The model has become adopted by various ad-supported but community-driven websites as an addition, substitute or replacement of other pay-per-click advertisement formats, such as web banners, text and rich media.
[4] Specifically referring to context of blogs, "sponsored posts" were defined by Mutum and Wang (2010) as "promoted blog entries or posts that contain links that point to the home page or specific product pages of the website of the sponsor for which the blogger receives compensation in the form of money, products, services or in other ways".
Sponsored posts can also serve as a means of curtailing the possibility of companies paying individuals to moderate a submitted link or media to the front page of the website, which often violates the spirit or letter of a site's Terms of Service.
Particularly in Instagram, accounts with a lot of followers accept payments to have other people's contents featured on their page for the sake of promotion to a larger audience.
[7] This method of advertising became very popular but was done in private through direct transactions rather than through a legitimized medium like Instagram where it can be legally documented.