Influencers Sound Off About Facebook’s New Branded Content Policy

Brands have looked to influencers on social media platforms to grow their audience and improve sales. However, Facebook has put its foot down with a new policy.

Facebook’s recent changes to its branded content policy has made influencers uncomfortable: “Don’t accept anything of value to post content that you did not create or were not involved in the creation of, or that does not feature you.”

Facebook requires influencers to use a page for branded content versus their personal accounts. Roughly three-quarters of influencers get paid directly by the brands that they promote, which means that Facebook never sees a dime. Considering Facebook has been missing out on revenue, it is actually surprising it waited this long to make the changes.

Gary Lipovetsky, CEO of Provider, isn’t too concerned with the new policy, though. He believes that if an influencer adds a paragraph-length description or caption to the post, it satisfies Facebook’s requirements. He also added, “I understand why Facebook is doing it. Their mandate is to continuously improve the user experience on their platform. I actually believe this is going to improve pages’ organic reach.”

According to a study by Mavrck, “User-generated content featuring a brand drove 6.9x higher engagement than…