I’m so excited to announce that over 2 weeks ago I got invited to the first ever Instagram Creator week and a bunch of us got handpicked to join the online event.
Instagram is hosting it’s first ever Creator Week. This is an Invitation-Only Series of Events.
If you didn’t get a chance to participate don’t worry, I will give you all the important info you may need to not miss out on major announcements, growth strategies and monetization.
What is Instagram Creator week?
Instagram Creator week is a professional development programme whose goal is to help you optimise your Instagram follower growth, monetize from your account, learn how to create your own Merch and even break into the entertainment industry.
How can I join Instagram Creator week?
Unfortunately, Instagram Creator Week is an invitation only event.
However, luckily Instagram will make selected content publicly available on their @creators profile. As well as including a recap series called the “Rundown”.
When is the Instagram creator series taking place?
The first ever Instagram Creator week runs from the 9th of June till the 11th.
This event will be hosted once a year.
How long does it last?
Instagram Creator week lasts 3 days.
Where is it happening?
The Instagram Creator week is held virtually in order to maximise safety measures.
Which countries host this event?
The USA, France and Europe will be hosting this virtual event as part of the Instagram global programme.
What is the goal of the Creators programme?
Creator week aims at giving us, “the creators” the answers we often search right from the source.
They give us an insight into really stepping it up to make a living from Instagram.
Instagram’s VP global partnerships Charles Porch wants to help us creators grow our community, grow our businesses and even make money through the app.
What do the Instagram virtual sessions offer?
The Creator week will include sessions on:
- Raising money for non profits
- How to Break Into the entertainment industry
- How to Start a podcast
- A panel of industry executives gives you the inside secrets to get discovered on Instagram.
- Fund my Merch Line, an opportunity for creators to get funding if their idea wins their attention.
- Product news announcements and appearances.
- Appearances by top Facebook and Instagram executives such as Mark Zuckerberg, Karina Newton and Adam Mosseri.
- How to use Instagram’s Reels, Stories, Feed, Live and IGTV to grow your follower base or business.
- How to deal with burn out and maintaining your wellbeing.
- Connecting with our peers.
The Instagram insider digital magazine
Instagram has recently launched the “Instagram insider” digital magazine which is an 8 page spread.
It offers you the benefit of reading:
- Creator interviews
- Expert trips
- Creators to follow
- Trend predictions
- Interviews with IG stars
- How IG recommends people
- Building a presence
If you are serious about your Instagram this is a great place to start reading from.
With Creator week kicking off, the second edition has been released. This offers “algorithm myth busting” from Instagram itself which is truly insightful if you want to level up!
First edition of the Instagram insider
Second edition of the Instagram insider
Day 1 Wrap up
I’m rounding up all the useful and interesting information I gathered on day 1 of the Instagram event.
Kickoff: The Future of Instagram
Day one was truly exciting because THE Mark Zuckerberg announced what’s in the cards for the future of Instagram.
He expressed that Instagram’s goals were to express creativity and make it the best platform for monitization.
Yes, you heard it right! We will be able to make a living through the platform.
But the real question is how?
Zuckerberg explained that there will be:
- An affiliate tool which will allow influencers to share the product and earn affiliate commission.
- Add a shop to your profile, will set you up with the tools you need on your profile to sell your own products.
- Link to merchandise partners and create actual Merch if your idea is selected.
- Earn cash from badges for reaching particular milestones.
I was floored! Instagram was announcing monitization features.
Then Adam Mosseri mentioned through his live with YouTube star JoJo Siwa that the two important groups he focuses on are:
- The young
- Creators
Their future plans include a parental controlled Instagram for kids, which would set a safe environment for kids to be able to share and create.
This was very contraversial but the reasoning behind it makes sense, you generally have the underage kids inputing a false date of birth to join and then join the adult Instagram which may offer inappropriate content for their age range.
So the best alternative was to create one for kids specifically.
Algorithm Myth-Busting
Algorithm myth busting was enlightening and added to what I had already mentioned in one of my most popular Instagram growth posts.
There were some points I wanted to share that you may find useful though:
- Karina Newton, the head of policy at Instagram highlighted to follow the community guidelines to avoid you being “not recommended” or your content removed.
- The system can make mistakes and everyone has the feature to appeal Instagram’s decision, which will be reviewed.
- The shadowban is a myth and comes instead as a non recommendation system or take down of content.
- The algorithm assesses that you use all the different IG features, like comments, answer comments and actually interact with your community. Based on this your page could really grow.
- Engagement groups are a big NO.
- Authenticity is the name of the game on instagram.
- The biggest hack is engaging with those who like you and your content.
I really like how much emphasis they put into mental well-being and being equally inclusive.
Then they tackled handling Burnout with @BodyPosiPanda, headspace Creativity Meditation and how to make change and make ch$nge with @TanyaCompas and @GinaMartin.
Day 2 Wrap up
Day two was led by @Xtinaokenla which provided an invigorating body workout. A great way to kick start your day.
The biggest lessons I want to share are:
From getting products to getting paid
Kristie Dash from the Beauty and fashion partnerships team lead a talk on “from getting products to getting paid”.
It’s important to create an elevator pitch to send over to brands whereby you:
- Introduce yourself
- Tell them why you love the brand
- Ask them for a pr contact so you can let them know more about you
The ways to get noticed mentioned were:
- Creating organic posts loving their brand
- Tagging them in your posts
- Creating content which resonates with their aesthetics but with your flare
Setting your rates tips included:
- Using social blue book for rates as a baseline. Then work on adding more onto your rates if you have something more to offer.
- Oversell yourself and then go down but never undersell yourself.
In terms of management relationships, these have to be mutually beneficial not just suited to the pr company getting you work.
It’s important to send out engagement analytics as you will know what resonates with those who advertise with you and your audience.
Continue to create content to ensure the longevity of the partnership.
It’s important to have a media kit as:
- It is a great intro to brands and agencies
- It gets you to introduce yourself
- It showcases the work you are proud of
- It can show further categories tailored to the brand you want to work with.
Media 101
Media 101 explored the world of press and how to get noticed.
This great segment featured Kaya Yurieff Clay, Darian Symone’ Harvin, Sandra song and Fana Yohannes.
The interesting take away from industry experts were:
- Being unique
- Know yourself and what you want to communicate.
- Having that flare that resonates with the current climate and a vast audience.
- Reaserch journalistic integrity
- Find out the preferred method of contact
- Don’t come across as entitled
- The journalist will decide what they want to cover
Special appearances
Sweetie, 50 cent and even Jameela Jamil joined the event with some great advice:
- Make sure you do a background check on those you collaborate with.
- Produce content and then be consistent putting more work out.
- The importance of Instagram’s safe environment policies and wellbeing.
How to turn your ideas into real life products
This was a course in merchandising hosted by Aditi of the Instagram shopping partnership team.
The creator should focus on the creating process and take baby steps in this area of expertise.
Make sure that you use all the tools at your disposal, research and focus on quality.
People want to see the process start slowly and level up accordingly.
The biggest takeaway was that your Community will be the best at showing you what resonates with them.
The marketing exec Les Green of @springforcreators gave very insightful information to create your own Merch.
Les Green suggested that there’s a huge shift in creator branding at the moment.
Instagram and Spring allow everyone to get started and launch their own products on Instagram and their own Merch Line.
They also got 3 influencers to win their own Merch lines.
Reels
They also really went into reels and I can’t wait to share everything I’ve learnt about reels in my next post.
Day 3 Wrap up
Day 3 was packed with an outstanding amount of great info.
Here are the great insights on this last day of this Instagram professional development event.
Money Talks with @SevenSixAgency
Charlotte Williams lead the talk on money Talks, for those who don’t know, she is the founder of Seven six agency.
This agency focuses on authenticity and inclusivity.
You can sign up to their influencer network which is free to join. This can be a great staring point to unleash your earning potential.
She provided key information for Creators and working around the awkwardness of starting.
To summarise her advice on pitching yourself to brands:
- Know your worth
- Make an impact
- You could mention how you are a customer and wear their products. Then show them the insights of that content you produced.
- Convince them through your actual professionalism.
- Create Media kits, case studies and rate cards.
For those that don’t know:
Rate cards are pricing details for each different Instagram sharing feature (IGTV, Reels, video, story, croos platform).
Media kits are summary cards of your demographics, engagement rates and statistics.
Case studies are examples of your work, clicks information, impressions info and organic work such as affiliate work.
She mentions that there are different types of creators:
- Sales generators
- Aesthetic creators
- Those that generate brand awareness
You have to know how the industry works and know their objectives. So do your research on the brand.
The higher your engagement rate, the more money you can make.
She also went into the specifics of how the campaign process works step by step, how much you get paid per follower count, affiliate marketing and the importance of ASA AD guidelines.
She mentioned also using creator studio for instagram through Facebook to manage cross platform engagement.
Adam Mosseri and IG growth
You are not going to want to miss this part as Adam Mosseri layed it right out for us, no myths, no confusion, straight up must have Instagram growth information.
Growth restrictions on Instagram
Adam Mosseri couldn’t guarantee reach as there is a lot of competition, it’s dependant on what interests people and has seasonal changes.
Growing is tailored and dependant on your audience.
He suggested trying new things and seeing what resonates with your audience.
Incorporate the use of hashtags, video content, stories and feed posts. But he stated that there is no silver bullet.
Karen Cheng mentioned reels is a great way to grow but isn’t rolled out internationally. Mosseri mentions that music rights are difficult to attain for the international rollout of reels which they are working on.
Getting verified
They try to verify people who get impersonated.
You can apply directly on the app.
They mostly look for notoriety, if the press has written about you and is more inclusive.
He suggests pitching to reporters to get press coverage to then be verified.
New monitazation features
A whole suite of creator tools are there to help you make a living such as:
- Commerce, affiliate marketing and Merch.
- Paying creators directly, subscriptions and badges.
- Revenue share on video in short form video.
Real vs Fake followers
Fake followers are a major issue! They can hack your account this way.
Instagram has become better at tracking it and this will get you removed from IG.
Instagram vs Tiktok
Tiktok is great at making people visible and they have more experience.
Instagram is getting better but have a long way to go. However Instagram has a unique suite of products and global reach with you as the creator in mind.
Racial bias and discrimination
Algorithm bias is an issue but IG is tackling harassment and creating tools that prevent this behaviour such as:
- Restricting accounts
- Hidden words feature
Breaking into Entertainment
This section gave me insight on how to brake into the entertainment industry.
They look for engagement and followers across all platforms.
When you want to break into the industry they also look for:
- A Unique flare
- A driven individual
- Consistency
- The X factor
- Personality
- A hard worker
On the back of the right management they can mould your growth and build your brand equity.
It’s incredibly important also to be consistent at producing content.
With Instagram you have a lot of creative control and this is a bonus.
How to Get PODcasted
They also had a segment on how to start a podcast.
The advice included:
- Building an audience as a creator was the key
- Time commitment
- Engaging with your audience
- Ask people to mention you as ads are not cost effective
Reel us in
This was so useful and included how to pitch to brands and what they need to see.
- Do your research
- Come ready with a plan
- Incorporate the brand into your content
- Try to meet the brand directly
- Leave room for the brand to contribute
- Know how to explain your idea in 2 sentences
Ways to continue a partnership:
- Keep to the agreed schedule
- Over communication is appreciated with updates
- Create solutions to possible issues.
They also had a Reel us in Challenge: where 3 known influencer were pitching an idea for an IGTV series that resonated with their audience. They all three got a partnership series with Instagram.
Final verdict
Knowing your value is something that was really highlighted in the whole 3 day course.
Another factor that was also emphasised was the amount of determination, consistency and hard work that you need to put into being a creator.
Remember how important it is to engage with your community and form bonds.
That’s what they truly value as well as your authentic flare and capability to captivate your audience.
I really took away a lot from the Instagram Creator week. It’s been a priceless experience if you truly want to learn what to do to make actual money on the platform and knowing how it actually works directly from them and not as word of mouth.
Not only that, but it was truly insightful hearing from the industry experts on how it all works and how to achieve our dreams.
Knowledge is power and the amount of knowledge shared was truly priceless.
Never give up on your dreams and keep persevering. Never let anyone say no or determine your worth. Through hard work you can achieve anything.
What did you think of this event? Let me know below in the comment section.
If you enjoyed this post why not check out my free Instagram highlight covers post.
*all of the pictures above are from the event and from Instagram
