The Real Reason Instagram Is Adding A 'Creator Lab' For Influencers

TikTok is all the rage when it comes to recreating dance numbers, sharing fitness tips, or flaunting wardrobes. It's also one of the fastest growing digital social platforms in the world with what the company announced back in September of 2021 was over 1 billion active users. At the same time, when it comes to social commerce opportunities, Instagram remains to be a preferred (if not the topmost preferred) choice. To empower creators further, Instagram has now announced Creators Lab, a platform where they will learn the skills to establish their brand and grow it in the long term.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram at Meta, announced the addition to the platform through a video on their own Instagram account. In the video, Mosseri says Creator Lab will help creators gather information and learn lessons that they "wish they learned early on in their careers."

The executive says these lessons are equivalent to programing for creators. The lessons cover three broad ambits that will assist creators in finding their unique voice, building a community of loyal followers, and thinking — and realizing — their long-term goals. They said the lab is part of the company's promise made at the beginning of 2022 to help creators grow.

These lessons are created by none other than creators themselves for other creators to assimilate wisdom and attain mastery in the art of creating for a social front. Instagram has developed a dedicated landing page for Creator Lab where creators can watch a plethora of videos arranged in horizontally scrolling carousels and based on themes outlined by Mosseri in their video.

The platform will also aid creators in expanding their earnings from Instagram through more engagements with brands. In the video, Mosseri says these lessons will also help creators "turn their passion into a living long-term."

In its "State of Influencer Marketing 2022" report, influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor projected that Instagram would offer influencer marketing opportunities worth $15.2 billion in 2022. It also "conservatively" estimated the influencer market to grow to $22.2 billion by 2025 owing to factors such as the rise of social commerce, increased use of ad-blocking tools, and the reallocation of budgets from television and offline marketing to online marketing.

Despite the increase in popularity of rival platforms, including TikTok, Instagram provided better opportunities for creators to make a living out of their online presence. In 2021, Facebook (now Meta) added several tools for creators to make money through their Instagram accounts.

Instagram already allows accounts to build online shops to sell their products in online marketplaces.  In 2021, the company also added a native affiliate tool that enables creators to earn commissions directly from Instagram for every product they endorse. To keep things transparent, all posts with affiliate links are also marked with an "eligible for commission" tag on the top.

In addition, Instagram also added options for creators to sell merchandise not only through their business accounts but also through their personal accounts. Instagram also allows influencers to sell their products exclusively on the app to create hype. In addition, Instagram also allows creators to feature "Drops" (via TechCrunch) and generate buzz about upcoming products a few days or weeks before their launch. 

With all of these features for commerce, and lessons for creators through this new initiative, Instagram might be able to drive back and retain creators on its platform as TikTok expands tools that help users reward and gift creators for their entertaining videos.