Branded content was one of the first forms of television marketing when soap operas were created and sponsored by brands in the 1930s. It evolved to product placement and sponsorships across TV and radio, and now includes digital editorial content that highlights a marketer’s product or service.
On Facebook, we define branded content as any post—including text, photos, videos, Instant Articles, links, 360 videos and Live videos—from media companies, celebrities or other influencers that features a third party product, brand or sponsor.
Today we’re updating our policies so publishers and influencers with verified Pages can collaborate with marketers to share branded content on Facebook through ads or organic posts. We’re also launching a new tool that makes collaboration on branded content easy and gives marketers more visibility into and control over all their efforts on Facebook.
Updated branded content guidelines
Our Pages terms and Ads Policy now allow certain types of branded content on Facebook and require publishers and influencers to tag the marketer in the post to make it clear that the post is branded content. For example, a juice brand may work with a parenting blogger to have their brand or product mentioned in a post on Facebook, or a car manufacturer and a sports network may create a collaborative post aimed at sports fans about the car. Publishers and influencers remain responsible for understanding their legal obligations to indicate the commercial nature of content they post.