Why People Engage Less With Sponsored Content, and What We Can Do About It
Last week, I had a bit of a paddy about Instagram. For about five seconds I thought about my deleting my account, but mostly I just felt glum after a picture bombed. Usually I’m pretty philosophical when a picture doesn’t do very well, but this one was different because it was sponsored. I’d been paid to do it for a brand, to create content and post it to get them visibility; when the post bombed it wasn’t just my business I was letting down, but someone else’s.
But after I’d calmed down a bit and had a day’s space, I wanted to investigate. I’d had reassuring messages of support telling me that ‘it was just because it was an ad, they never do as well’, but I wanted to know why they don’t do as well. In my darkest hour I felt that the audience I thought I knew didn’t trust, or like, me enough to like my ad. Which is perhaps the most ego-centric thing I’ve ever admitted, especially when you look across the board and see people with generally huge engagement only get a third of their usual rate on ads.
There is a quiet, whispered rumour that something in the algorithm might be picking up on our Ad and Spon declarations and suppressing these posts as a way of encouraging brands to just advertise on the app. If that’s the case, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it and stay within the ASA guidelines. However, there is much more going on here than a mathematical formula. People seemed to be genuinely less engaged with ads, and I was going to investigate - so I posted a series of Stories Polls and encouraged people to DM me with their thoughts and feelings too.
Poll results
Why people don't engage with sponsored content
Before we dig into this, I must first state that these polls are from a relatively small and very unrepresentative sample size. They are my followers, so tend to be people fairly well versed in influencer marketing, and also people who know what they like on Instagram and treat the whole thing very professionally. I’m sure if fashion, parenting, fitness etc. bloggers did this same poll the results would be very varied.
But within my audience (which, if you’re reading this here, is probably similar to yours), the results were as follows:At first glance, it’s pretty depressing. As results started rolling in my Insta-friends and I exchanged ever more harrowing screenshots of the poll results, accompanied by this emoji: 😱. They present a pretty unforgiving view of sponsored content.
Before doing the polls I had assumed that lower engagement on paid content was more of a subconscious thing, and hadn’t expected 70% of my followers to consciously engage less with ads. I certainly hadn’t expected 73% to automatically assume sponsored content is less “authentic” (more on this later). As I watched these numbers, the whole thing started to feel pretty futile.But then came the DMs...
Qualitative results
I encouraged people to message me with any additions or further insights, and I’m glad I did. No poll can tell the full story, certainly not the basic Instagram Stories function, and this subject has many delicate, tissuey shades of grey.First up, the views on the content itself. There’s nothing we technically don’t already know here: people want to feel that sponsored content and ads are genuine and coming from a good place. We all know this, as much as we sometimes let it slide. But actually this goes much deeper, and more granular, than I thought. Here are some examples:
Anonymous:
"There are some bloggers I follow and it really irks me when they do an #ad blog post as it usually has nothing to do with their blog. Those posts I won’t like as I feel they aren’t being true to their blog/grid. It’s got to fit as when it doesn’t it’s jarring but I think this is probably due to laziness on the bloggers part."
"I have mixed feelings. I think it depends on the “influencer”. I tend to find ads or sponsored content from certain celebrities and big influencers less authentic...while I think that smaller businesses tend to care more about what they endorse and I find them more authentic. I really don’t care if a blogger posts sponsored posts as long as they are beautifully done."
"It depends on the prodct and the image. If I like both I may engage more, if I only like one or the other average amount. If I don’t like either less than usual. It depends on the person posting and the amount of control the brand has had."
"I did click that it doesn’t affect my engagement but thinking about it, I might be drawn to not like the pic… depends how subtle and authentic the ad seems. Quite bad and judgemental actually. In the end yes, its, how honest it is."
"I only engage less if they feel inauthentic/are hard to connect with"
"There is one influencer whose aesthetic is lovely, but I constantly felt like I’m being sold to, so I ended up unfollowing her. On the other hand, another Instagrammer does a lot of advertising, but it never feels in your face or disingenuons, so they’re still in my feed."
The word I really think of in all of this is
‘subtlety’
. Ad content must not only fit within your usual style, but perhaps it should be barely perceptible that there is a brand involved at all. The other thing here is value. “I don’t mind as long as it is beautifully done” said Ana, and this is the crux of being a content creator online.
As long as it provides value, it will garner attention
.
While the content was the focus of most of the messages, there were others who mentioned the concept of ads in general:
Anonymous:
"I know most bloggers/Instagrammers only promote things they genuinely get behind and like, but I’m sure sometimes they wouldn’t have endorsed it without being asked to, so that’s often at the back of my mind when I see a sponsored post"
I definitely don’t judge or think badly of them, just that I care about them less you know? Shame as I know when I like the person it’s likely to be something I would like too, but we are strange creatures in how we think aren’t we
"I don’t intend to or disapprove, but generally I engage less. They are just coming from a different place."
I want to add in what I would have replied to my polls, because I think it’s only fair. While I like to think that I engage with every ad I see, I have to be honest and say I fall into the same camp as the three ladies here. I have, unconsciously, scrolled past ads because it was ‘that company’ again, or just an ad, or another sponsored post. Often I like the content (in my heart and with my finger), but it’s unlikely that I comment, or read the caption to the bottom. As I say, it’s only with hindsight I’m realising this, and will try to be less hypocritical.Another interesting fact is that I had a few messages from people who’s main source of income is sponsored posts, and they all engage with other ads without fail.
My analysis
We’ve trained ourselves to disregard ads
This, I think, is the reason for my little bit of hypocrisy. Most of us have been brought up on traditional media, where advertising is interruptive. We all get up to make a cuppa in an ad break or skip over the full page ads in a magazine. The thing with influencer marketing is that, done well (see below), it shouldn’t be interruptive. There’s no need for it to jar with someone’s experience scrolling on Instagram or reading a blog. It has the potential, unlike any other advertising, to enhance an experience. We as content creators, and to be fair the brands, need to make this the focus.
People expect more of us than we imagine
And they’re right to. They are our product. As much as we may like to think it’s our creative flair, really brands are buying access to our followers and their trust in us. We need to be constantly, overly respectful of that trust, because people are quick to feel betrayed. I’ve heard bloggers have a moan about what their followers demand and expect of them (and sometimes that does cross a line), and although we create content for them for free without them we’re nothing. They expect us to continue giving them the value and quality they expect and make them feel good about themselves, not pressured or used. And I think that’s fair enough.
Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder
I think I’m going to have write a whole other post about authenticity, I have a lot of feelings about it! The word authentic came up a lot in the messages, and I’ve heard it a lot on podcasts talking about brand work. So much so that I think that it’s lost its definition and means something different to every person. Someone, well-meaning I think, told me that she thought my collaboration with Victorinox was inauthentic. I’d said in a previous post that we have always used Victorinox products in our kitchen at home, plus I basically had a mental breakdown over a picture because I cared about the campaign so much. I say this, because perhaps her definition of 'authentic' were different to mine. For some people authenticity is in the content of the image, for others its in the intent. I don’t think we’ll be able, now, to match everybody’s standards, so you just have to match your own.
We need to talk openly about the process
Although my audience are generally an understanding and knowledgable type, there were the undercurrents of general mistrust that always come up around bloggers doing this kind of work: “they are just coming from a different place”, “they wouldn’t have endorsed it without being asked to”, “it’s jarring but I think this is probably due to laziness on the bloggers part.”I think we need to be more transparent about the whole process. Why we chose to work with a brand, why we’re fired up about it, wearing our own brand of authenticity on our sleeve. We need to say if we pitched for a piece of work, or if it landed gleaming and shiny in our inbox. With Instagram Stories, I don’t see why we can’t bring people in more, to make them a part of the whole process.
Brands need to catch up
Some brands get it, they get that they’re buying the creativity of the influencer and their knowledge of what their audience loves. Others will still treat briefing an Instagram collaboration like they’re commissioning a TV ad or designing their own magazine advertorial. We’ve always known that ads that don’t like look ads do better, but judging by the messages I received our sponsored content needs to be imperceptibly branded in order for it to be impactful. Brands that demand their product or logo be presented in a certain way, slap bang in the middle of frame with nothing distracting from it, are never going to succeed in this space. It’s down to us, in a small way, to push back against this. To counter-propose, to refuse to reshoot, and ultimately, refuse work that has outdated demands.
Our content needs to be exceptional
The content we create for brands needs to be the best thing we’ve ever done. It needs to work harder to earn engagement, it needs to be so valuable that people engage with it almost against their better judgement. It needs to build trust first, inspire second, sell last (I’d argue, if at all). It needs to be created with our audience in mind, with what will light them up, and the product needs to fit in there somehow – and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t get posted. This is the only way that ads will start to earn engagement, and the industry can muster itself up for a new renaissance.
