An Essential Guide to Whitelisting on Social Media

The influencer marketing industry is booming. According to a recent industry report by HubSpot, influencer marketing was the most popular and effective marketing trend of 2021, and it shows no signs of slowing down just yet. 

With that said, sponsored posts on social media are changing. Brands can now gain more control over the content used to promote their brand by utilizing influencer whitelisting. 

Ever come across whitelisted ads before? Heard of them but not sure how they work? Read on to learn everything you need to know about whitelisting on social media.

What is influencer whitelisting?

Influencer whitelisting enables brands to run paid social media ads from an influencer’s Facebook or Instagram profile. The influencer gives brands they’ve partnered with access to their Ads Manager and grants them advertising permissions. This way, the partner brand can use the influencer’s social handle in their ads, so it appears the message is coming directly from the influencer rather than their brand. The ads will then appear in their followers’ news feeds as a sponsored post. But what are the benefits of this? Let’s take a look…

5 key benefits of whitelisting on social media

Ads feel more genuine

One of the main advantages of whitelisted ads is that they position the influencer as a brand advocate. The fact is, people prefer to buy from people they can relate to over a faceless brand. With influencer whitelisting, the caption is written from the influencer’s perspective, so the message feels more authentic and credible. Plus, as they’ve already earned their followers’ trust, it’s much easier for them to market something new to their audience.

Amplify best-performing posts

Regardless of follower numbers, organic post reach is declining every year. According to Hootsuite, the average reach of an organic Facebook post currently is currently just 5.2%. However, whitelisting on social media allows brands to give posts that are performing well an extra boost by turning the influencer’s original post into a money-backed advertisement. This promotion can significantly increase the post’s reach while targeting the brand’s ideal buyer. Expanding the reach also benefits the influencer as they’re getting seen by new people too.

More control over the content

With the right whitelisting permissions, you can adapt influencer posts to suit your brand as you see fit. The original post copy can be edited slightly (while still retaining the influencer’s voice) and a call to action can be added to encourage conversions. You can even reorder Instagram carousel images if you feel one will work better than another for your audience. Essentially, whitelisted ads can be optimized to improve ROI in several ways. You can also tap into the elements of your own branded ads that work well for your current customers.

Extend the life of influencer content

In addition to boosting posts, another benefit of whitelisted ads is the ability to extend the life of short-lived content. For instance, Instagram Stories only stick around for 24hrs when posted organically. However, with the ability to turn the best ones into sponsored ads, you can decide how long you want to continue promoting them to your target audience. 

Ability to target specific audiences

Finally, with access to your influencer’s Ad Manager and audience data, your brand can create highly targeted ad campaigns. As well as targeting their existing followers, you can create lookalike audiences to reach new leads with the same interests and demographics. You can also carry out A/B testing to find out which format, CTA, and combo of copy and images produce the best results. Results are also fully trackable, unlike traditional influencer marketing, as you can link to your website’s analytics for accurate sales figures.

What is a dark post on social media?

As with regular whitelisting on social media, dark posts enable brands to advertise their products or services directly through the influencer’s social media handles. However, dark posts don’t appear publicly on influencer feeds, brand profiles, or followers’ news feeds unless they’ve been specifically targeted. 

As a result, dark posts are effectively unpublished posts that can’t be found organically on Facebook or Instagram. This allows brands to test a range of different ad formats without cluttering up the influencer’s grid or their follower’s feeds. 

Just bear in mind that these ads should still be created in consultation with the influencer. This is because they will be published under their personal brand, so they need to fit their aesthetic and tone of voice, as well as your brand’s. Otherwise, they may not seem genuine.

How are whitelisted ads different from branded content?

Up until recently, the most common way for influencers to partner with brands was through the branded content tool. Sponsored posts are published on influencers’ feeds and tagged to include a business partner (i.e. their partner brand), with a paid partnership notice at the top. Once your brand approves the partnership, you’ll be able to boost the post by assigning ad spend to it. However, there are some limitations to branded content.

Firstly, your brand won’t be able to edit the influencer’s posts directly. You also won’t be able to tailor the copy or format of the post. Instead, your influencer will be solely responsible for creating the content according to your brief and it might not be exactly what you had in mind. 

On top of that, without access to the back-end of the influencer’s account, you won’t be able to create custom audiences using their data. As a result, it will be more difficult to reach new audiences with traditional branded content. For all of these reasons, dark posting and whitelisting on social media is on the rise.  

How do I whitelist Instagram or Facebook ads?

To get started using whitelisted ads, the influencer you’re partnering with will need to provide access to their Ad account via Facebook Business Manager. If they haven’t got this set up already, your influencer will need to create an account at business.facebook.com using their Facebook login details. 

Once their Facebook profile is linked and they’re signed in, they’ll then need to link their Instagram account. To do this, they’ll need to go to the People and Assets section within Business Manager, then to Instagram and Instagram Accounts. From there, they can sign in and link their account. 

In order for your brand to gain access to their Business Manager and Ad account, there are two options. Either the influencer can assign you as a partner using the business ID number of your brand, or you can request to add them as a partner via your brand’s business manager in the same way. Whichever option you choose, once the request has been accepted, you’ll be able to create whitelisted ads directly through their account.

To do this, you can reuse content that the influencer has already created or collaborate with them to create something new. One of the most popular options is to combine your copy written in their brand voice with their images or videos, to better engage their followers.

Conclusion…

While traditional influencer marketing places responsibility on the influencer, whitelisting is more hands-on for the brand. Not only can you edit and optimize posts with a clickable call to action to boost leads, but you can also access data to help your brand reach new audiences. 

So, if you want to increase brand awareness and gain more creative control over your sponsored content, whitelisting on social media could be a great option for you. 

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