall, the value of exposure is for each creator to decide depending on their individual relationships to social media.

Goetz says, "The way that creators treat their followers is very different. Some of them see their followers as something to be monetized, some see their followers as their friends, and some of them just like having the attention."