What does SFS, SFS mean? Instagram promotion methods

People communicate quite a lot on social networks, in particular on Instagram. And it’s no secret that, for various purposes, almost every user wants to have as many subscribers as possible. This gives some people a chance to become famous, others - to increase sales, and others - to find interesting topics for communication. There are many ways to attract subscribers, one of which is SFS.

What is SFS? The abbreviation SFS stands for "Shout out for shout out", which translates to “mention for mention.” What's the point of this action? SFS acts as a PR tool where you ask your followers to post one or more of your photos and some interesting information about you on their profile. In return, you promise the SPS participants to do the same at home. All this is done in order to add new ones to your feed. interesting profiles, and help friends do the same.

First, a new idea of ​​free promotion and speed dial subscribers unanimously picked it up, but then her popularity subsided somewhat. And this is quite natural, since the Internet is a constantly changing environment, and in order to be in the forefront, you need to quickly pick up everything new. But even today, a large number of users conduct successful SFS. Now that we understand what SFS means, let's learn how to use it on Instagram.

If you don’t know and don’t use the function, I recommend reading my article about it.

How is SFS carried out on Instagram?

The rules for conducting SFS are quite simple even for a novice user:

• Post a photo with the abbreviation SFS on your profile.
• In the caption under the photo, indicate the start time of the event, the duration and the end date and summing up.
• All SFS participants post your photo or a collage of several images in their own profile, write a couple of sentences about you in free form and put a link to you with @ and a unique hashtag of the event (by clicking on this tag, all users will be able to see photos posted by the organizers and participants ).
• After completing all the actions, each participant writes in the comments under the SFS photo: “done.”
• At the end of the event, you select the ones you liked the most from the viewed profiles of the participants.

Then on your profile you post photos of the selected participants (in the form individual photos or collages), and also talk about each one, mentioning it via @.

What does SFS give on Instagram?

In order for your SFS to bring any results, look through your feed - if it contains mentions of similar events held by your subscribers or users you follow, then feel free to start a flash mob. And if not, don't be upset. Be the first to start! Choose an interesting, catchy photo as a starting photo, attract users with gifts and see what happens. I hope you understand what SPS is and will use it to attract new subscribers.

This tool gives SFS organizers a chance to attract a large number of subscribers, and absolutely officially. Users are attracted to participate in an event because their profile can be noticed and promoted if they are included in the selection at the end of the event. Also, at the request of the organizer, each SFS participant is awarded prizes and gifts.

And the main thing is what all social networks are for – communication! You will learn a lot of interesting things about people you didn’t know before, and they, in turn, will get to know you. You will have more subscribers, and you will be able to achieve your goals easier - just communicate with interesting people, establish new channel sales, or find out any recent facts or news in certain areas.

Don’t be shy, communicate more, conduct SFS, participate in them - it’s always interesting and profitable!

Every Instagram user I've seen the abbreviation SFS hundreds of times already. If you are wondering what it means, then read our post - we will tell you everything in detail!

The meaning of SFS on Instagram

So, SFS is short for the phrase "shout out for shout out". Translated, this can mean “cry for shout” or “mention for mention” or “vote for vote.”

Initially, sfs was invented to include interesting and new profiles in the feed. Nowadays the abbreviation is used to draw attention to a certain page. SFS can be called a form of friendly PR. Its essence is this: one of the active users on Instagram asks subscribers to tell about themselves in their profiles. And the person asking, in turn, will talk about them on his page. In general, mutual PR, collaboration.

The user who posts this hashtag offers mutual PR to another person on Instagram. If you saw that someone posted a photo on their profile with laudatory information about some page, and a post with information about the user appeared in the praised profile, then this is SFS. People subscribed to one of the pages participating in sfs will, out of curiosity, follow the link provided and, if desired, subscribe. This works both ways.

Such a “trick” can become in a cool way gain subscribers. This can be called white wrapping.

SFS Rules

The rules for conducting SFS are quite simple. Let's say you are an organizer. This is what your sequence of actions will look like:

1. You must post a photo with the abbreviation SFS on your profile.
2. In the caption to the photo you indicate when SFS starts, how long it will last and what date the results will be.
3. Everyone who wants to take part in the event must take one of your photos from Instagram and post it on their profile (it is acceptable to make a collage of pictures). Under the photo there should be a few words about the organizer (that is, about you) and a link to your page with @.
4. After this, all SFS participants must write the word “ready” under your starting photo.
5. On the day the SFS ends, you need to look through the profiles of all the participants and choose your favorite ones. After that, you talk about them on your page via @.
6. On the day the promotion ends, the organizer (that is, you) should post a collage or even several collages with links to those participants whose pages he liked. And be sure to tell about them in the caption under the photo.

By the way, being a participant and an organizer is equally beneficial.

Let's say you participated in SFS and a popular blogger talked about you in his profile. The result is that new people have subscribed to your page! But keep in mind that you may not be included in the sample, since the sfs organizer is not at all obliged to talk about each participant.

By now, everyone is pretty tired of this kind of event. First of all, it looks like annoying advertising in the feed, and secondly, the one who has already taken part in SFS many times, but was never included in the sample, was disappointed. Because of this state of affairs, the organizers are trying to further motivate their subscribers to participate in SFS. For example, guaranteed gifts are offered to several or all participants, perhaps discounts on some products, etc.

Disadvantages of SFS

Of course, sfs also has certain disadvantages. This doesn't mean the event isn't effective—it's just that it's not suitable for everyone.

So, let's move on to listing the disadvantages:

1. As we already said, all Instagram users are pretty tired of this. Some people calmly scroll through such photos, while others find them very annoying. It turns out that some subscribers actively participate in sfs, and the other half quickly unsubscribe from such profiles.

2. You will have to face the problem of choice. Believe me, if you have a lot of subscribers, then choosing the profiles of those participants you plan to talk about is very problematic. Let's say someone supported you and talked about your page in their profile. But when you visit this person, you see that the photos and information on his page are frankly boring. There may also be a situation where there are a lot of worthy candidates. In general, there is no escape from the painful choice.

3. Sometimes SFS is ineffective and attracts a negligible number of participants. The reasons may be different: either you are tired of such events, or your subscribers are not the people who like such promotions.

By the way, if SFS photos appear in your feed quite often, then most likely your subscribers will be willing to participate in your promotion. But if such photographs are extremely rare guests in the feed, then expecting an influx of participants is, at a minimum, stupid. However, there are no rules without exceptions - try it!

Why conduct SPS and participate in it

We have figured out how the SFS works and how to organize it, and now let's talk about why it is carried out and why you need to participate in it.

People conduct SFS to increase the number of subscribers on their profile. Perhaps someone in this way amuses their vanity, someone increases sales of advertised products, and someone needs subscribers for profitable cooperation with advertisers.

Reasons for participating in SFS:

• receiving a prize;
• friend support;
• increase in subscribers if included in the sample.

As practice shows, SFS works much better if it is not abused!

You can find out even more information about sfs by watching the video:

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25 min

25 min

Text Text: Valeria Svirskaya

Just two years ago, accounts gained tens of thousands of subscribers by reaching the recommended, top by hashtags or geolocation. It was enough to do quality work, interesting photo, add relevant tags, a geotag - and voila, your account is growing at cosmic speed. Nowadays it’s not so easy to gather an audience, but new methods of promotion on Instagram have appeared.

1. What methods worked before, but no longer work so well?

Come to Instagram from LiveJournal

Girls like Tanya Lieberman or Julia Sharief, were popular on LiveJournal, which is where their first Instagram audience came from. Now there is simply no alternative social network, where you can easily promote yourself and lure the audience to your Instagram account.

SFS

Shout for Shout, or mention for mention. The essence of the mechanic is that you publish a photo of a popular blogger on your account, and he puts your photo on his account if he likes the account. This way, popular bloggers gained additional audiences, and novice Instagrammers had the opportunity to make themselves known.

Now everyone is so tired of this mechanic that it has practically disappeared from Instagram.

Liketime

As interest in SFS waned, bloggers came up with alternative mechanics that were easier for users to implement. You had to tag 2-3 friends under the blogger’s photo, then like him latest photos. The mechanics appeared simultaneously with the introduction of the algorithmic tape, so it was good way increase organic reach (the number of people who saw a particular post).

Now everyone has become tired of this mechanic and has simply disappeared.

Giveaway

A joke, in Russian. Very simple mechanics: you need to post a photo of the gift on your page with a certain hashtag, tag the organizer and wait. Nowadays this mechanic is still used, but only works with very desirable and expensive gifts.

Massfollowing and massliking

This is an elementary mechanic when you manually or through an application like and subscribe to a competitor’s audience (by geolocation, hashtag, etc.). If a person likes your profile, he likes and follows back. Previously, you could get 600–800 live users per day if you chose correct channel for following.

Now Instagram has introduced a number of restrictions that slow down the work of mass following services. People are also accustomed to being followed en masse by stores and spammers, so they check new subscribers less and less often, which means the very essence of mass following is lost. But nevertheless, the method still works.

Circular mechanics

When it became clear that the usual SFS and Liketime did not work, bloggers decided to unite and offer subscribers old activities, but in a new format. Now SFS, Liketime and Giveaway have started organizing groups of accounts. Thus, the user could receive several mentions or gifts at once.

The mechanics worked actively in the fall and winter of 2016, and then died out. There were too many pranks to be interesting to participate in. Such mechanics are also becoming less and less effective.

2. Which methods work 100% today?

Cool content

Only lazy people have not heard about quality content. But typical Instagram stories with coffee/croissants and hats against the backdrop of mountains have already become noticeably boring, although they still get likes.

Videos

Nowadays interactive content is popular: video and animation, unusual presentation and humor.

For example, actress and blogger Nastya Ivleeva gained 4,200,000 subscribers in less than two years. She became a trend setter for short funny videos from the life of a typical girl.

More examples:

1. Singer Manizha became popular thanks to complex and beautiful videos on Instagram. Moreover, one of her latest clips "Chandelier" filmed on an iPhone and begins with a still from Instagram.
2. Tasha Alakoz. She has worked with Jo Malone, Swatch, MAC, and her works are published on the official Christian Louboutin account.
3. Maria Oz. She collaborated with Ivan Dorn, Pianoboy, Vera Brezhneva, and the G.bar franchise.

Unusual content

Blogger and fashion illustrator Kateillustrate increased the number of comments and saves by 2–3 times only due to visual presentation. Katerina came up with a brilliant idea - to combine illustrations and blog posts, the result exceeded all expectations. Now her pictures are actively reposted by large brands and subscribers themselves, and illustrations are often placed on avatars.

Instagram targeting

With the advent of business accounts, organic reach began to decrease every month. Instagram did not officially confirm this phenomenon, but bloggers and social media managers sounded the alarm because the numbers spoke louder than words. For example, let's take 2 photos from mine personal account. The photos are similar, posted an hour and almost 4 months apart. In the left photo, the indicators are higher, despite the fact that at that time the account had less than 10,000 subscribers. When I posted the photo on June 5, the account had more than 15,000 subscribers, but fewer reactions. This suggests that fewer people saw my photo in their feed.

Seeding - publishing content on social networks

SFS on Instagram Stories

IN Instagram Stories SFS has found its third wind, today it is effective way gain live subscribers.

New mechanics

My colleagues and I decided not to limit ourselves to standard mechanics, but went further: we combined giveaway, educational marathon, coaching and the basics of gamification within the framework of one “blogger marathon” project. To date, this is the first mass project of such complexity.

The point is that every blogger engages subscribers in a marathon within the framework of their topic. These are games, riddles, quests within all sponsor accounts. This way, the audience goes through all the accounts and gets to know the bloggers, rather than just automatically subscribing.

With this mechanic, the audience comes slower, but they don’t unsubscribe and manage to get into the blogger’s topic. Thus, sponsors do not receive an army of freeloaders who unsubscribe immediately after the draw, but loyal subscribers who have already met the blogger, received benefits from him, gifts, and promotional codes. Such activity is difficult to implement, but subscribers are still obtained cheaper than using targeting.

How should you spend money on promotion?

Please note that this is not a direct guide to action; you need to spend money in accordance with your sales funnel and audience reaction. But if you have this or that amount on hand, in this section you will find ideas on where to invest it.

Up to $100 (up to 6,000 rubles) per month

$100–500 (up to 30,000 rubles) per month

How to evaluate blogger engagement?

You could write a whole book about this. But if you need to analyze your account quickly, look at the comments. They should be meaningful, on the topic of the post, detailed and not written by the same bloggers. In addition, I recommend installing the LiveDune extension for Chrome. It will allow you to immediately see the ER rating (engagement), which will show more or less adequate data.

You can divide your budget into a month and test ads in different weeks with conversion or video goals (in practice, this gives more engagement). In addition, the budget will help you promote posts from the application (just don’t choose an automatic audience - there’s nothing good there), but it’s better to choose a broad one or with 2-3 detailed target indicators.

$1,000 or more (from 30,000 rubles) per month

HairExpert Salon - sales through video content

Niche: beauty salon in Moscow, high average bill.

Work progress

The salon relied on high-quality photo and video content. Video sells especially well: when Direct asks questions about procedures, the community manager not only talks about the benefits, but also shows the result. This technique helps to close clients directly in PM and leaves no room for objections.

We tried to promote ourselves through mass following, targeting and opinion leaders. Bloggers have worked best; the salon cooperates with them on an ongoing basis - this way subscribers have more trust. Over the past two months, 5 bloggers with an audience of moms visited the salon, and this generated sales.

Another important point - operational work community manager. In the beauty industry, you need to quickly respond to comments and questions in Direct, otherwise the client will turn to another salon. You also need to book clients directly through Instagram, rather than sending them to WhatsApp or calling the reception. Then the client will not forget and will not have time to change his mind or sign up at another place in a more convenient way for him.

Within 2 months of operation, the salon received 13 new clients through Instagram and 56 in total. Someone came by word of mouth, someone called immediately, it’s difficult to track, but Instagram indirectly contributes to this.