A ‘Shout-out‘ is a type of video where an Influencer mentions or plugs another Influencer, brand or product during one of his/her videos. Before the rise of Instagram, Shout-outs’ were common on Youtube, where two YouTubers could mention each other at the end of the video to cross-pollinate their audiences. For example, two artists or two chefs mentioning one another’s work. Nowadays, Instagram, Tiktok, and Snapchat are not just entertainment or social networking platforms, they are also platforms where brands go to engage deeper and reach farther in their efforts to find new audiences.
Influencer videos with Shout-Outs are gaining in popularity for the following reasons:
Collaborating and sharing in the same vertical: Brands and influencers are seizing the opportunity to cross-pollinate between similar channels, products, or services.
Innovative advertising strategy: D2C collaborations between brands and influencers can be seen as a new strategy to impact consumers more directly and more quickly. With a cost, Brands can achieve their goal of reaching a bigger audience, with the advantage that they are assuming the ‘influencers voice’ which would not be considered advertising – ‘per se’.
Opportunity to nurture the community and brand relationship: Consumers and influencers are having conversations about brands whether the brand itself is present or not. Shout-Out campaigns raise awareness and raise the number of brand touchpoints to help stay top of mind as well as, listen in for critical feedback that can support product development.
Word of mouth credibility: Word of mouth is one of the most credible forms of advertising. Building engagement with your community as they consider you as a reliable product that has been recommended.
Reasons why someone would make an Instagram shoutout:
- Paid shoutouts: These are the “classic” shoutouts. You pay an influencer a certain amount of money, and in return, he or she will make an Instagram shoutout for you.
- (Free) product shoutout: This one works almost the same as the paid shoutouts, but instead of money, you give the influencer your product for free or sell it to them for a discount.
- S4S: Shoutout for shoutout happens when both you and the influencer you’re working with have a relatively large following and are not competitors of each other. In that case, you can agree with each other that you will give them a shoutout on your page, and in return, they will give you a shoutout on their page.
- Affiliate marketing shoutout: This shoutout is like a contract between the influencer and the brand. The influencer will post a shoutout for the brand and will add their own affiliate link to the shoutout.
How to find relevant shoutout pages
Find Instagram pages that post similar content as your page
When looking for pages that you can reach to get a shoutout, always check for relevant pages from within your niche. This is because they will have an audience base that is relevant to you and that you can target for your own page. Getting a shoutout from random pages which are not even from your industry won’t do you any good. For example, if you have a cosmetics company, you would benefit from getting shoutouts from beauty bloggers and influencers. If you get a shoutout from a popular travel blogger, it might help you reach a broad audience, but those people might not be as interested in your brand.
Search using industry-specific hashtags
If you’re looking for accounts in your niche, one of the best ways to do so is to see who else is using similar hashtags as you do. A simple hashtag search on Instagram will give you a list of posts that use the same hashtag.
Search for Influencers in your niche using Influencer tools
This is a slightly easier way to find influencers in your niche. All you need to do is use an influencer finding tool like BuzzStream or BuzzSumo. You need to enter some industry-related keywords and add relevant filters, and you will get a list of influencers.
Select pages with a similar follower count as yours
If you are looking for free shoutouts in exchange for shoutouts, you need to be fair and contact only those accounts that are similar in size as yours. If you have 500 followers and you ask a page with 100k followers to give a shoutout for a shoutout, it will not benefit them.