From reddit, to twitter, to youtube, to instagram and tik tok the internet is a HUB for communities where people go to share and enjoy their hobbies.
Every single one of these hubs present a unique opportunity to get in front of people who love that subject matter and more importantly are willing to spend money on it.
And that's where you come in.
The goal isn't to reinvent the wheel, the goal is to get in between the transactions that are going to take place either way.
How do you do that? Let's dive right in.
Step 1: Identify a passionate community/target market
On instagram these are easily found via theme pages (accounts dedicated to a subject matter instead of a person)
You can find these simply scrolling through your explore page or search hashtags.
Here's a quick list of communities that are thriving on Instagram (come up with more these are just off the top of my head)
- Self Care
- Jeeps
- Survival
- Astrology
- Wanderlust
- Women's fitness
- Cute [insert dog breed]
- Game fishing
The list goes on and on.
Step 2: Are they spending money?
Use common sense.
If the market is filled with 9 year olds, they probably aren't spending much money.
If the market is full of guys who are accustomed to paying $500 for car accessories, they have no problem spending money.
Step 3: Now assuming they are spending money, it's time to find out what are they spending money on.
Spend more time here.
Look at who comments, explore their page, see what they're posting. See what companies they follow. Offer a $5 starbucks gift card to answer a few q's.
One of my favorite things to do is comment something like this on a new post of the page:
"I'm just getting into [insert hobby] what are some of your favorite purchases you've made for your [insert hobby]?"
"What do you guys love about [insert hobby]"
You'd be surprised at how many people will reply to comments like this.
Giving you a great look into what they love to spend their money on.
Step 4: Now that we know what they spend their money on, it's time see if you can source it. Check aliexpress to start, etsy, private label companies, all that.
You want to get qoutes and see if you can source it for around 10-30% of a reasonable sales price.
Step 6: Reach out to the pages you were studying. Turn on a movie and just start reaching out
"SPONSORSHIP INQUIRY: Hey I sell BLAH and run BLAH. Can you please send me your rates for story and page post?"
Create a few variations of this so you don't get marked as spam by IG
I like to make sure the pages have 30,000 followers or more and have a 3% or higher engagement rate. I used
https://t.co/odgn06SLaA in the past to check this.
Now we know what people are buying, we know why they buy, we know where to source the product and we know where the passionate eyeballs are.
Let's get into the fun part and where i'll start giving you REAL examples of what I did in the past.
I realized Jeep owners spent so much money customizing and improving their vehicles. So that's the community I targeted. I spoke to some engaged followers of the Jeep pages and got a list of things they bought. Tires, lift kits, light bars, floor mats, steering wheel covers etc
When I went to source it, steering wheel covers just made the most sense.
I could buy them for $9 and people had no problem paying $29 dollars for them. Light work.
But to make putting myself in between this transaction work even better, here's ONE little trick that supercharged my results.
I didn't just create a Steering Wheel Store and buy shoutouts on Jeep pages.
I created an experience JUST for jeep owners.
The website? Tailored for jeep owners.
Here's example of the wrong & the right way to do it.
The content? Ordered the product, went to my friend with jeep and took pics with my phone.
Here's example of the wrong & the right way to do it.
This steering wheel cover wasn't MADE for Jeeps but customers never knew that based on how I presented it.
It converted like crazy.
A $30 shoutout could generate $250-$500 and I would do this week after week and constantly look for new pages as well.
Can these steering wheel covers still sell? Probably. I haven't sold em in a few years.
BUT take this example and run with it.
Create an experience for a group of people and watch how easy it is to get them to start spending money with you.
You can take this to the next level by
- Running facebook ads with the data you get
- Grow your own page and send traffic there
- Starting an email newsletter with that traffic
- Get sponsored by various companies
If you rock with this thread let me know.
I’ll drop more in the future if you guys mess with it.
The possibilities are endless but regardless of what you do, it starts a passionate community of people.
