Lesson Three: What is a Shoutout?
A shout out is when another Instagram reposts one of your pictures to their Instagram. If the account is well known, or has more followers than you this will most likely drive their followers to your page. Shout outs can work out a few ways depending if you are a blogger/service based biz/or product based biz.
FOR BLOGGERS: you might want to reach out to other bloggers and see if they would be up for sharing each other’s pictures to both of your Instagram. Bloggers may also want to tag certain brands in their photos if they are wearing their products. If the brand likes the picture they might just give you a shout out!FOR SERVICE BASED: Service based businesses thrive on testimonials or reviews. If you can get your customers to post pictures of their experience and tag you, that would be a great shout out. You might also reach out to other service based businesses and see if they might want to do a share for share. You post a picture of them, while they post a picture of you. This works best if you share with someone that has a similar following to yours.FOR PRODUCT BASED: I personally have worked with an account called @rockglam I paid them around $20 to post an image of my product tagging it back to my Instagram. That day I saw $400 in sales! Crazy I know, the more I continued to promote with them the less return I saw. So if you can continue to find large accounts that are similar to your niche to promote for you, it would be great. But there are also accounts I have purchased shout outs from that didn’t work for my biz and I had to write it off as lost money. It can be a gamble for sure! Then I found shop shares!
What is a Shop Share?
A shop share is when you collaborate with another Instagram shop (it can be in the same field as you or different) and you both agree to post a picture on your Instagram by providing each other with a picture and caption. You will both decide on how long you would like to leave the post up (most stay up for about an hour.) After you have decided how long to leave your post up you will both post at the same time.When someone else shares your picture on their Instagram they are exposing your product to their followers. This can be a huge way to drive followers and SALES to your page. When I first heard about shop shares I was very skeptical but took the risk and tried it out. I was SHOCKED, my sales went up by 50% I had my first $2,000 day let’s just say I was on cloud nine!
How to Shop Share
KIK is a app you will want to download for shop shares, It is the fastest way to chat with other shop owners, (50 people max in a chat at one time) while sharing picture and text without giving away your phone number to a stranger. There are TONS of KIK group chats out there with shop owners ready to shop share! They are typically divided up by the amount of followers your IG currently has. For example there is a shop share group for 3k followers and under, 10k and up, and 40 plus. This allows a fair playing game, so you are not posting with someone of less followings than you, because you will not get the same ROI/ROS. (Return on Investment, or Return on Share)As a member you should be inside our Facebook group, be sure to join and inside you can post on the wall and ask for a share for share!*Bloggers/Services: Kik will still work for you as well, I do encourage you to reach out to people within your niche and encourage them to join KIK as well and maybe even start your own niche group just forbloggers/coaches/services/photographers/etc. Blogs and most services revolve around having your own community. By building relationships with other blogs/services you are able to bring together both of your communities. So make sure you are choosing to share with someone of like followings (For example, if your blog or service revolves around fashion, a boutique might not be a bad idea to share with)
What to Share
When sharing with another shop, especially if you are selling women’s clothing and the shop you share with sells baby items, you will need to make sure you post something you think mommies would like.Always keep in mind who you are sharing with and what their followers seem to like the most of. Once you find the product you want to share, ALWAYS make sure to include hashtags in your caption. Remember what we said about hashtags; make sure they are relevant and trending hashtags!Once you have that all figured out you are set to go! If you don’t see a single sale from the shop you followed with, make sure to write them down on a list and try not to share with them again. It doesn’t mean that shop isn’t an awesome shop, it just means that they don’t work for your product. And you know what? THAT’S OK! Move on to the next shop, and once you find someone that works for you, make sure that your IG is working for them. A great collaboration requires communication and withcommunication can come friendship!*If you have a blog or service from my personal experience sharing with a shop owner gives greatexposure, but I would also encourage you to find other people within your niche group on IG and shootthem a DM to "shop share" In your case it may be considered a "share for share."
Downsides of Shop Shares
Like I said when I first started shop shares my sales were sky-rocketing. But then I kept sharing with the same people over and over and over again. After about 10 shares with the same people I was seeing zero sales and zero followers. Moral of the story is, SHOP SHARES WORK, but they TAKE WORK.How do they take work? After sharing with the same people you will have to seek out other shops you want to share with. This takes time, especially when trying to convince them that it works, because they can be skeptical at first.