• Let me tell you the proverbial curtain is about to be pulled back on this entire industry. It is very clear that Instagram is aggressively moving into shopping and that shopping is going to be available for influencers in their stories and on their posts very soon.

    This is completely game-changing. I have talked for so long about how I don't buy things on Instagram because it's such a complex process. One of my longest stunning employees here, Emma she recently sent an email to the team where she saw someone's sponsored post and then took the steps to try and buy it and it was like 14 or 15 steps and she spent 10 minutes on it because she kept having to put a password then it wasn't the right password. Then she had to confirm it and go to her email.

    It was an incredibly complex process. I think what she was trying to show us is like just how hard it was, she saw a sponsored post and said, "What happens if I want to buy this product right now and she spent 15 minutes trying and couldn't get it done in the end. Instagram shopping is going to change that dramatically and we won't be able to hide behind that idea anymore. That followers aren't shoppers or that it's really hard to buy on mobile or Instagram doesn't want you to leave the app so it's difficult to purchase.

    Those excuses are going to go away. You are going to begin to be responsible for the value you can provide. It's going to be interesting for influencer. If you're an influencer and you charge $1,000 and you do a sponsored post for a product that's 10 bucks and you sell two of them and it's through Instagram shopping, one click, their credit card info is saved, their address has saved. There's no friction whatsoever. It's just like apple pay thumbprint. It's going to be difficult to explain that away.

    I think we are entering a really exciting time for some influencers and probably a really scary one for others because the ROI metrics are going to be so much more apparent about who is driving value and who is not. That is why I think it is really interesting and important to talk about it today and to start to talk about sales because you can train an audience, and you can move your followers to become purchasers.

    That is possible for some people hopefully you already have that, your audiences already there looking to shop with you. I think you have to take your head out of the sand. Know that this is coming and it is going to fundamentally change this industry and the way that we look at, who we pay? How much we pay them? How we consider? What we consider a success? The world is going to be dramatically different in a year. For some people, that's going to be great and for some people, it's going to be a fucking nightmare. It is important to figure out what side of that you are on and start preparing for it.
    Episode #150
    - Converting Posts to Sales, Instagram Shopping, Designing Products