Instagram's monetization features set to roll out in Korea

Meta Korea's Kim Na-young, the head of media partnerships, speaks at a press event to highlight key trends on Instagram at Meta Korea's headquarters in southern Seoul, Tuesday. [META KOREA]

Two of Instagram’s paid features which offer monetization for creators may soon roll out in Korea as a beta version of the services launched today, said Meta Korea on Tuesday.

The services are Instagram’s paid subscriptions and Instagram Gift. The paid subscription service allows followers to view exclusive content generated by their creators for a monthly fee and the creators can freely set the price. Instagram Gift is a feature that allows creators to monetize Reels content based on virtual gifts that their followers send.

Both features were already rolled out in other countries, starting in the United States in February.

“Selected creators can now utilize the two functions on a closed beta test from today,” said Meta Korea’s Kim Na-young, the head of media partnerships. “But we cannot definitely give the exact date for the releases as we need to adjust the services based on feedback, and there are government approvals that need to be met for the services to officially roll out in Korea.”

Selected creators can now utilize the two functions on a closed beta test from Tuesday, but Meta Korea did not disclose the exact date for the official releases.

This year’s biggest trend for Korean Instagram users was that there was no trend, according to Meta Korea at a press briefing to wrap up this year, held at its headquarters in southern Seoul on Tuesday.

Generation Z, or those born in the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, is the main trendsetter dominating the social platform. However, their individualist streaks and personalities differ accordingly, making it difficult for the operator to pinpoint exact trend keywords this year.

The most popular Instagram functions utilized by Korean youths are Instagram Stories taking the lead with 26.8 percent out of 1,000 respondents in a survey done with market tracker Open Survey, then Instagram Reels with 23.2 percent and Direct Message with 22.8 percent.

Some 50.7 percent of respondents said they post an average of one to three Instagram Stories per day and 66.9 percent said the first thing they do when they access the platform is to check the stories.

A dominant 70.8 percent of the young users answered that they use the social service to check the news of their friends and acquaintances, followed by 55 percent of users who also answered they use it to check out the latest trends.

More than 73 percent of users have a second account for reasons such as they needed their own personal space within the platform and to catalog their memories.

The most popular topics that they access on Instagram were humor-related ones taking the lead with 22.5 percent, followed by daily lives with 16.8 percent, animal companions with 12.1 percent, celebrities with 11.2 percent and fashion with 9.5 percent.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]