Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has announced it is testing ‘Subscriptions’, a feature that allows users to offer paid followers access to exclusive content. Already available on Facebook, select Instagram creators in the US were chosen to use the feature, but the company says it has plans to expand access to more users “over the next few months”.
🎉 Subscriptions 🎉
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) January 19, 2022
Subscriptions allow creators to monetize and become closer to their followers through exclusive experiences:
– Subscriber Lives
– Subscriber Stories
– Subscriber Badges
We hope to add more creators to this test in the coming months. More to come. ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/SbFhN2QWMX
“With Instagram Subscriptions, creators can develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits, all within the same platform where they interact with them already,” Instagram said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The feature includes Subscriber Lives, which allows creators to broadcast exclusive Lives to their subscribers; Subscriber Stories, where creators can create stories only for their subscribers; and Subscriber Badges, which lets creators see a subscriber badge next to comments and messages so they can easily identify their subscribers.
“Having subscriptions on Instagram makes building a more intimate relationship with my followers and fans possible. I am so excited to nurture those connections and make a lasting impact that will help keep my work sustainable,” said user @bunnymichael, known for her spiritual posts, with more than 200,000 followers.
Creators can set a variety of monthly prices, ranging from 99 cents to $99 for Subscriptions.
www.thenationalnews.com
Meta said it does not plan to collect fees from creators for the feature, on Facebook or Instagram, ‘until 2023 at the earliest’. The company has also not shared what revenue percentage it would then take, although chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post last year that “it will be less than the 30% that Apple and others take”.
And what happens when you try to screenshot exclusive content?
As I said in the first tweet of this thread, it’s not possible to take a screenshot of #Instagram exclusive stories.
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) July 6, 2021
This is what happens when you try to take it 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/1yi5BlbplG
Follow @itp.live to stay up-to-date on how this feature is beneficial for Influencers!