Characterizing Sponsored Content in Facebook and Instagram

Abstract

In this work we present a comparative analysis of influencer marketing evolution on Facebook and Instagram, spanning the pre and post Covid-19 pandemic onset periods. We collected and characterized a large-scale cross-platform dataset, comprised of 9.5 million sponsored posts. We analyzed the relative growth rates of the number of ads and of user engagement within different topics of interest, such as sports, retail, travel, and politics. We discuss which topics have been most impacted by the onset of the pandemic, both in terms of sponsored content supply and demand. With this work we hope to expand the understanding of influence dynamics on social networks and provide support for the development of more contextualized and effective branding strategies.