what's up guys ryan here thank you for
joining me for a new video in this one
i want to talk about using instagram to
sell print on demand products to your
followers
now first and foremost it is my personal
belief and i don't spend too much time
on social media but
it's my personal belief that it is not
easy to get organic exposure
online really anywhere you kind of have
to work for it you know if you're
if you're starting a new instagram page
and your goal
is ultimately to sell people
t-shirts whether it's like a dog
instagram account where it's lots of
pictures of dogs
but you ultimately want to sell them dog
t-shirts like
in my mind it's not going to be easy to
organically grow that follower base
and when you get to the point where you
say all right it's big enough now i'm
gonna hit them with
the dog t-shirt and hope people buy it
instagram wants to keep people on their
platform we know this
they don't want to send people off of
instagram unless you're paying them
for that exposure right in ads so
hopefully sharing the story i'm going to
share with you in this video is going to
um change the way you see and you feel
about instagram because in my mind like
keep in mind this is something that not
enough talking heads on youtube
talk about is that your time is money so
there's nothing wrong with growing a big
social media following
and trying to market to them guys but
keep in mind
it takes time and somewhere in a
parallel universe instead of
trying to grow a social media following
maybe you followed my recommended
approach
and you just tried to occupy as much
online real estate as possible on the
big e-commerce websites that already get
qualified organic traffic right so
instead of someone logging into
instagram or facebook
and they're there just to like talk
politics
or check on their best friend's
photos of their kid right whatever
people do i don't know like i said i
don't spend too much time on there
and then all of a sudden you're gonna
try to convince them to buy a t-shirt
from you
now that's hard to do but
in the other alternate universe where
you're occupying online real estate on
places like i don't know amazon
etsy redbubble places that people go
with the intent to buy
you don't have to convince somebody
who's going to look at photos of
you know a dog or something or a kid or
whatever it is you don't have to
convince them to buy a t-shirt
you only have to convince somebody who's
looking to buy a t-shirt to buy your
t-shirt instead of somebody else's
in my mind that like if your goal is to
make money
your time is better spent doing that
than trying to grow
an organic following on social media
from scratch and then
take them off of the platform when we
know the platform doesn't want people
leaving
and then actually convert those people
right it's it's not easy guys i'm not
saying it can't be done but i want to
share with you a story
in this video of an instagrammer with a
multi-million
follower base that tried to sell
t-shirts to those people and i want to
let you know
how it ended for this big instagramer so
i'm gonna go jump on my computer and
we'll dive into the article
all right guys thank you so much for
joining me and real quick before we jump
into the story let me introduce myself
for the new viewers i'm ryan hogue i've
sold over 1.7 million
on amazon to date if you want to follow
the links in the description i've got a
free eight-day print on demand mini
course delivered via email
i also have a print on demand facebook
community i'd love to have you there
and i publish income reports on the
first day of each month if you want to
subscribe to my channel you can follow
along with my print on demand journey as
well as amazon fba
amazon merch amazon kdp and my youtube
revenue
last but not least i wrote an over 70
lecture course it's a full print on
demand course covers the full spectrum
niche research designing how to set up
on all these marketplaces and excel
it's it's everything you need so check
that out link in the description all
right so let's jump into the
main story now i'm not trying to make
fun of this instagramer i actually
respect
the hustle that they grew a massive
social media following and then tried to
parlay it
into a stream of income especially at a
very young
age unfortunately it ended up being an
epic fail they had closer to 3 million
followers then 2 million followers
on the popular social media website
instagram and
they tried to launch their own clothing
brand
and upon launching the first product
they had an epic fail i mean i don't
know what else to call it they couldn't
sell
36 pieces of clothing which was the
minimum requirement to keep working with
whatever production company they were
using to launch their brand so what do
you say we dive into the article all
right and i'm going to put a link in the
description if you guys want to follow
along or read the article for yourself
but
this instagrammer at ari said she failed
to sell 36 t-shirts to her 2.6 million
followers it's now
a deleted instagram post she said she
was launching a clothing line
but had to sell 36 items from the
initial drop in order for the company to
continue producing them she wasn't met
with much sympathy as you would imagine
i mean i'm not being too sympathetic
in this video but i'm also not trying to
make fun of her but when you're out
there you're a public figure you're an
influencer uh this you know this is just
kind of how it goes
you're in the spotlight you know it's it
goes both ways good and bad
some people pointed out that the
instagram star didn't promote her
products well while others suggested the
news is a sign that the influencer
bubble
is set to burst alright so let's read
through this it's not too long of an
article so
an instagram star has sparked a
discussion about how powerful social
media influencers really are after
failing to sell 36 t-shirts to 2.6
million followers
ari whose real name skipped that decided
to launch her own clothing line era
with an initial drop of t-shirts the 18
year old could perhaps be forgiven
for presuming her huge follower count
would translate to sales but
this was not to be the case renee has
now deleted the instagram post where she
explained what happened but not before
countless people managed to screen grab
it
so i read through it uh it's not really
worth digging into it's more or less
social media drama where she said that
people didn't help promote it for her
even though she had helped those people
in the past etc so don't worry about
that
the miami-based influencer said she'd
been told by the company producing the
brand
that she needed to sell at least 36
t-shirts from the first run of products
in order
for the line to be continued but renee
didn't hit the target
in the lengthy caption she explained
that she knew it was gonna be hard but
that
she was getting so much good feedback
that people loved it and were gonna buy
it which
you know dare i venture to say that
people that spend all day on social
media and on instagram
are fake people right i mean come on
social media is not representative of
most people's real lives so of course
people are like oh my god this brand is
the best i'm gonna buy it
and she couldn't sell 36 shirts i don't
know you guys can tell like i get a
little
uh i just i'm not a fan of social media
i just think it's huge waste of time
most of the time
no one kept their word so now the
company won't be able to send out the
orders
to people who actually bought s s
and it breaks my heart she said the
people i thought were gonna support me
really didn't nor did they share any of
my posts all right we're getting into
that quote we're just gonna skip through
that
she explained that the people who had
ordered a t-shirt would be refunded and
said that she would take care of the
experience she would take the experience
as a wake-up call to work harder hey
i like i said mad respect she's also
young
uh so it's not like this was even that
big of a fail i mean
it doesn't sound like she was out too
much money so i got faith she'll be all
right
unfortunately for renee her post wasn't
met with much sympathy online
as many people were swiftly sharing
their two cents
on the marketing fail one person on
twitter suggested that the influencer
bubble is bursting
the influencer bubbles bursting the
young lady was well over two okay so
someone's just sharing their opinion on
twitter saying that maybe influencers
don't carry as much weight as they think
and that
a massive follower count does not
necessarily mean that's going to
translate into sales
so take note of that if you guys are
still thinking that you're going to
make your brand relevant through social
media because i mean
we already know it's it's hard others
suggested the main error was with how
renee marketed the product pointing out
the t-shirts didn't really fit with the
rest of her style and that she didn't do
much to promote them renee did not
immediately respond to the request for a
comment
influencer marketing uh expert shaylee
shirley said co-founder of leading brand
agency wickerwood told insider she isn't
surprised renee failed
to sell more t-shirts from careful
review of how the supposed
brand they put in quotes so they're
really uh trolling her now
that ari says she launched and the first
edition t-shirts that were to be the
brand's hero launch product
the brand was very poorly created and
weak in execution and brand image now
they're going to give some examples if
you guys want to see
there's also the fact that the t-shirts
just weren't very exciting
so i'm just saying like we can probably
us print on demand sellers that are
experienced we probably could come up
with better designs
wait till you see these ones but even if
they're exciting
you still got to convince people to open
up their wallets and you got to get out
in front of people which is the hardest
part
this influencer already had that part
solved but they didn't solve the
other part of the equation getting
people excited enough to buy it
there was nothing special about those
t-shirts she said nothing personal or
creative or inspirational or exciting
they were simply black long-sleeve
branded t-shirts and the marketing was
immature unprofessional and lazy
the price of the t-shirts is unknown but
lay would
the person expert said that if she
priced it too high or and her mass
followers couldn't afford it they're not
going to engage or purchase especially
if it's overpriced and the brand image
is weak
price point is extremely important this
all goes back to understanding your
audience
on twitter campaign and content expert
jack appleby highlighted that renee only
posted two images about the product
before launching it
so guys what this is it's not just that
this influencer on instagram messed up
these are all things to take into
consideration if you're going to go this
route
of creating your own brand identity
and from nothing and you're going to
make people aware of its existence like
there are so many things that
you have to do correctly and again like
what i always want to come back to is
the
point that the hardest part is just
getting organic exposure
you know what i mean because you're not
trying to build a social media following
if you're intending to spend money on
ads because you can just spend money on
ads
you know you can just do that snap your
fingers it's done so this guy's saying
that
her normal instagram feed
did not match her product line at all
whatsoever and i mean you can kind of
see this kid's wearing one of those
t-shirts or
long sleeve shirts and it's just like
some butterflies and three letters and
yeah it's it's extremely extremely basic
nothing special about it at all
then he goes on to say that a lot of
times female influencers have
predominantly male followers so maybe
she should have
been uh trying to sell to the male
audience more
uh it looks like and then he says maybe
i missed her instagram stories or
promoted posts but looks like she
announced it with a video
only put up one more video and then said
she failed 13 days later so she really
didn't try too hard to promote it
herself and not
one single picture of her uh wearing the
product was found on her instagram
and there's only two posts even
mentioning it so she basically didn't
even try to promote her own product yeah
okay that's a fail we know that
but at the same time 2.6 million
followers
she couldn't sell 36 shirts something
doesn't add up right
uh and then he goes on the question if
her followers were real but based on the
engagement she normally gets
which by the way i mean that's not a lot
of engagement 44 000 likes 37 000 likes
for having 2.6 million followers uh
there has been known to be
bots on instagram and other social
networks so it would not surprise me if
um
some of them were not active accounts
let's just say active
accounts uh so anyways if you go through
the rest of the article it's
talking mainly about like why she failed
they're saying that she added in her own
experience
influencers launching their own products
fail around 50
of the time and also like for instance
i how many subs do i have on youtube 28
000 right now
like people reach out to me all the time
asking me to promote like
relevant well not always but usually
relevant stuff
to uh to you guys and i'm not
i'm not gonna chill out like i didn't i
didn't build this channel up for almost
two years now just to
bend over you know someone actually
someone offered me uh 500 bucks to
promote some like
gig economy insurance company 500 just
500 cash and i said
i need more i need to know more about
your product and it didn't seem like a
good fit so you're not going to hear
about it other than what i just said in
that last two sentences
um so a lot of people selling print on
demand think yeah i'm just gonna pay an
influencer
to you know show my product off to their
following and it's like a lot of these
real influencers with real followers
are they really gonna do that are they
gonna be a shill
for your product i mean i don't know
i've never tried but
in my mind it's tough for me to imagine
that a real influencer with real
followers that are really engaged
are really gonna do that it's just my
personal opinion um
and like on my channel like i'm not
gonna do that unless it's relevant
unless i use it unless it really
benefits
me which means it would hopefully
benefit you guys as well
uh i know the girl works super hard in
creating clothing that's stylish and
trendy but about her
and her design if she wouldn't wear it
that doesn't get produced she also works
super hard and her followers see that
every day on her channel
uh followers love to see behind the
scenes they want to be a part of the
creative journey with the influencer
so maybe that's a little bit of an
insight guys if you are still
thinking that you're going to execute
better than this instagramer with 2.6
million followers
and you think that you've got some sort
of an edge that she didn't have
and you're still going for it consider
this feedback
people love to see behind the scenes
they look for that authenticity
they don't just want this brand to
appear out of nowhere
and be sold the brand maybe they want to
see
instagram posts leading up to the launch
talking about how much blood sweat and
tears went into it
why it's relevant again maybe like
instead of
the design just saying e-r-a like maybe
talk about the story behind those
letters i don't know
i didn't follow this girl on instagram
and even if i did i don't spend too much
time looking at my phone following
what other people are doing with their
time but i think we've talked about this
long enough guys i think you get the
point
uh if you're trying to sell what's your
end goal is it to make money online
selling e-commerce selling fba products
or print-on-demand products or whatever
it is
if that's your goal heed my advice
just follow the customers if amazon.com
is the number one ecommerce website in
the world
go there sell there and if you don't
have an attachment to selling a specific
niche
then do some niche research
sell what's already selling look at what
people want to buy and go
present them with the products they want
to buy you know what i mean there are
data points out there
that allow us to do niche research
figure out what people are buying
and then go cater to that demand guys
and it's stuff that i talk about on this
channel if you made it to the end of the
video and you're not subscribed
hit the subscribe button we're going to
talk more about niche research obviously
in the future
we've talked about in the past you can
go through the archive and find some of
my older videos
also i covered extensively in my courses
but hey guys thank you so much for
watching till the end
hit that like button hit that subscribe
button and i'll see you at the next
video
passive income school is open enroll now
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[Music]
you