Instagram adds new features to its creator marketplace, expands access to brand agencies

Instagram announced today that it’s extending access to parts of its creator marketplace via API to make it easier for brands to discover and work with creators on the third party creator marketing platform they already use. The company is also expanding creator marketplace access to brand agencies.

The social network launched its creator marketplace last July as a hub designed to help brands discover and reach out to creators about partnerships and campaigns.

The first new API will allow brands to easily reach creators in a priority inbox on the creator marketplace through their preferred creator marketing platform. The second API will allow brands to publish structured project briefs to the creator marketplace straight from a third party. Instagram is testing these APIs with a small cohort of creator marketing partners, including Aspire, Captiv8 and CreatorIQ.

The company is also testing dedicated access to the creator marketplace for brand agencies to let them manage creator discovery and collaborations on behalf of their brand clients. Instagram is testing this access with select partners, including Influential, WPromote, Rickhouse Media, Power Digital, Dentsu, OMG and Brkfst.

As part of this expansion, agencies will have access to filter creators by gender, age, number of followers and interests. Agencies will also be able to filter for creators based on the demographics of their engaged audience, such as gender, age, interests, country and city. In addition, agencies can send messages directly to creators’ dedicated partnership messages folders and publish discoverable projects that eligible creators can apply to.

“Today, we’re announcing new ways to discover and reach Instagram creators by expanding access to brand agencies and testing integrations with top creator marketing platforms,”the company wrote in a blog post. “With these updates, our goal is to complement and help evolve the robust third party ecosystem of agencies and platforms already helping creators and brands form partnerships.”

Instagram’s take on its marketplace for creators is similar to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, which is the video app’s in-house influencer marketing platform. TikTok’s Creator Marketplace allows brands to discover top TikTok personalities for their marketing campaigns, which is similar to Instagram’s goal with its marketplace.