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What Is Influencer Whitelisting? An Underutilized Tool Explained

Want to understand influencer whitelisting and learn how to use it like a pro? This post has you covered! Learn why you should be using this underrated marketing tactic to get in front of a bigger, more targeted audience. 🎯

Sarah Wisbey
March 15, 2024
|
8 min. read
Article Content
What is influencer whitelisting in social media?
What does a whitelisted social media post look like? 
Is there a difference between influencer whitelisting and paid partnerships? 
If an influencer creates content for your ads is it whitelisting? 
What is the difference between whitelisting and dark posting?
Why should brands use influencer whitelisting?
Pros and cons of whitelisting campaigns for brands
Pros and cons of whitelisting for an influencer
How do you access an influencer's Facebook or Instagram profile for whitelisting?
How to get access to an influencer's TikTok profile for whitelisting
THE Easiest way to get access to influencers' accounts for whitelisting

With 71% of consumers saying they prefer seeing personalized ads to generic branded ads, it's never been more important to tailor your ads for your audience. A popular way to do this is with influencer whitelisting. 

In this post, you'll learn everything you need to know about influencer whitelisting and how to use it effectively. You'll also get an understanding of the pros and cons of influencer whitelisting for both brands and influencers.   

Prefer a video? Here you go!

What is influencer whitelisting in social media?

Influencer whitelisting is when an influencer gives a brand access and permissions to use their social media profiles to boost their organic content or run paid ads from their profile.

If you are an influencer and whitelist a brand, you grant the brand access to your Facebook profile, Instagram handle, TikTok account or any other social media for advertising. The brand can then advertise to your audience directly via your account.

The brand may choose to boost existing content you created for them, or create completely new posts to share on your profile. Whitelisting makes the user experience more seamless because the influencer can still share authentic content that will resonate with their audience, while the brand maintains control over who the sees the post.

What does a whitelisted social media post look like? 

The goal of a whitelisted post is not to look like an ad, you want it to blend in as much as possible with the influencer's existing content.

A whitelisted post may look something like this:

influencer whitelisting example

In this post, the influencer explains how the product benefits her daily life and why she uses it. The post is still marked as an ad but is much more subtle than a brand shouting at you directly about how great their product is.

As a user, instead of seeing a paid ad directly from the brand popping up in your feed, you'll see someone you chose to follow sharing a product they think you may be interested in, using the content style you're used to seeing from them.

On this profile, 4 of the posts in the feed are ads, can you tell which ones? 

Influencer Whitelisting Examples

Probably not! The sponsored content blends in seamlessly with the organic content which is the ultimate goal of whitelisting.

Is there a difference between influencer whitelisting and paid partnerships? 

Ultimately, yes! The conventional way influencer marketing works is that the influencer is in control of running a paid partnership or posting sponsored content for brands on their Facebook and Instagram or TikTok profile or YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter etc.

When influencers post content they've been paid for, or a product they received for free, they have to declare the partnership or use the #ad #sponsored or #gifted hashtags. 

Some countries require by law that paid social media posts are declared. You can learn more about Facebook and Instagram's branded content policies here.

With traditional sponsored influencer content, typically you'll notice at the top of the post, the influencers tags the partnership, like this:

 

Influencer paid partnership example

If the influencer has complete control over the audience who sees this post, and the metrics of the post's performance, this ISN'T whitelisting.

Simply running paid partnerships with an influencer isn't whitelisting. Why? Because with these types of influencer ads, the brand has zero visibility over the campaign metrics and fully rely on the influencer's reporting to understand performance.

If an influencer creates content for your ads is it whitelisting? 

If you ask an influencer to create ads for your brand's sponsored posts, this also isn't whitelisting.

Here's an example of a brand using influencer generated content for their sponsored posts:

Brand using influencer for sponsored post

If the brand posts influencer created content to their own profile, they have zero visibility on the influencer's audience or lookalike audiences which defeats the whole point of whitelisting content! 

When you whitelist content, you want access to a larger audience via the influencer. In the above example, it will only be Zapier's existing audience who sees the post and maybe a few people from the influencer's audience if he decides to share it to his profile too.

What is the difference between whitelisting and dark posting?

When you create a dark post, it means you're running ads using an influencer's social media handle. These posts don't show up on the influencer's feed, but only on the news feed of people specifically targeted. Creating dark posts is part of an effective whitelisting strategy because the brand gets access to the influencer's audience.

All the influencer's followers won't see the post, they will only see it if they're in the target audience segment. 

The great thing about dark posts is that a brand can A/B test different variations without filling up the influencer's feed. They can use the influencer audience data to target different versions of the post to different audiences, they can experiment with calls to action and creatives to understand what gets the most engagement.

Dark posts are an excellent way for brands to use an influencer's credibility without relying on organic feed posts. Organic content only ever reaches the feed of about 5.5% of someone's followers. Putting money behind dark posts guarantees more people will see them. 

Here's an example of a dark post (check out those view numbers): 

Example of influencer whitelisting post

This is a sponsored post for a tablet brand which is being advertised under the influencer's Instagram handle. It only appears on the Instagram user's timeline and not on the influencer's profile :

Whitelisted influencer profile

Why should brands use influencer whitelisting?

Nearly 50% of consumers have made a purchase based on an influencer's recommendation. 

More than 60% of social media users engage with sponsored posts. Don't underestimate influencers' power to persuade their audience into buying something. 

With 62% of social media users saying that they trust social media influencers more than celebrities, micro and nano influencers (influencers with a following up to 50k) have become the voice of authority among social media users with purchasing power.  

Brands can use influencer whitelisting for three primary purposes:

  • To get in front of wider, custom audiences
  • To A/B test different post types and use lookalike audiences
  • Scale their influencer ads with full access to metrics

Pros and cons of whitelisting campaigns for a brand

Influencer whitelisting is one of the best ways for brands to maximise their ROI on ad spend and scale influencer marketing campaigns. 

When you work with the right influencers you can amplify your brand voice and get far more engagement and conversions than you would with a sponsored brand post. 

Here are some of the reasons you should be using influencer whitelisting:

Pros of influencer whitelisting for a brand

  • You can reach potential new customers and advertise directly to an influencer's audience 
  • People trust posts from influencer handles more than from brand handles 
  • You can easily measure and calculate ROI using Facebook Business Manager/ Meta Business Suite (it's tough to track ROI with paid posts)
  • Get full funnel visibility 
  • You can create new lookalike audiences for future advertising based on the data from the influencer account
  • Whitelisted content has a much longer lifespan than sponsored content that appears on an influencer's organic feed
  • You can continuously A/B test whitelisted content (make tweaks to CTAs, change the copy, images or even target an entirely new audience)
  • Increase engagement on your sponsored content and your ad spend ROI 

Cons of influencer whitelisting for a brand

  • Influencers may not be reliable partners and can stop your ads at any point
  • Coming to a mutual agreement about content to post can be tedious 
  • Approval flows, and access requirements can make the process more complicated than running sponsored ads from your brand account
  • Influencers tend to charge more for whitelisting than they do for generic #sponcon

How much does it cost to whitelist an influencer?

The amount the influencer charges the brand for whitelisting content depends on the number of followers they have. As a general rule, the more followers, the higher their price.

You can figure out a fair price to pay the influencer based on the cost per impression. How many times do you want your ad to be shown to the influencer's audience? Based on the audience size, you could do a calculation like this: 

(Cost per impression / 1000) x number of followers

So if someone has 100,000 followers and the cost per impression is $10, you would need to pay $1000 to reach everyone in the audience at least once. Multiple this number by the minimum number of times you want each audience member to see your ad and you have your budget for whitelisting influencers.

Pros and cons of whitelisting for an influencer

If you're an influencer, there are many pros to allowing a brand to whitelist your profile, as well as a few cons:

Pros of whitelisting for an influencer

  • You can capitalise on a brands ad spend and capture a wider audience
  • The brand will advertise to your audience AND their audience, which means your profile will be put in front of more people
  • You’ll experience growth in followers and page/profile likes 
  • It's another revenue channel for you - you can charge a flat fee or percentage per post
  • You don’t have to do anything except create the content - the brand does all the work (creating, running and optimising the ads)  

Cons of whitelisting for an influencer 

  • If you allow a brand to take control of your advertising, you lose some control over what's shared under your handle
  • You share your audience you've spent a long time building (and getting trust from) with the brand 

Tips for influencers working with brands for whitelisting

As an influencer, be aware of a few things before you let a brand loose with your social media handles! Use these tips to avoid any whitelisting mistakes: 

  • Get clear outlines of the type of content the brand wants to share
  • Create a contract before giving the brand ad permissions
  • Provide brand guidelines for your account (tone of voice, visual guidelines)
  • Set up clear rules in advance so they don't violate your community guidelines
  • Put approval flows in place, so posts can only go live if you're happy  

How do I set up an influencer whitelist on Facebook and Instagram?

In order to create whitelisted posts on Facebook and Instagram, a brand needs access to the influencer's Facebook Business Manager or Meta Business Suite. 

First, you need to make sure the influencer's Facebook and Instagram accounts are linked.  Before the brand can start pushing out ads under the influencer's handle, the influencer needs to grant advertising permissions for Facebook and Instagram 

Via Facebook, this can be a highly complex process, especially if the influencer isn't well versed with Business Manager. 

You can learn the step-by-step process to request access to Facebook and Instagram ads in this post

How can brands get access to an influencer's TikTok profile for whitelisting?

For TikTok, getting access to influencer profiles for whitelisting is a little easier. Creators can provide whitelisting access to brands directly from the TikTok app.

They need to ensure the post is authorised for promotion and then need to provide the brand with an authorisation code. 

On TikTok, brands can put money behind influencers' content, and it won't even seem like an ad. Sponsored content that appears organic performs exceptionally well on TikTok. 

How do you access an influencer's Facebook or Instagram profile for whitelisting? THE easiest way....

Luckily for you, Leadsie has made it easier than ever for influencers to give whitelisting rights to brands. 

If you're a brand or agency, you can use your Leadsie account to generate an access request link.

You send the link to the influencer; they sign into their Business Manager account and choose which assets they want to give you access to. 

It's as simple as that! You get access to the influencer's account in no more than 2 clicks:

how to use Leadsie

Want to simplify getting access to influencer accounts and start whitelisting asap? Sign up for a free 14-day trial by entering your email below! 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Wisbey

Sarah is a pro at writing articles that accelerate SaaS businesses' organic growth. When she’s not caught up in the thrill of content writing, you’ll find her surfing in the Atlantic Ocean and running her own yoga retreats.