The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday that the company will build new features starting with Instagram for content creators to earn money from recommending products on the app and a marketplace to help connect brands with influencers.
While speaking with Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook-owned Instagram, during a livestreamed video, Zuckerberg also said the social network will launch “creator shops” as part of the e-commerce push.
The announcements are part of Facebook’s effort to serve the “creator economy,” in which social media influencers, journalists and others are earning money directly from their fans on platforms, including Clubhouse, Patreon, Substack and YouTube.
Facebook will build an affiliate program that will let creators earn a cut of sales from the products they recommend, Zuckerberg said.
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A Facebook spokeswoman declined to say how much creators will earn or the timeline to roll out the features.
The new marketplace to connect creators with brands will help more users with mid-sized followings earn money, Mosseri said. A growing concern in the creator economy is income disparity, where top social media personalities often garner outsized earnings, but smaller creators can struggle to make a living.
“If we can help with matchmaking, we can help drive more dollars to the smaller creators who can do amazing work for brands,” Mosseri said.
The announcements are another effort to catch up with the popular short-form video app TikTok, which has tested e-commerce features like live-streamed shopping. Last year, Instagram launched a direct competitor to TikTok, called Reels.
Facebook said last month it would let creators earn ad revenue from videos as short as one minute, and expand its ‘Stars’ virtual currency, which people can give out as a form of tipping to their favourite content creators.
By Sheila Dang and Elizabeth Culliford; Editor: Aurora Ellis
Zero10 offers digital solutions through AR mirrors, leveraged in-store and in window displays, to brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Coach. Co-founder and CEO George Yashin discusses the latest advancements in AR and how fashion companies can leverage the technology to boost consumer experiences via retail touchpoints and brand experiences.
Four years ago, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the US, its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. worked out a preliminary deal to sell the short video app’s business. Not this time.
Brands are using them for design tasks, in their marketing, on their e-commerce sites and in augmented-reality experiences such as virtual try-on, with more applications still emerging.
Brands including LVMH’s Fred, TAG Heuer and Prada, whose lab-grown diamond supplier Snow speaks for the first time, have all unveiled products with man-made stones as they look to technology for new creative possibilities.