Instagram creator collabs beat brand posts
New data shows collab posts outperform a brand’s standard posts on Instagram, and they work best when the creator posts first.
There are two types of collaborative post:
- Owned collab: the brand publishes the post and invites the creator or partner to join
- Accepted collab: the creator publishes the post and invites the brand
The research comes from Emplifi, based on nearly a million Instagram posts from over 9,000 brand profiles between January and June 2026. More than 73% of brands now use the collab feature, and most use a mix of both types. Travel and hospitality leads the way, with nearly 60% of profiles in the sector publishing owned and accepted collabs.
|
Collab type |
Interactions compared with non-collab posts |
|---|---|
|
Owned collabs (all brands) |
Around 2.5x |
|
Accepted collabs (all brands) |
Around 4x |
|
Accepted collab Reels |
Around 3.7x |
|
Accepted collabs (brands under 10k followers) |
5x |
Collabs boost performance across every format, with Reels getting the biggest uplift. And there’s good news for smaller businesses: brands with under 10,000 followers see the biggest relative boost.
What to do next
If you’re not doing collabs yet, now’s the time to start. Make it a goal for Q4: let the creators you work with lead the content, give them room to make it their own, and have them tag you so you can accept.
The report is free, and it’s useful evidence if you need to convince decision makers in your business to invest more in creators.