According to a study performed by Pew Internet, 24% of the adult American population uses instagram. In just 24 short hours 4.2 billion posts are liked, and 95 million photos are shared. With numbers like that, it’s clear that this platform offers a pretty significant opportunity to share your message.
Shoutouts are the most effective way to get your name in front of users who are interested in what you have to offer. Your content is shared by an influencer, giving their followers the option to connect with your brand.
They’re powerful, and they’re easy. But they aren’t bulletproof.
If you want to market yourself effectively, you need to make sure that you stand out. These 7 steps will help you increase your signal to noise ratio, and help you get your brand in front of the people that count.
- Create Desirable Content
If the ultimate goal is to get new followers, you first need to create a page that people want to follow. Instagram users like to fill their feed with interesting, visually appealing content. While the ultimate goal is to make sales, Instagram isn’t really the place for a hard pitch. Instead, you’ll want to create a feed full of images that truly capture your brands culture. This is your chance to build a relationship with your potential customers. If you give them something they can relate to, they’ll readily absorb your marketing message.There are many different approaches you can take with this. You could keep it simple and frame your product line in an artistic way. Other brands take a more suggestive approach, highlighting the lifestyle they want their brand to embody. This creates an engaging page where you can effectively capture the interest of your target market. - Find Brand Ambassadors
Once you’ve got your page set up, you’re ready to get some exposure. Typically, brands have already established themselves on Instagram by the time they start looking for shoutouts. They look and see what influencers their clients follow, and manually reach out to see if these influencers would be interested in promoting their content. For anyone with a deep understanding of the community surrounding your brand, this process is manageable.If you’re not sure where to begin, you can take advantage of our search engine. We keep a database of tens of thousands of influencers. You can search across hundreds of niches, identifying popular users who promote the type of lifestyle your brand embodies. You can choose to reach out to users who have already agreed to post sponsored content, or you can reach out to new users you want to build a relationship with.Picking the right influencer to work with is important. The biggest mistake new marketers make is looking strictly at the follower count. Instead, it’s important to look for engagement. An account with 1000 followers who are actively interacting with the content these influencers post is more likely to respond to your message than an account with 10,000 followers that don’t pay attention. We break this down into an engagement ratio, so you can see how many followers are active. - Create a Desire
Ready to start designing your content? There are a few goals you should keep in mind. Ultimately, you should try to instill desire within viewers. Show them the first item in a collection, the beginning of a new project, or the intro to a series. Let users know that more content is right around the corner, making them crave more of your content. - Offer Value
If you really want to appeal to your audience, do your best to offer something of value. Brands often use shoutouts to promote special offers or insider announcements. When users feel like they’re getting something they won’t be able to get elsewhere, being able to follow your account becomes immensely valuable. From the user’s perspective, they aren’t concerned with your desire for a new follower. They’re concerned with their opportunity to get access to something unique. - Geo Tagging
Marketing isn’t just about getting your message in front of people. It’s about getting your message in front of the right If your brand has any local ties, geo tagging can help you give your brand more presence. If you were promoting a local event or show, geotagging helps you stand out to any users who are in the area. When you tag a post, a pin icon with the specific location shows up above the post.Only a small fraction of Instagram posts are properly geo tagged. But they often receive 79% more engagement. These tags are valuable for more than just local events. A fashion brand from New York might have a little more authority than one from Alaska. People have emotional connections with places, and geo tagging allows you to associate your brand with those connections. - Keep the Ball Rolling
Promoting your business is an ongoing process. Even if your first shoutout was an overwhelming success, there is always room for improvement. Studies have shown that marketing messages are always more effective when repeated. Users will already have a little familiarity with your brand. Many people choose to order additional shoutouts from the same account. This is great if they have a large following, and you want to improve your reach. Multiple shoutouts highlight the relationship you’ve built with an influencer, increasing trust in your brand. This doesn’t mean that you can recycle the same message from before, but rather that you should build on it and find a new way to reach users. - Improve Your Reach
When you’re ready to branch out and reach more audiences, you’ll want to find new followers to connect with. It’s important to look back at your previous shoutout and determine what worked, and what didn’t. If you didn’t get the results you expected, it’s possible that the audience you selected wasn’t right for your brand. Other times, you might simply want to take a different approach and highlight a different side of your business.You can always take what you’ve learned and repeat the process, but some brands find that it takes a little while to learn the ropes. If you’re new, it might be worth having some professional assistance. We offer a white label service that handles everything from influencer selection to message creation, putting you in the right direction. - Engage Your Users
After a few shoutouts, you’ve likely gained quite a following on your Instagram page. When your marketing message is fresh in their minds, they’ll be enthusiastic about the chance to interact with your brand. To make the most of this audience, it’s essential that you keep these users engaged. One of the easiest ways to relate to your followers is to share their content. Keep an eye on related hash tags. Somebody using your product in one of their images? Showcase it on your page. Making your followers a part of your image helps to build a reciprocal relationship where people can connect with you. Responding to comments, posing questions, and building a relationship with your followers will ensure that your efforts are converted into results.
If you’re just getting started with Instagram marketing, all of this new information can be a little overwhelming. In a world where fake followers are common, it’s true that companies need to pay close attention to who they work with. In the real world, this process can be boiled down to two very important things.
All you need is real people, and good content.
If you create something that consumers want to see, you’ll be able to capture their attention. In the world of social media, your authority is determined by who you connect with. When properly executed, shoutouts allow your brand to be associated with names that your target market trusts.
