Social media shoutouts are one of the easiest ways to boost your business performance. It is a strategy popularly used for business promotion. Ready to learn more? Keep reading!

What is a social media shoutout? 

Think about it as sharing some kind of positive experience, where someone recommends specific products or services. 

Except in the social media world, it works a little differently. It looks something like this: an individual shares an experience he had with a certain product or service or recommends another social media page or business. And these messages are accompanied by a link to that account, page, or channel. 

The main idea behind this is to promote a product or an account to a different customer segment. This is called a shoutout. 

These kinds of promotions mainly unite social media accounts that have somewhat similar audiences. 

Let’s say, for example, you run an Instagram account that specializes in selling computer hardware and you’ve found an account that reviews various compatibles for computers. You can contact the owner of that account for cooperation purposes. If he agrees to post content with links to your online store, his audience will see your product offer and will potentially want to purchase something from you, or at least visit your store. 

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? To tell you the truth, everyone does it constantly by liking each other’s posts, commenting, reposting, etc. Except, when it is done naturally, like this, no one makes an earning out of it. 

A typical example of a social media shoutout is when brands look to cooperate with influencers that have a highly engaged and loyal audience. The trick here is that most audiences follow the recommendations of the influencers they are subscribed to. You can even get a successful shoutout from influencers with small audiences. This is a part of influencer marketing. 

How to search for shoutouts? 

It is obvious that asking for shoutouts from random people is ineffective. That’s why it is important to consider some general criteria when you’re planning your shoutout efforts. 

• A related niche 

We’ve already briefly touched this topic. If you want a shoutout that will bring you potential customers or store visitors, you need to find a social media influencer who is in a similar niche. 

A tip from us: don’t ask your competition for shoutouts. Rather try to find people who can honestly recommend your product to their following. 

• Type of social media

A lot depends on the social media network, as people have their own preferences when it comes to dissecting various content. Let’s say, for example, you’ve found an account in a related niche and you can potentially get a shoutout from this account. You want to share some kind of article. If it’s an Instagram account then, most likely, Instagram’s audience won’t read it, as their preferences lie to strictly view visual content. As a result, you might want to share a short video or an image gallery instead. 

• Completely different audience 

Lastly, you may find an influencer who is in a similar niche. However, he may not have the same kind of audience. A lot depends on gender, age, marital status, etc. These parameters can make a very big difference in a successful shoutout. 

Receiving free shoutouts 

Let’s clear something up, few influencers agree to shout you out if they don’t get something in return. Most of the time you have to pay or offer them your services for free if they are interested of course. Yet, some do get lucky. Here is what you have to do: 

• Find influencers

You are going to have to manually search for influencers. How can you do this? By using hashtags to scour social media networks in search of pages that are catered to a similar niche. Depending on how narrow your niche is, it can take some time to find a page that will give you a successful shoutout. 

Remember to look past Instagram accounts that have a massive following, simply because they will charge you way too much for the collaboration – and it won’t necessarily result in a proportional boost of sales. Try to avoid accounts that have 100,000+ followers and instead search for influencers that have a similar number of followers to yours. 

Don’t forget to show that you’re an active follower! Before establishing contact and asking to cooperate with you, be sure to spend some time to like and comment on the content of the influencer you are going to ask for a shoutout. 

• Contact the account owners 

Once you’ve found several pages that might potentially cooperate with you, subscribe and follow them. 

Don’t be blunt and ask for a social media shoutout straight away. Don’t tell them to visit your page. Such an approach will instantly indicate what you’re after. Opposed to this, be sincere and try to complement their content. Chances are, the person you are contacting might be interested in your content as well! 

• Suggest a shoutout for shoutout

Since you’re looking for a way to do it in the most economical way possible, your remaining option is to offer them a shoutout for their shoutout. Keeping it simple, they promote you and you promote them. Just be sure to be discreet about it, after all, this side of the business should be kept only between you two. 

If they do happen to agree, carefully discuss the plan – when to post, what to post, how to post. Keep in mind that you are partners now, so approach this with due diligence. 

Paid shoutouts

A common practice in influencer marketing is selling shoutouts. By paying influencers with large followings, you increase the chances of reaching a wider audience significantly. This certainly can help you bring you more subscribers and improve your sales. 

Be sure to follow the same steps as we described above, and ask the influencer if he or she does paid shoutouts. 

Searching for social media influencers that are related to your niche can be tough and time-consuming. If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can use the Social Rabbit plugin. The plugin has features that can help you improve your social media activity. Essentially, it automatically discovers and analyzes pages with keywords that are related to your store niche. The Social Rabbit automatically follows them, likes, and comments on their posts, which results in attracting more attention to your profile. 

Furthermore, this allows you to find new business partnership opportunities. Though you have to preset it by stating a message template. Then Social Rabbit finds suitable Instagram accounts and automatically sends invitations for collaborating. 

Final thoughts: are social media shoutouts worth it? 

You can’t simply judge whether shoutouts are worth it or not. In some cases, they can positively affect and boost your business. In the end, it all depends on your niche. Some products or services are more popular than others and cater to a much wider audience base. A lot depends on the influencer you end up cooperating with – how will they showcase your goods, whom does their audience consist of, and how large is it. 

So, if you do end up deciding to try social media shoutouts, be sure to try it for free (i.e. shoutout for shoutout) or on a small budget to test it out. 

Hopefully, you found this article informative and helpful for the establishment of your business. We wish you good luck in the creation of a successful ecommerce venture!