Instagram’s looking to highlight some of the top emerging creators in the app, as part of parent company Meta’s ongoing push to establish stronger bonds with the creator community, which, ideally, will see more of them posting more original content to its apps.

Instagram’s latest initiative on this front is its “Creators of Tomorrow” listing, which serves as a showcase for top creators in a range of categories.

As per Instagram:

“The Creators of Tomorrow have been selected for bringing joy, being voices of a movement, using tech innovatively and being culture makers. Most importantly, they raise the game on Instagram by building community, inspiring creativity and being their authentic selves.”

The 20 selected participants in the Creators of Tomorrow program cover four categories:

• IG Besties - Creators who “bring joy” and happiness, like best friends do IRL.
• Raising the Bar – Aspirational creators who inspire their followers to achieve
• Unfiltered Creativity – Experts in creative on IG, who are making innovative use of Instagram-specific tools
• On the Map – “Culture makers” who are starting trends and establishing themselves with their own unique twist on things

There are five representatives in each category, providing an interesting overview of who exactly Instagram is looking to recognize as top platform talent.

What’s especially interesting is that these are obviously the types of creators, and content, that Instagram wants to see more of in the app.

For the “Unfiltered Creativity” segment, that makes perfect sense, as innovative use of Instagram’s tools will help to keep users engaged. But those in the other categories could provide some valuable pointers into what Instagram wants to emphasize in its content, which could help to improve your performance if you can adopt, and adapt the same.

Instagram also notes that these creators will be sought for feedback on the platform’s tools and future developments, as it works to improve the creator experience, while they’ll also be invited to an IRL meet-up in NYC later this month.

Instagram will also publish regional creator listings for selected markets over the next few weeks.

As noted, Meta’s very keen to establish stronger bonds with creators, with a view to maximizing user engagement, but also to improve the metaverse, which will be largely reliant on creative talent to help build more engaging VR and AR experiences.

Which is an area that Meta hasn’t traditionally fared well in. Sure, it’s able to build the platforms to facilitate creative trends, and connect with broader audiences. But I would argue that Snapchat has done a much better job at leading the latest movements, with its creative tools and options more directly aligned with its community. Which, really, is the reason that Snapchat is still alive, because it has such a great sense of what users want and will engage with in the app.

Meta’s approach is more binary, and it generally hasn’t done well at introducing innovative new features.

Take, for example, its latest AI chatbots, which enable you to interact with bots based on various celebrities.

No one’s going to use these.

I mean, not no one, some people obviously will. But I don’t see them becoming a big hit, as the novelty of engaging with a robot pretending to be Kendall Jenner just isn’t that interesting, even for major fans.

I can give you a heap more examples, from its early VR experiments, to apps like Lifestage and Slingshot, to its Facebook Watch original programs, to Soundbites, Zuck’s Jarvis personal assistant, Portal. All of these are projects that Meta’s internal team thought would be super cool, and would see big consumer demand.

But they didn’t. Because they weren’t.   

That lack of creative nous is a weak point for Meta more broadly, which is why it needs input from external creative talent to maximize its offerings.

Meta knows this, which is why it’s laying the groundwork now to facilitate expanded creator collaboration in future.

Its Creators of Tomorrow project is another spoke in this wheel.

You can read more about the chosen creators, and link through to their work, here.