Instagram expands creator marketplace for brand agencies

Instagram now allows brands to easily find and work with creators on third-party marketing platforms by extending API access to parts of its creator marketplace.

The creator marketplace of Instagram, which was launched in July last year to assist brands in finding and collaborating with creators for partnerships and campaigns, is now being extended to brand agencies.

The company is testing two new APIs with a small group of creator marketing partners, namely Aspire, Captiv8, and CreatorIQ. The first API enables brands to easily contact creators on the creator marketplace through their preferred creator marketing platform. The second API allows brands to post structured project briefs to the creator marketplace directly from a third party.

In addition, Instagram is also experimenting with providing brand agencies with exclusive access to the creator marketplace. Selected partners such as Influential, WPromote, Rickhouse Media, Power Digital, Dentsu, OMG, and Brkfst are currently testing this feature. Agencies with access to the creator marketplace will have the ability to filter creators based on factors such as gender, age, number of followers, and interests.

They can also filter creators based on the demographics of their engaged audience, such as gender, age, interests, country, and city. Furthermore, agencies can communicate directly with creators through their partnership messages folders and publish discoverable projects for eligible creators to apply for.

In a blog post, Instagram stated that it is introducing new methods to discover and connect with Instagram creators by expanding access to brand agencies and testing integrations with leading creator marketing platforms. The company aims to complement and enhance the existing third-party ecosystem of agencies and platforms that already assist creators and brands in forming partnerships.

TikTok's Creator Marketplace, the video app's in-house influencer marketing platform, has a similar concept to Instagram's marketplace for creators. TikTok's Creator Marketplace allows brands to find the top TikTok personalities for their marketing campaigns, which is consistent with Instagram's marketplace's objective.