Today, we're pleased to announce the addition of Instagram Partners: a set of experts vetted for excellence and ready to help businesses grow on Instagram. We created Instagram Partners to make it easier for advertisers of all sizes to find the best-in-class technology partners they need to get great results on our platform.

Our partners complement Instagram's marketing tools, simplifying and scaling success for businesses through their proprietary tools. We're starting the programme with 40 partners who are ready to power businesses around the globe in three key areas of expertise on Instagram: 1) advert tech, 2) community management and 3) content marketing.

1. Advert tech: Advertisers can easily manage adverts throughout the planning, buying and optimising process

2. Community management: Marketers can better interact and understand the Instagram community

3. Content marketing: Businesses can quickly create, curate and source content

Our Instagram Partners are already solving business challenges for our business community. In August, House of Blues Entertainment turned to our partners to help sell tickets for an up-and-coming artist playing at its Charlotte, North Carolina, US location. Using Instagram's targeting combined with Instagram Partner CitizenNet's audience modelling, it targeted residents with similar musical tastes during a 13-day campaign. At the end of the campaign, it saw a 64% higher return on investment than its previous benchmark, inspiring it to extend its advertising efforts to more than 40 venues in the US.

In Europe, Instagram partner Smartly.io worked with Hawkers International, a fashion eyewear e-commerce business, to run carousel adverts driving strong results.

And it's not just our business community that benefits from our new partnership. Instagram Partners are growing their own businesses while helping our advertisers grow theirs.

Instagram Partners help solve a wide variety of business challenges, whether it's driving more installs for a new mobile gaming app or driving in-store foot traffic during the festive season. We have partners available to help drive both brand and performance objectives across a wide range of businesses.

For developers interested in building Instagram tools or learning more about the partner programme and its criteria, review our requirements and developer documentation to learn more.

We look forward to seeing our business community work with our Instagram Partners to discover and do great work on Instagram. As our partner programme grows, we'll continue to expand our offerings across even more specialities.