When Instagram reached out to us, branded and sponsored content was a relatively new phenomenon. Brands were beginning to forego traditional paid ads and were instead paying social media content creators to post about their products. This could be misleading to people using Instagram, as there weren’t the traditional UX indicators showing that the content was paid.

This was new, but it was growing quickly, and it was happening on most social media platforms. Our Design Director, Brittany Noel Taylor, stepped in to consult for Instagram and lead a policymaking initiative centered on legal- and research-informed product policies.

With this in mind, we kicked off this project by mapping the existing branded content landscape. We collated other platforms’ branded content policies and analysed trends and themes. Then, we worked with Instagram’s Partnership Managers to schedule stakeholder roundtables, where we heard directly from both brands and creators about their needs, goals and problems.