How to Find the Right Influencers: The Ultimate Guide
Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective ways for brands to increase awareness, engagement, and sales.
By partnering with influencers who have established credibility and trust with their audience, brands can tap into highly targeted, receptive, and influential networks to promote their products and services.
But finding the right influencers is essential for running successful campaigns. You need to identify influencers who create content that resonates with your target demographic and conveys values aligned with your brand.
Their followers should match your ideal customer profile.
This comprehensive guide will provide actionable tips and tools to help you find and vet influencers on popular platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Lets get started…
Overview of Influencer Marketing
Before diving into tactics for finding influencers, let’s briefly go over the basics of influencer marketing.
What is an influencer?
An influencer is an individual who has built credibility and authority around a specific niche, topic or industry. They have cultivated large, highly engaged social media followings. Their audiences look to them for advice, recommendations, education or entertainment.
Influencer marketing refers to collaborating with influencers to promote your brand and products. It involves leveraging an influencer’s reputation and reach to drive tangible outcomes like:
- Increasing brand awareness and recognition
- Generating leads and sales
- Driving website traffic
- Improving search engine rankings
- Cultivating brand affinity and trust
Also Read: What is Influencer Marketing & How it Works: The Complete Guide
Why is it effective?
There are several reasons why influencer marketing tends to perform better than traditional ads:
- Targeted reach – Influencers attract niche audiences that are highly relevant to the brand. This leads to higher engagement rates.
- Established trust and credibility – Audiences rely on influencers’ opinions and will likely try products they recommend.
- Brand safety – Carefully vetted influencers are less risky than broad ad campaigns and can protect brand reputation.
- Scalability – Micro and mid-tier influencers often have better engagement. You can partner with many of them to extend reach.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s discuss how to set objectives for your influencer marketing campaigns.
Setting Goals for Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Having clearly defined goals will make it much easier to track campaign performance, calculate your return on investment (ROI) and identify the best influencers for future partnerships.
When setting objectives, make sure they are:
- Specific – Define precisely what you want to achieve from your campaigns like increasing website traffic by 25% or making 100 new sales of a product. Use quantitative metrics.
- Measurable – Choose goals with metrics that can be monitored and analyzed like traffic, conversions, engagement rate, etc.
- Achievable – Make sure the objectives are realistic given your budget, niche and type of product.
- Relevant – Goals should align directly with your overall marketing and business objectives.
- Time-bound – Set a schedule and deadlines for achieving the goals. Campaigns can run for as little as a week or over 6 months.
Here are some examples of common influencer marketing goals:
- Generate 500 qualified leads for our email list
- Increase monthly website visitors by 20%
- Achieve 5X ROI on our influencer marketing spend
- Grow Instagram following from 5,000 to 10,000 in 6 months
- Get 1,000 clicks to a product page from an influencer post
- Generate 100 app installs in a month
Now let’s dive into where and how to search for the right influencers to help accomplish those goals for your brand campaigns.
Where to Look for Influencers
The platforms and types of influencers you search for should directly align with where your target audience is most active online.
Let’s explore top networks for influencer marketing.
YouTube
With over 2 billion monthly logged-in users, YouTube presents a massive opportunity to connect with potential customers through video content.
YouTube works exceptionally well for raising brand awareness at the top of the sales funnel. Nano, micro and mid-tier influencers can be very effective for generating highly targeted traffic and leads.
Use case examples:
- Tutorial and “how-to” videos
- Product reviews
- Unboxing videos
- Branded entertainment integrating your product
- Key Metrics for Evaluating YouTube Influencers
When assessing potential YouTube influencer partners, analyze these engagement and content metrics:
- Subscriber Count – Total audience reach
- Average Views per Video – Overall video performance
- Viewer Retention – Audience attention span
- Comments per Video – Audience engagement
- Social Shares per Video – Viral potential
- Upload Frequency – Posting consistency
Instagram remains one of the best influencer marketing platforms with over 2 billion monthly active users.
The visually focused content and tendency towards aspirational and lifestyle topics make it very conducive to influencer storytelling.
Instagram is extremely valuable for imaginative brand building, raising product awareness and generating sales through affiliated links and discounts.
Use case examples:
- Photographed or filmed product usage and reviews
- Shoppable style content
- Branded AR filters and interactive elements
- Instagram Story takeovers
- IGTV videos
Key Metrics for Evaluating Instagram Influencers
Make sure to analyze these key Instagram metrics:
- Follower Count – Total audience reach
- Average Likes and Comments per Post – Audience engagement
- Average Impressions per Post – Content visibility
- Save Rate on Posts – Audience interest
- Story Views and Responses – Engagement benchmark
- Affiliate Link Click-Through Rate – Conversion potential
TikTok
TikTok has seen massive growth recently and now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users. It’s the ideal platform for playful, entertaining influencer collaborations.
The addictive short-form vertical videos lend themselves extremely well to viral challenges and visually dynamic branded content.
Use case examples:
- Brand challenges and hashtag campaigns
- TikTok duets and reaction videos
- Fun skits and dances involving products
- Product unboxings and reviews
- Shoppable videos
Key Metrics for Evaluating TikTok Influencers
Look for these engagement signals when vetting TikTok influencers:
- Follower Count – Total audience reach
- Average Views per Video – Content visibility
- Average Likes per Video – Audience affinity
- Shares per Video – Viral potential
- Comments per Video – Engagement benchmark
- Video Views to Follower % – Engagement score
Those are three major networks with huge influencer marketing potential. But you can also find relevant creators on Twitter, Pinterest, niche communities, forums, blogs and more.
The keys are identifying where your audience already spends time online and finding voices they actively listen to.
Now let’s explore tactics for searching across these platforms.
How to Find the Right Influencers
Establishing clear goals and identifying priority platforms is the first step. Next you need to actually track down relevant influencers.
The best approach combines leveraging influencer marketing tools as well as manual searching methods.
Using Influencer Marketing Platforms and Tools
Influencer marketing software solutions have extensive databases and powerful analytics for discovering and assessing influencers. They provide the most efficient way to identify ideal partners.
Here are top capabilities offered by leading influencer marketing tools:
- Influencer Discovery – Use keywords, categories, locations, platform, gender, follower count and other filters to pinpoint niche influencers.
- Audience Demographics – Analyze the composition of an influencer’s followers including age, gender, interests and location.
- Historical Performance – View engagement metrics on past content, sponsored posts, highlights and stories.
- Influencer Vetting – Check for fake followers, artificial engagement and policy compliance.
- Relationship Management – Send collaboration requests, manage responses and track conversations.
- Campaign Management – Track deliverables, measure results and monitor success metrics.
Here are some top influencer marketing platforms to consider:
These platforms provide comprehensive tools for identifying and vetting influencers, managing relationships and tracking campaign performance. Most offer free trials so you can test drive their solutions.
Manual Methods
If investing in dedicated software is not viable, you still have options for manually finding influencers. Here are manual tactics to discover influencers on major platforms:
YouTube
- Use YouTube search filters to show most popular channels by view count for a given keyword.
- Analyze related hashtags and transcripts of top videos for a niche to find creators.
- Use Google to find openly indexed YouTube channel lists on blogs and review sites.
- Search related hashtags and location tags to uncover top posts then check the creators.
- Use Instagram search filters to find accounts by keywords, category or followers.
- Google “top Instagram influencers [your niche]” and compile lists from articles.
TikTok
- Look through trending hashtag challenges and videos to discover top contributors.
- Search niche keywords directly on TikTok to find popular accounts.
- Compile TikTok influencer lists from blog posts and media sites.
The only downside to manual searching is it takes more effort and does not provide detailed analytics on audience quality and past performance. But with persistence, you can discover great influencers.
Tips for Selecting the Best Influencers
Finding prospective influencers is the starting point. You still need to vet creators thoroughly to ensure a values alignment and strong content match with your brand.
Here are tips for picking ideal partners:
Relevant Metrics To Analyze
Do not get overly distracted by big follower counts that don’t translate into engagement or conversions. Prioritize these performance metrics:
- Engagement Rate – Percentage of followers actively liking, commenting on and sharing content.
- Story Engagement – Views, replies and clicks for ephemeral content.
- Post/Video Views – The reach of individual pieces of content.
- Click Through Rate on Links – The percentage of followers clicking affiliated links or links to products.
- Sales Attributed – Actual sales driven from codes and special offers.
- Audience Reach – Followers within your target customer demographic.
Ensure Audience Demographic Fit
Data on follower age, gender, interests and location allows you to assess audience alignment with your intended target market.
If metrics indicate a mismatch, the influencer may not yield sufficient relevant traffic or conversions regardless of impressive vanity metrics.
Assess Content Quality and Brand Alignment
Vet influencers beyond metrics alone and examine the brand suitability of the values, topics and creativity in their content.
- Do their posts and videos feel aligned with your brand identity and positioning?
- Does their content keep audiences positively engaged without controversy?
- Do they promote complementary products or services?
Also assess aesthetic factors like photography, editing quality and production value.
Vet For Authenticity
While influencers build follower counts themselves, inauthentic accounts still persist, so vet carefully:
- Analyze follower counts over time graphed – is growth steady or sporadic spikes?
- Examine engagement metrics – are vanity metrics mismatched?
- Are comments personalized and local languages used?
- Does content seem uniquely created or reused?
Stay vigilant for fake bots, purchased followers and engagement to ensure your budgets generate real results.
By taking a metrics-driven approach combined with a qualitative assessment of content, personality and audience fit, you can feel confident you’ve selected the best possible influencers.
Now let’s discuss forging lasting partnerships.
Tips for Establishing Relationships With Influencers
Finding promising influencers is one thing. Establishing rewarding relationships that drive results for both parties requires some finesse and strategic relationship building principles.
Set Clear Expectations
Leave nothing ambiguous in terms of deliverables, timelines and compensation. Involve legal teams to review any gray areas around sponsored content regulations. Clarify:
- Content formats, product integration requirements, outline scripts or talking points
- Editing approval processes and ensuring brand guidelines are followed
- Usage rights for your brand to repurpose content
- Detailed payment terms and conditions
Start Small
See if micro or nano-influencers with smaller but more targeted, engaged audiences can meet objectives for a reasonable price before pursuing those with immense reach.
You can also do a test collaboration with any sized influencer first before arranging an extensive long-term partnership.
Maintain Open Communication
Schedule check-ins before, during and after campaigns to provide guidance, gather feedback and supply assets the influencer may need to maximize results like coupon codes or product shipments.
By laying this collaborative groundwork, you can establish trusting relationships with influencers who become valued brand ambassadors that grow impact over time through multiple partnerships.
Key Takeaways
Finding influencers who resonate with your niche demographic and convey your brand values is crucial for generating traction through influencer marketing campaigns.
Here are main tips covered in this guide:
- Set Clear Goals: Define campaign success metrics around traffic, conversions and engagement before identifying potential partners to assess fitness.
- Identify Your Audience’s Top Platforms: Discover where your target customers are most active and receptive to influencers to guide platform focus.
- Leverage Tools to Identify and Vet: Influencer marketing software provides discovery, audience details and performance history to evaluate creators thoroughly at scale.
- Search Manually If Needed: Hashtag searches, Google queries and platform filters allow you to compile targeted lists if lacking marketing tools.
- Assess Audience Fit and Content Relevance: Ensure followers match target demographics, content quality is strong and influencer values align to produce the highest engagement and conversion rates from partnerships.
- Nurture Positive Experiences and Relationships: Through clear expectations, open communication and reasonable compensation influencers become loyal brand supporters over the long-term.
In closing, a meticulous approach to identifying, vetting and engaging micro, macro and mega influencers that deliver measurable impact can transform brands through reach, credibility and word-of-mouth advocacy unique to these powerful partnerships.
