NFTs on Instagram & FB - New way of showcasing digital collectibles

Authored by Shiva Bhavani, CEO & Founder of Wing Communications.

The companies are experimenting with digital collectibles which use blockchain technology to produce unduplicated non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Brands typically value the NFTs for how well they replicate digital assets like audio and video as well as other real-world analogs like clothing, games, and more. As a result of NFTs' emphasis on rarity, shareability, and monetization, they offer a practical conduit for companies and content creators to enhance visibility in a significant way.

For this reason, it is anticipated that the global NFT market will reach $97.6 billion by 2028 and will expand at a CAGR of 31.6% between 2022 and 2028.

NFTs are becoming important for brands as they allow brands to show their customers that they are attentive to their needs and ready to meet their expectations. With every purchase, an NFT is created, which serves as a unique digital point of contact, capable of responding to a variety of outside events and signals. Their versatility presents limitless possibilities for after-sale engagement and creates loyalty. Benefits like innovative communication ways, differentiated brand experiences for customers, increased conversions and sales, etc. make them even more lucrative.

How NFTs on social networks can be used by makers, collectors, and marketers to display digital collectibles

Present-day marketing cannot avoid collectibles. Today, marketing professionals are not only employing collectibles as a PR strategy but also as a strategy to predict what the next generation of consumers, who are already comfortable with digital platforms like gaming, would want from brands. The $402 billion market size for collectibles in 2021, is therefore anticipated to reach $1 trillion by 2032. But, the real factor behind this rise of collectibles is NFTs, the enabler of investment in digital assets.

As a part of the NFT sharing test, Instagram allowed a select set of users to link to their digital wallets and share the created or purchased NFTs on their social media in May 2022. This access was expanded to all Facebook and Instagram users in the US in September 2022 and thereafter to everyone in the other 100 countries where Instagram purchases digital collectibles. This introduction of NFTs on social media platforms has many advantages associated with it.

Firstly, by employing NFTs, it becomes feasible to replicate some properties such as exclusivity, uniqueness, and possession proof, which were previously only possible for objects in the physical world. This enables creators to genuinely own and sell their digital works, opening up a whole new market for original digital art and collectibles. The property of exclusivity is illustrated by the fact, that the rarest collectibles in the world are pricey, at least in terms of market demand. This has become possible only through the development of NFTs, which also facilitate the true ownership property of a particular digital file by allowing for actual scarcity and making digital files non-fungible. By showcasing originality, they create a whole new market for digital producers, makers, and collectors. Furthermore, as NFTs are built on top of blockchain technology, the origin is an essential element from the outset, demonstrating the property of possession. This allows the establishment of the ownership history of an NFT from scratch.

Secondly, by simply linking their works to a cryptocurrency-based token, creators can turn their creations into NFTs. With the use of this token, creators can distinguish their work and increase sales of it. Thus, it gives people a chance to showcase their creativity and find a broad audience base with the help of social media. Today, social media platforms like Instagram and similar social platforms are used to connect people throughout the world; this is actually their primary value.

Naturally, marketers profit from this link between a customer and a brand, and perhaps very soon, this advantage would be made possible with and through NFTs.

Thirdly, digital content is often open to all users, making it challenging or even impossible for users to uncover any real value. But with NFTs on social media, people can advertise an NFT offering, host an auction, or make a sale announcement on social media sites and each time a work of art is sold to a new owner, royalties can be encoded into an NFT to provide the creator with a profit. Every bit of information is out there for everyone to see. NFT enables users to produce and monetise their content. They allow commodity creation through tokenization, which transforms tangible or intangible content into exchangeable digital units.

Lastly, many collectibles are not only made in small numbers, but even items that appear to be identical in a batch may actually be verifiably unique. This has long been standard practice in the tangible world, and it is now being applied to digital collectibles. Other than these, censorship resistance, ownership of personal data, and more control over user-generated content are all of its advantages, implying that user-generated content cannot be changed or deleted by anybody else.

Conclusion

Whether you believe it or not, a significant new market has developed for digital art and collectibles based on technology and people's actual behavior. Thanks to NFT, digital assets may now be invested in and collected, which was previously only possible in the physical world. The market is responding, and the technology is in place. Sales of NFTs have greatly increased and groundwork has been laid for an enduring game-changer in the collectibles and art industries. And, though the industry is still in its infancy and has challenges to it, the numbers are expected to experience a rise in the future.