Instagram wants to show more transparency with paid posts

From colorful vacation photos, mouth-watering food recipes to designer clothes, and accessories, Instagram posts are quite interesting and appealing to look at. But many times, most of such posts are paid ads. Popular influencers and celebrities are paid to promote advertisers’ products, without disclosing that they are pushing an advertiser's products.

Hence, to provide more transparency, Facebook-owned Instagram will be rolling out a "paid partnership with" feature, which will be available for both Instagram posts and Stories.

"It's important to ensure the community is able to easily recognize when someone they follow is paid to post content," the company said in a blog post. "Not only is this level of transparency beneficial for our community, but it also gives creators and businesses the ability to track and share insights around a partnered post."

The new feature will highlight a label, making it easier for users to explicitly identify which posts are sponsored. Instagram says the new tool will also give both creators and sponsors access to more info on how the posts perform.

The company is currently testing the feature with “a small number of creators and businesses” on the paid partnership tags. And you can access the feature only through a business profile.

The latest move comes after US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) set out about 100 letters to celebrity Instagram “influencers” to be more transparent with their sponsored posts, to “clearly and conspicuously” disclose the commercial relationship.

According to Instagram, the new “paid partnership with” tool will let creators quickly tag the business they have a relationship with. “Partnerships between community creators and businesses are an important part of the Instagram experience, and a healthy community should be open and consistent about paid partnerships,” the company said.

The feature is expected to be rolled out within next few weeks.