Instagram being one of the most popular & widely used social media platform, has an audience for almost every type of business.
Businesses can implement various marketing strategies on this platform for their growth – Influencer marketing, social media ads, viral marketing are just to name a few.
One such popular marketing strategy on Instagram is the “Instagram Shoutout” – that helps businesses gain more exposure on Instagram.
What is an Instagram Shoutout?
An Instagram shoutout, aka IG Shoutout or Insta shoutout, is when one Instagram account tags (mentions) & promotes another Instagram account in posts, stories or both.
Instagram shoutouts basically comes under the umbrella of Influencer marketing – you collaborate with popular Instagram accounts & ask them to endorse/refer to your business via tags/mentions (@YourInstagramAccount).
Shoutouts are very effective & can help you gain tons of followers
Instagram Shoutout Benefits: Why Businesses Should Use it?
- Gain Followers
- Increased business reach & thus brand awareness
- Drive Traffic
- Increased Brand Authority & Loyalty
- Generate Sales (Conversion & Leads)
Instagram Shoutout Post Examples
1. IG Shoutout Example 1: An Instagram Influencer Promoting Fitness Products
2. IG Shoutout Example 2: A Page Promoting Mentorship (Make Money Online) Program
3. IG Shoutout Example 3: A Meme Page Promoting a College Event
4. IG Shoutout Example 4: A Meme Page Helping Other Page Gain Followers
5: IG Shoutout Example: An Instagram Page Promoting eCommerce Product
How to Get Instagram Shoutouts?
You can acquire Instagram shoutouts in many ways:
- Organic Shoutout: It happens when an Instagram user is very happy & satisfied with your product/services & they post about you (or your product/service) with a mention of your Instagram profile in the post caption or story.
- Paid Shoutout: Paid shoutouts happen when you pay to your shoutout partner on agreed price.
- Shoutout for Shoutout: This is the barter one; When your Instagram account also has similar number of followers to that of shoutout partner account, and you both agree to give each other a shoutout
- Shoutout against Freebies: You can ask potential Instagram users to try your product for free & give them a shoutout if they feel the product is good.
- Shoutout for Commision on Referral Traffic
Getting a shoutout on Instagram is not easy as it seems.
You need to be very picky when it comes to choosing your shoutout partner. The more careful about who you collaborate with, the better benefits you get out of the shoutouts.
Find Compatible Shoutout Pages
To make Instagram shoutouts work for you, checking the compatibility of shoutout partner profile is important.
It simply means to acquire shoutouts from pages whose content is relavant to your business & follower base share similar interests to that of yours.
If you’re a fitness influencer or a business in the fitness/sports niche, then getting a shoutout from an Instagram account in the technology category is worthless.
- Does the account resonate with your business?
- Is the account suitable for advertising your products on it?
- Analyse how many promotional posts are already on their profile & how they have performed.
You can simply use hashtags to find relevant profiles.
Analyse the Shoutout Partner’s Profile
When you’re done shortlisting some relevant & potential Instagram accounts to get a shoutout from, it’s time to analyse their profile to verify if taking a shoutout from this account is worth it or not.
Below are some factors based on which you can analyse the shoutout partner’s profile:
- Number of followers: The more followers your shoutout partner has, the more they’ll charge you.
- Engagement: Analyse the number of comments & likes on their posts on average. An Instagram account with 30000+ followers, getting only 100 likes on their posts doesn’t seem appropriate & fruitful.
- Read Comments: Take some extra time to go through comments received on their posts. Analyse those comments weather they are real or spammy.
It is recommended to choose target shoutout accounts with around 50,000 – 100000 followers. Don’t rush after pages with million of followers since they’ll charge you a lot of money.
Also, keep in mind that sometimes a page with only 20,000 followers can outperform the one with 50,000 followers.
Remember that any page can buy followers, likes & comments, so become a spy & invest some time in analysing weather the target shoutout account is actually real & worth it or not.
Engage & Reach Out to Them
Before you ask for a shoutout partnership, it is ideal to engage with the partner’s profile first so they’ll be familiar with you when you ask for a shoutout.
Add some real value to their account by liking their posts & leaving some comments on them. You can also initiate a meaningful conversation via comments to get noticed. Remember, a little interaction can go a long way!
After some sort of engagements, you can reach out to them directly via Message or Email them (if email id is available).
In the message or email, start with your introduction & tell them you’re looking for paid shoutout opportunitites.
Keep in mind to outreach as many accounts as you can because some of them won’t even bother to reply.
So it’s about the probability – the more you outreach, the higher the shoutout opportunities you’ll find.
Shoutout Details to Discuss with Potential Partners
Before any services your purchase, it’s ideal to discuss a few details that are important in the first place so as to avoid any confusions in future.
Though there aren’t many things to discuss when it comes to buying Instagram shoutouts, a few things you both should be agreed upon are:
- Shoutout Prices: Instagram shoutout prices depends on the partner’s profile potential. if the partner profile has a lot of active followers with good engagement, it is obvious they’ll charge high. In such cases, try negotiation. If your account also has good number of followers, try doing a S4S
- Placement Format: Discuss with the shoutout partner what information they’ll publish on the posts. A standard shoutout is caption + link .
- Payment: Amount and the payment terms, if any.
- Duration: Usually you’ll get shoutout for 24 hours but you can negotiate for 12 hours if that comes at lower prices
- Posting Days & Time: There are some industry specific time & days recommended for posting. You can discuss if your shoutout partner agrees to post on specific days & time you decide