The value of content collaboration on Instagram

How much exposure do small creators gain from an Instagram collaborative post with big brands? Are the followers enough without monetary compensation?

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 hand selected 260 of the largest brand accounts on Instagram alongside small creators they collaborated with. 

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

But how many 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.

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 collaborative exposure demonstrated "the same magnitude as the click-through rate of digital advertising." 

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."

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 may have less to do with exposure and more to do with the quality and content of that specific collaboration post. 

"Maybe it's just a better post than what the creator usually does," Goetz says.

Goetz accounts for this by using a large language model to describe the visual content of each post. This visual content is then translated into numerical embeddings.

Goetz explains, "It's a way of allowing the computer to basically understand the content of a post by taking it from a language space 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. 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."