text: Launched just 9 months ago on iOS and last month on Android, LIKEtoKNOW.it has just hit 1M registered users on their mobile app, bringing total users to 2.8M.
  As a refresher, LIKEtoKNOW.it is a service that lets you “like” pictures from Instagram influencers and automatically get links to buy their outfits sent to your inbox. And their recently launched mobile app lets you take screenshots of an influencer’s picture (no matter what platform you find it on) and will then tell you what the items are in the picture along with links to buy it.
  Both products are made by rewardStyle, a Dallas-based content monetization platform for social media influencers. This year the company hit $1B in single year sales, with about 30% coming from LIKEtoKNOW.it shoppers. This means that social media has driven nearly $300M in sales for rewardStyle this year, up 10x from just $10M three years ago.
  When the app first launched we talked about it potentially being a good way for rewardStyle to build their own discovery channel, so they wouldn’t have to be as reliant on social networks for traffic.
  Almost a year later it seems that this strategy worked out, as two-thirds of all purchases made in the app are driven from content discovered inside the app, versus being found on outside websites or social platform. And social features like being able to follow and search for influencers have made it even easier for the app to become a totally standalone social shopping experience.
  The company works with about 4,300 brands ranging from Gucci to Walmart, all of whom pay a commission via rewardStyle to influencers who decide to wear and tag upwards of 50,000 products in their social media posts each day. Marketplaces want to get in on the action too – eBay just inked a partnership with rewardStyle that will let influencers select products from eBay’s inventory.
  Of course rewardStyle isn’t the only one trying to drive mobile commerce via social media. Instagram is working on their own shopping platform, which essentially lets brands create their own stores on Instagram. But it’s important to note that this is a different approach than rewardStyle, which keeps the focus on influencers and doesn’t allow brands to directly publish content. This means the two offerings can not only coexist, but probably help each other in the long run if they both end up getting more users to embrace the world of mobile shopping.
  While rewardStyle is mum about what major new features are in the pipeline, expect to see an acceleration of the shift to mobile sales. In 2017 a total of 24% of rewardStyle’s sales will come from their mobile platform LIKEtoKNOW.it, up from 15% last year.