How To Find Influencers

Apr 16
5 min read

Social media influencers are a trendy marketing tactics for businesses today. They have amazing reach, humanize your products with unscripted testimonials, and provide you with beautiful diverse content to repost on your own social media feed.

76% of Generation Z is open to discovering brands through creator content, and 71% of consumers say they make a purchase within a couple of days of seeing creator content on Meta apps.

The problem is that finding the right influencers isn’t easy! Let’s first dig into what a social media influencer is and we’ll provide 3 proven tips to find influencers, fast.

What is a social media influencer anyway?

Generally speaking - social media influencers are content creators that have influence over their followers in channels like social media, videos, blogs, and podcasts.

While there is no magic number for how many followers someone needs to have to be considered an influencer we look for a minimum of 10,000 active followers. (However, there are definitely nano influencers with fewer followers but have a more engaged following that we work with on certain campaigns too).

In addition to having more followers than the average user, social media influencers usually define then follow a strategy for their feed to create professional, aesthetically pleasing, and relevant content that people will love.

But the most important part is how engaged their following is. A brand looking to collaborate with an influencer is interested in tapping into the trust that they have already built with their audience. That means that their posts see lots of likes, comments, shares, and bookmarks; brand collabs see lots of purchases; and stories see lots of impressions and actions taken. The more trust their followers have in the influencer, the better results you’ll get.

3 easy ways to find influencers on Instagram

Ok so now we know what a social media influencer is, are you ready to collaborate with them? Yes! We were hoping you’d say that! Follow these quick tips to find the best influencers on Instagram for your brand.

Go where your audience is

Instead of trying to find influencers on the platform you THINK your target market is on, find your target market and see where they ALREADY spend their time. Here are some of the top platforms for influencers working with businesses right now, why we like them, and who spends the most time there:

With over 1B professionals on LinkedIn, this platform is the best place to market if you’re targeting B2B services. However the content that works for LinkedIn won’t work for other platforms. Think testimonials and written reviews.

For example, LinkedIn is usually more professional and educational than, say, Instagram where it is image first and conversational. You probably don’t think of LinkedIn when we’re talking about influencers but hear us out. While the collab would look very different than on the other social media platforms, it can be more successful because the space is a whole lot less crowded.

If you have long form content that you want to use for lead generation, LinkedIn influencers could be the tactics for you.

Instagram

This platform is great for visual products (like those in the fashion, beauty, food, fitness, or travel industries). Since you aren’t able to link in posts and can only in stories, focus your attention on beautiful images first then wow them with the caption when they want to know more.

Instagram is most popular with young-ish ages (33.3% are 25-34, 29.7% are 18-24, and 45+ drops off). Instagram is the place almost all of our influencer campaigns take place.

Facebook

Think of Facebook as if LinkedIn and Instagram had a baby. You can include links in captions (yay for brands!), content is fun and educational (yay for brands!), but social media influencers don’t play here as often (boo).

Oh and the best performing demographics tend to skew a little older than Instagram and definitely TikTok. They respond best to content that solves practical problems, saves time or money, and shows real-world usage and around 35% of Facebook users interact with brand content at least once a day.

TikTok

Short-form video content is the content format of choice and this is the place if you’re targeting a younger audience. It was named the first non-game app to generate $10 billion in consumer spending in the Apple and Google Play stores. If you’re working with an influencer on a video already, why not see if they can post it on their TikTok too and see if it resonates?

Finding Influencers

Suggested for you

On Instagram, go to an influencer you really like and push the button that looks like a + then a person under their profile. This shows "suggested for you." Instagram will recommend other profiles that are similar to the one you're on!

Search relevant hashtags

Once you know where your target market is online, you’ve significantly narrowed down the influencer search. Heck, that part is hard work! Now you need to search through your platform of choice to find active influencers with an engaged following.

One easy way to do this is to look for relevant hashtags. Unfortunately hashtags are not used much anymore but it's still worth a shot.

Hashtags organize content, helping you find great influencers. But, and this is a big one, there will be lots and lots of posts to wade through to find that one gem. Sometimes people have spammed a popular hashtag to get visibility... it doesn’t work, people. If we’re looking for # farmhouse and we see a post about an egg cooker (true story), you know we’re not clicking.

And also remember there’s no geo-targeting when searching hashtags so you might find an influencer you love love love only to discover she’s based in Australia and the brand doesn’t sell there (also true story).

If you’re already following an influencer and you think they would work for your brand, check out the comments on their posts. Influencers usually follow and interact with other similar influencers, so chances are that another great influencer will be active in their comments.

Check out the competition

A little competitor research will be sure to speed up your influencer research. Look at your top 3 competitors. Are they working with influencers? If so, who? While you shouldn’t use the same influencers your competitors are working with, you should look for similar influencers for your campaign. Why? Because.

The bottom line

Social media influencers have so much to offer a brand that is looking for the next best marketing tactic to increase their brand awareness. With some effort and mad research skills, you can find influencers to take your marketing to the next level!

Like anything, successful influencer marketing takes experience and relationships. There are lots of ways to “game” the system but, by working with influencers for years, we know what to avoid so you don’t waste your money on an unsuccessful campaign.

We have relationships with 1,000’s of influencers that will give you better content at better prices and most importantly, save you hours and hours of time. Don’t trust your brand voice to influencer databases where it’s purely transactional (people can tell!)