Sponsored post, also known as a promoted post, is a post to any community-driven notification-oriented website which is explicitly sponsored as an advertisement by a particular company in order to draw a large amount of popularity through
user promotion and moderation to the most active or most viewed page on the website. The model has become adopted by various ad-supported but community-driven websites as an addition, substitute or replacement of other
pay-per-click
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked.
Pay-per-click is usually ...
advertisement formats, such as
web banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking ...
s, text and
rich media
Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, moving image, animation, video and audio. Since its early conception, various f ...
. Sites and services which utilize sponsored posts include
Digg
Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launch ...
,
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
,
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, and
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
.
Specifically referring to context of blogs, "sponsored posts" were defined by Mutum and Wang (2010) as "promoted blog entries or posts that contain links that point to the home page or specific product pages of the website of the sponsor for which the blogger receives compensation in the form of money, products, services or in other ways". They are also known as paid posts or sponsored reviews.
Sponsored posts can also serve as a means of curtailing the possibility of companies paying individuals to moderate a submitted link or media to the front page of the website, which often violates the spirit or letter of a site's
Terms of Service.
Instagram
Instagram Sponsored Posts, also known as "Influencer Marketing"
[Influencer Marketing](_blank)
/ref> in Instagram is a form of promoting a brand or product through popular celebrities or influential people. Particularly in Instagram, accounts with a lot of followers accept payments to have other people's contents featured on their page for the sake of promotion to a larger audience. Sponsored post prices of the top influencers on instagram can command 6-figure fees, with some reaching millions for a single post. This method of advertising became very popular but was done in private through direct transactions rather than through a legitimized medium like Instagram where it can be legally documented. As such the content being marketed is not being regulated very well. The Federal Trade Commission sent over 90 letters to influencers that they need to properly disclose that they are being sponsored by a brand or product.[Federal Trade Commission Letters](_blank)
/ref>
Now, Instagram is seeking to change the transparency of this method of advertising and is launching a new tool for that purpose. Upon the submission of a sponsored post, there will be a visible tag at the top “Paid Partnership With Sponsor Name”. This will allow a more legitimized form of promotion between the influential users of Instagram and the brands willing to get their name out.[Instagram Tool](_blank)
/ref>
After reports began circulating that Instagram shows posts to only a small percentage of users' followers, Instagram released a statement denying it is doing any such thing.
References
[Influencer Marketing](_blank)
/ref>[Federal Trade Commission Letters](_blank)
/ref>[Instagram Tool](_blank)
/ref>
See also
* Gray propaganda
Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience, including another state's govern ...
* Hypertargeting
* Native advertising
Native advertising, also called sponsored content, is a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. In many cases it functions like an advertorial, and manifests as a video, article or editorial. ...
References
{{reflist
Online advertising methods