if you’re into social media and fashion, you will be familiar with LIKEtoKNOW.it. Launched in 2011, the social shopping carrier lets influencers on blogs and social systems like Instagram and Snapchat receives a commission for his or her work.
Over the final year the company claims to have pushed $ 1 billion dollars in gross sales for retail and model companions from over 12,000 influencers.
whereas we’ve in the past written about rewardStyle, the startup answerable for LIKEtoKNOW.it, here’s a brief refresher on how it works:
After a blogger or influencer takes an image of an outfit or scene, they add it to LIKEtoKNOW.it and “tag” it with the merchandise in the picture, as smartly a hyperlink to purchase it from one of the 4,000 outlets that associate with the startup.
Then, after seeing something they like on an influencer’s blog, audiences get admission to these links and purchase the objects featured in their favorite influencer’s pictures. The retailer makes a sale, rewardStyle and the influencer get a minimize of the profits, and the consumer gets get admission to to gadgets garments they’ll in any other case now not have identified about.
operating In a Walled backyard
the whole course of works efficiently — apart from for one pesky intermediary that occasionally gets in the way in which — social media systems like Instagram and Snapchat.
When rewardStyle first launched, the world of style influencers and bloggers was once primarily, smartly, weblog-based totally. So it was once straightforward for the startup to simply supply influencers a hyperlink that they’d pop into their weblog submit or personal web page.
but then Instagram got here alongside — together with its walled backyard way that forestalls hyperlinks to in other places on the web. Even nowadays Instagram doesn’t allow users add links to pictures unless it is a established account, and even in that case, links are limited to appearing in 24-hour disappearing tales and are forbidden from common posts. So as influencers flocked to the brand new platform, rewardStyle realized it had to determine a approach to let influencers share “shoppable links” with their target market.
And that’s how LIKEtoKNOW.it used to be born in 2014. The service lets customers create an account tied to their Instagram profile, then each time they “like” a influencer’s photo on Instagram they receive an e-mail with the shoppable link to buy the object. It’s a gorgeous innovative means to make use of Instagram’s API when you inquire from me.
Breaking Free
the first rule of operating a company that depends on social media is realizing that you could by no means take a seat nonetheless. platforms come and go. take into account that when MySpace was one of the vital well-liked websites on this planet? And when Snapchat was a niche app for sexting on faculty campuses? neatly think about telling your 2007 self that MySpace is useless and that niche sexting app is a public firm price $ 28 billion bucks. Get the purpose yet?
So nowadays LIKEtoKNOW.it is announcing its personal app, in an effort to let audiences keep content from anywhere to your phone. basically the app approach it no longer has to fret about its service fitting inside the ideas of each social platform, or perhaps a new platform that pops up which doesn’t take kindly to links (or API workarounds).
So how is it doing this? Screenshots.
The App
to make use of the new app all you must do is take a screenshot of a photograph you wish to have to buy. this is a screenshot of an Influencer’s Instagram, a photo from fashion week, or perhaps a photograph your buddy sends you.
in an instant after taking a screenshot the app will analyze it (it connects to your screenshot album in images) and send you a push notification if it can match the image with one among hundreds of thousands of influencer-submitted and tagged images in its database.
Then, which you can open the app and retailer the content material that was featured within the photo, with each the Influencer and rewardStyle taking a reduce of any transaction.
basically it’s the same provider that LIKEtoKNOW.it fanatics have grown to like, aside from it could now be used anyplace across the open and closed web.
in view that screenshot performance is developed and maintained via device producers it’s platform-agnostic.
The startup explained that the app will now let users (each influencers and customers) migrate more simply between social systems. If the subsequent Snapchat pops up day after today, Influencers can start posting content material on day one, given that all their target market has to do is take a screenshot to shop the content material.
interestingly, the startup defined that taking a screenshot of something they wish to buy is a habit most of its users already comprehend. With so various discovery platforms on their telephones these days, many have began the usage of screenshots so to needless to say then things they really need to buy. “‘Liking’ has transform transactional, but taking a screenshot is the most private type of curation and it is the strongest indicator of purchase intent,” explained Amber Venz box, President and co-founder of rewardStyle.
The app launches these days and is to be had on the iOS App retailer.
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