(Update on November 14, 2021 at 9:00AM PT: This blog post was published in 2019. For up-to-date information about reaching your audience on Instagram, learn more about creating captivating ads on Instagram.)

Branded content is an evolving ecosystem. As we've worked to build the right tools for both businesses and creators involved in branded content deals, one of the biggest requests we received from brands was the ability to incorporate branded content posts into their advertising strategies. Now, advertisers have the ability to promote creators' organic branded content posts as feed and stories ads.

68% of people say they come to Instagram to interact with creators. With Branded Content ads, businesses have an opportunity to tell their brand stories through creators' voices, reach new audiences and measure impact. Using the tools available on the Facebook ads platform, businesses can reach targeted audiences beyond the people who follow the brand and creator accounts. And by running ads, they'll have access to measurement and can optimize and test their campaigns against their set goals for more effective marketing campaigns. When these ads appear in feed and stories, people will see “Paid partnership with” along with the brand name on each post—which is very important for ads transparency.

There are 2 main steps for creating Branded Content ads. First, branded content creators need to enable their business partners to promote their post or story as an ad, which they can do in Advanced Settings. Once they do this, the business partner will see the post on Ads Manager under Existing Posts and can choose to run it as an ad in feed or stories format.

Step-by-step instructions for both businesses and creators are available here.

Branded Content feed ads are currently available to all advertisers, and Branded Content story ads will be available globally in the coming weeks. This is just the beginning and we'll continue to invest in branded content to provide even more value for people, creators and businesses.