There are lots of ways to grow on Instagram, from sharing good quality content to playing the follow/unfollow game to get more followers. Let me tell you that there is another very effective way to boost an Instagram account, which you have surely heard of, which is an Instagram shoutout.
Shoutouts on social media platforms emerged not a very long time ago, but they kept growing as a well-known strategy for social media growth, and these days, so many people either give out an Instagram shutout or look for accounts to do shootouts for them. If only you knew how effective it could be for your account’s growth to get good shoutouts, then you’d never underestimate its power ever again. But in order to add this strategy to one of your marketing strategies, the first step is to get more information on what an Instagram shoutout is, where and how to get shoutouts and maybe you’ll want to do it for others later, as well.
Shoutouts on social media platforms emerged not a very long time ago, but they kept growing as a well-known strategy for social media growth, and these days, so many people either give out an Instagram shutout or look for accounts to do shootouts for them. If only you knew how effective it could be for your account’s growth to get good shoutouts, then you’d never underestimate its power ever again. But in order to add this strategy to one of your marketing strategies, the first step is to get more information on what an Instagram shoutout is, where and how to get shoutouts and maybe you’ll want to do it for others later, as well.
What is an Instagram shoutout?
An Instagram shoutout, also known as Insta shoutout or IG shoutout, is the act of promoting another account with a story or post you share, for different purposes. When people ask for a shoutout, they are either willing to get more followers or to promote their business or brand to a wider range of people.
The most effective kind of getting an Instagram shoutout would be to ask an influencer to do it for us because they are the ones who have the most followers on Instagram and If they share a story or post mentioning us or our businesses, we are on our way to go and we will get noticed by lots of users. But usually, such shoutouts are not free and come with a charge. Meanwhile, not all shoutouts need us to pay and we can even get free shoutouts too. In this section, I want to write about the different kinds of an Instagram shoutout so you’d get to choose which one of them best suits you and your account.
Different kinds of Instagram shoutout:
- Shoutout for Shoutout (S4S), the free one
The most common type of giving out shouts outs on Instagram is the shoutout for the shoutout, which is mostly called as S4S. In S4S both involved accounts would have a deal to promote each other’s accounts or businesses by sharing a post or story containing their pictures, videos or images of their products and mentioning their page. This is a mutual deal that would be free for both sides.
Usually, in Shoutout for the shoutout, both sides need to have almost equal followers do they would not have to charge each other any money for the deal.
- Paid Shoutout, the more effective one
A paid shoutout is almost just like an Instagram influencer marketing, in which you pay to someone who has lots of followers to promote your account, product or brand. Paid shoutouts require you to either pay money to the Instagram influencer doing it for you or to offer free service or product.
- Voluntary shoutout
The last type of shoutouts on Instagram is the rarest one, but it actually happens when someone decides to compliment you, your business or product personally, without you asking them to do it. Take the example of a customer who is so happy with the product he bought from you and he experienced great customer care as well. This makes them want to introduce the product or service to their followers and thank you personally by giving out a free shoutout.
How to get an Instagram shoutout for your account?
One of the best ways to boost an Instagram account’s popularity and get it noticed more, as I mentioned easier, is to get shoutouts from good and reliable Instagram influencers or accounts by paying them or agreeing on a S4S. Anyways, we have reached the stage that we now know what an Instagram shoutout is, and it is time to find out how we can get the vest shoutouts for our Instagram account.
- Make a connection with Instagram users similar as you
The best way to get followers and attention using shoutouts is to connect with the people who have the same niche as you for shoutout agreement. If you own a page about fashion and makeup, promoting beauty products, then it won’t be a good idea to team up with an Instagram influencer who does yoga and their page content is all about sports because their followers are people who are interested in sports and would not welcome irrelevant content such as a beauty product.
So, find and connect with the users who have the same niche and almost, same follower count as you, and most probably, you two would agree on giving out Instagram shoutouts to each other’s pages because that would be a win-win game.
- Find the best Instagram shoutout pages
There are several pages on Instagram which are dedicated only to share other pages’ good content and give out shoutouts to them. This way, they would both maintain a great Instagram profile with quality content, and they’d help other accounts get more followers and attention. Such pages are called Instagram shoutout pages.
Most of these Instagram shoutout pages are not paid, and all you need to do is to mention and tag them in the posts you share and the posts capture their attention; they’d repost it giving credit to you and this way. You’ll get the best of Instagram shoutouts. It is recommended to build a relationship with potential shoutout pages before pitching them.
The Influencer marketing hub website has provided a complete list of best shoutout pages to boost followers, which I really recommend you take a look at.
- Get help from an Instagram shoutout app
The last way in trying to get an Instagram shoutout for an account is to try out some tools to make the act of finding influencers and getting shoutouts easier. Yes, you read right; there are some tools such as “buy-sell shoutouts” which are networks to buy and sell Instagram Influencer Marketing Shoutouts.
Another example if an Instagram shoutout app is Shoutcart, which would help you find credible influencers that match your niche on Instagram. Keep in mind that if for “S4S” or “shoutout for the shoutout,” the number of followers and engagement rate of the chosen shoutout page should be somehow near to yours.
Instagram shoutout examples
An Instagram shoutout can be shared in different ways regarding the agreement between the one who asks for it and the one who posts it. As mentioned before, we can give out a shoutout either with a post or a story. This later divides into smaller categories because an Instagram shoutout can have different purposes such as getting more followers or merely advertising.
Paying attention to the information given above, here are some Instagram shoutout examples:
Instagram shoutout post promoting something
The most common shoutout we see on Instagram is when an account promotes another account by directly posting pictures or videos of the product or service they offer. Take the example of the shoutout below in which a harry potter bracelet is clearly being promoted for the “@world.of.harry” account by another page.
Instagram shout out story promoting a product
Another place to share a shoutout would be to compose a story and share it with followers. This one is very common these days, and we see many stories daily that are directly promoting another page, service or product.
Shoutout posts or stories to get followers
Apart from advertising, another goal of Instagram shoutouts is to get more followers. In this type of shoutout, the poster posts a picture or video of the person or page that aims to get more followers, and asks their followers to check their account and follow them.
Get the most of your Instagram shoutout
Now that you successfully got to know how to get an Instagram shoutout for your account, it most probably would result in lots of new followers and visitors. If you want them to stay on your profile and tap that Follow button, create a good first impression on them bio having a great Instagram bio. You can make the most of this chance and drive traffic to other places as well. You can direct them to your other social media profiles, websites, blogs, etc. The only thing you have to do is to ditch the Instagram restriction which does not allow us to have more than one link on our bios and add as many links as you want.
This goal can be reached using iLink, which is a tool for converting countless links into only one short link, which can be shared in all social media platform bios. This way, when new visitors arrive at your profile, by clicking on the bio link, they’ll be redirected to a web page containing links to any place on the web you want.
