Shout Out to Social Media ‘Shout Outs’

Many of us are already familiar with Media Buying—but are you aware of a new school way of, well, ‘buying media’?  Think of it as Media Buying 2.0...

Skip the usual Ad Networks for a change and start buying quality, social traffic with an edge.

No, we’re not talking about your mother’s Facebook or your father’s Twitter; we’re talking a way more targeted way of reaching users in the social-sphere.  We’re talking Social Shoutouts.

The advantages to this type of traffic is its low cost and highly-targeted reach.

Want to learn more about what we’re talking about?  Follow our lead!

So what exactly is a “Shoutout”?

A Shoutout — aka “S/O” — is a mention of your website or brand on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or really any other relevant Social networking platform (even if the term is most commonly associated with Instagram).

The goal of a “Shoutout” is to increase visibility to one’s site or brand using established social accounts that already have an important following and fanbase.

In a nutshell, you pay the owner of a popular social account to get your brand mentioned on his or her page during an agreed upon timeframe that can range anywhere from a few hours — to a few weeks.  

Why would you ever want to invest in a Shoutout?

With the ever-increasing popularity of Social platforms, Shoutouts are popular and sought-after for a number of reasons, with one of them being:  they actually can pay off.

Here are some additional reasons why a Shoutout just might be excellent for your site or brand:

1. It’s an easy way to target qualified traffic. For example, if you were promoting Dating offers, you might choose to do a Shoutout on a popular niche-based page. Promoting Food supplements? You would target pages geared towards Health & Fitness, etc.
2. It’s less expensive than buying traffic on prime spots on the most popular websites.
3. Split testing is easy to do between different pages and different campaigns.
4. Social media traffic is an endless source of traffic if you use it to your disposal wisely.  In other words, if you think outside the box, you won’t get banned.
5. You can create and invest in your own Social traffic base by selling or exchanging Shoutouts - and therefore traffic - with your competition.
6. There’s no need to go through an Ad Network.

Where Can You Buy Shoutouts?

Almost all of the biggest accounts on Social Media will propose a "Shoutout" option directly on their pages.  Contact the owner of the page by Direct Messaging them to get an idea on pricing and terms.

You can also visit sites directly that are dedicated to selling Shoutouts and promotional posts full time as a business. Sites such as Featurecore.com and Featurehub.com offer the ability to buy promotional posts in the social-sphere.

Before buying a post, you see information such as the person’s:

• Follower Count
• Number of Likes per post:
• Account Description
• Account Exceptions (such as "No nudes" or no pics depicting violence)

If you have social accounts with a lot of followers yourself, you can even add your potential pages to those sites and make a business out of selling promotional Shoutouts as well!

So, How do I proceed?!

To ensure you're purchasing the most effective Shoutout for your business, well, there's a few questions you need to ask yourself first.

1- What kind of exposure do I want?

First, you need to figure out what kind of exposure you want. In other words: what is your goal?

• Is your main goal to increase your Social following?
• Is it strictly to promote your brand or landing page?
• Are you looking for new traffic sources or new people to exchange traffic with, such as a fellow Social account owner?

Whatever your goal is, make sure to share your whole plan with the person actually selling the Shoutouts—as this person will know what works best with his or her traffic.

2- What time frame are you shooting for?

Obviously, there are some time frames that are more attractive than others, with some time frames of course offering you a greater level of exposure.

On Social media, as you probably already guessed, nights and weekends are the timeslots everyone wants to target. These are the absolute ideal times for the most effective featured posts.

Ask the seller as much information as possible about the geographics of his or her followers. You especially want to target the right time zone and have a idea of where most of the traffic is coming from

3- What am I going to promote?

As you guys know very well by now, Social Media is a non-adult-friendly environment and we can assure you, anyone who actually has an established account—they want to keep their account.

They certainly don’t want to lose a valuable account over a careless act.

Consequently, you’ll need to hone a social media friendly strategy according to the needs of your own goals, which will most likely consist of a non-nude landing page or some other additional (safe) social account.

Here are some examples of pages and topics that could serve as inspiration when it comes to creating your own landing page that could work beautifully on social platforms while still targeting traffic that will most likely to be interested in adult offers:

• 12 Former Porn Stars Who Now Lead Boring, Normal Lives
• Top 10 Beautiful Female Athletes Who Posed For Playboy
• 15 Hottest Actresses Who’ve Gone Nude Many Times

Once you have your landing page and/or social account created, you’ll need to review your copy and choose the picture you want to share carefully.

If you choose to promote a picture by way of a Shoutout—this picture should have an obvious watermark on it to increase the likelihood of type-in traffic and your copy should of course include a link as well.

Start Shouting Out!

All in all, shoutouts are an interesting and fun way to attract new sources of traffic.  And the best part is, it doesn't have to cost as much as other traffic-buying endeavors

Of course, since adult content and restrictions on social media go hand in hand—you'll have to create a broader funnel - and therefore - seek to attract a higher volume of traffic to monetize your offers.

However, never forget that Social Media drives a third of its overall traffic to all sites these days.

So what we’re sayin’ is, you almost can’t afford not to promote on social media if you truly want to diversify your traffic sources.

And with that in mind, that’s why we believe Social Media Shoutouts to be a true asset.