How to find key influencers to promote your brand

Running influencer campaigns has become increasingly popular over the past few years. However, finding the right influencer for your brand takes time. It’s essential to find an influencer to promote you who aligns with your goals – whether that’s to improve brand awareness or increase sales. It doesn’t matter if they are a mega or micro influencer; you need the right fit to be successful.

But what are the best strategies to find them? And how can you find them on different social networks?

Find influencers on Instagram

Working with influencers on Instagram is a smart way to run influencer marketing campaigns. But there are several users and influencers. It can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. Here’s how to find the best Instagram influencer for your campaign.

Research popular industry hashtags

Using hashtag searches is a great way to find influencers on Instagram, as they are popular with content creators.

Go to the “Discover” page on Instagram and look for hashtags relevant to your product or niche. Search for your brand hashtags or your products. Look for the top posts. Then do the same for your competitors. An additional method is to search for #ad to find influencers in your niche.

There are free tools out there that can help you to find Instagram hashtags and get inspiration.

Check who’s already tagging you in posts

This can be a great way to find influencers you are not already working with yet. Click through to the posts and check out their profiles. Of course, not all of these tagged photos will be suitable matches, but you will still be able to find some great influencers for potential partnerships there.

Go through your followers on Instagram

This can be a time-consuming task depending on the number of followers, but you could find some gems. Influencers like to follow brands they love, so going through your followers to check and see if there are any influencers will help because they already have brand affinity and like what you do.

Additionally, you could also do this with your competitors to find people who could be interested in your brand.

Do a Google Search for Instagram influencers

A general search for Instagram influencers in Google will bring up thousands of results. Instead, type in site: plus instgram.com, plus your keywords. Searching in this way will only show the pages hosted by Instagram.

You will get fewer and more targeted results, and you can click on any influencers that are interesting to you.

To find Instagram influencers in your country, use the advanced search tool to filter for your desired language and country.

For example, vegan beauty review site:Instagram.com

Search for Instagram enhanced tags

Enhanced tags allow brands and influencers to tag content creators (including models and make-up artists) directly in their posts. If you go to a competitor’s Instagram page, you can tap on any image once to show any tags (video isn’t supported).

Enhanced tags will appear in black with white text and an Instagram handle. The tags are clickable, so on any post where someone has used enhanced tags, you can click through to their Instagram feed and Instagram comments to see if they would be a good fit with your brand.

There are three different ways of using enhanced hashtags for research. One is visiting your competitors’ feeds to see who they tag in their posts. To see the tags, you need to tap on the image once.

When you click on the tag it takes you to the influencer’s Instagram account.

While you are on your competitor’s page, you can also check their tagged posts for enhanced hashtags to find influencers.

Click on a post, and check it for enhanced tags

The next step is to check enhanced tags in your feed. Check the posts you have been tagged in to see if there are any. This depends on your brand – this could be particularly useful for beauty brands looking for makeup artists as influencers.

Finally, you can check magazines popular with your demographic to find enhanced hashtags there. Check on their main feed and their tagged posts to discover relevant influencers.

Find local Instagram influencers

Top tip: You can find local Instagram influencers by searching Places on Instagram – click on their profiles to find out where they are based.

Additionally, you can search using hashtags related to your location. For example, if you’re in New York, you could search for #nyc or #NewYork.

Finding influencers on Pinterest

Figuring out how to find Pinterest influencers is more complicated than finding Instagram influencers, but it is possible. There are a couple of great tools you can use to help you.

Use Pinterest search to find influencers

Pinterest has a search function to help you find the best content to pin. As a brand, you can use this to find relevant influencers. Popular pins will show you the engagement levels.

If you click on the profile under the post, you’ll be taken to their Pinterest profile with details of their website and follower counts.

Note: The broader your search, the more results you will get.

Use Pingroupie to find potential Pinterest influencers.

Pingroupie is a tool that can help you find Pinterest influencers for your next campaign. You’ll need to sign up for an account with them to search for influencers.

Click on Pinterest Influencers and search for your keywords in the search bar.

The more broad your search is, the more difficult it is to find what you need. Try to be specific and make sure you have switched on the “search “About me” toggle to ensure you’re not missing any influencers in your niche.

Click on their profile to find out what their website is. Note this down on a list for later.

Use Google search to find Pinterest influencers

Like Instagram, you can search Google directly for Pinterest influencers. It’s the same concept as before. Type site: Pinterest.com plus your search terms, and use the advanced search function to specify the location, language, and last update (if you want to see recent and relevant content)

Next steps

Pinterest is slightly different from other social networks. Once you have found some Pinterest influencers you might be interested in, it is crucial to check how much traffic they refer to their websites via Pinterest.

The best tool for this is Similarweb because it’s free and can tell you what percentage of traffic gets referred to their website via specific social media channels.

When you scroll down, you’ll see that 4.73% of their total traffic comes from social media. Of that 4.73%, 34.10% of that social traffic is from Pinterest. Calculating the number involves a little math.

4.73% of 49.65k is 2349. This is the total estimated traffic sent by social media. Now, calculate the percentage of traffic coming from Pinterest.

34.10% of 2349 is 801, so Pinterest sends roughly 802 website visits per month.

Remember that a small number doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing – it depends on your site conversion rates. It could be the ideal micro influencer for your campaign, or if another social channel drives more traffic to their website, it could be a great option to work with them on that social channel.

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Find Snapchat influencers

Snapchat is most popular in the United States and India compared to other countries. When you’re searching for influencers, Snapchat can be more time-consuming, and it doesn’t allow you to message people directly, so there are a few more steps to finding influencers here.

Use a Snapchat directory

One of the quickest ways to find trending Snapchat influencers is to use a Snapchat directory, where you can filter by topics. Ghostcodes allows you to click on a topic or search for your own and then shows you the trending influencers.

You can click on each profile to get more information about them. Pick out the best matches for your brand and add them to your list.

Look at trending topics relevant to your brand

Snapchat has a great website called Snapchat Trends. There you can see the most popular trending topics over the past week in specific countries. You can use these to start thinking about what types of hashtag searches you could use to find the right influencers for your brand.

Additionally, there is a search function on this page to help you find and compare different hashtags. The example below shows that more general terms have higher usage over time, even when comparing specific hashtags around a product.

Use the Spotlight Snaps to scroll through and find potential Snapchat influencers

Once you have a list of topics you’re interested in, it’s time to search for influencers. Go to the search section and look for the topics you gathered when you were using Snapchat Trends. When you click on the topic you want, it will show you Spotlight Snaps.

Tip: Be sure to use the hashtag to filter for Spotlight Snap topic results.

Click on a video and start scrolling through, looking for usernames. Not everyone has their profiles set to public, so it can take a little time to find those accounts that do show usernames.

If there’s a username, it will show at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

Click through to the profile to see how many subscribers they have, and check if they are directing you to another one of their social media accounts. If they direct you to another social media account, you can usually find a way to contact them directly.

Find Facebook influencers

Finding Facebook influencers can be challenging mainly because people rarely use hashtags on Facebook anymore. So how can you find influencers on Facebook?

Check your community posts

If your business has a Facebook page, check your community posts to see who is tagging you. It can be a great way to find Facebook influencers. It can be time-consuming, especially if you have a big brand, but you can find some great influencers there.

Use a social listening tool

A great way to find Facebook influencers is to use a social listening tool. You can see who is mentioning your brand easily, as well as following mentions for specific search terms. You’ll need to brainstorm a list of specific keywords to monitor – you can set the language and country to create a targeted list. You can use a tool like Brand24 will monitor and analyze those keywords. Once you have set this up, click on the Influencer tab and filter results to show you Facebook influencers.

You can click through to each influencer’s profile to look at their profiles to see if they are a good match for your campaign.

Use Buzzsumo’s influencer feature

Buzzsumo has a great feature where you can find relevant influencers in your field. All you need to do is go to the influencer page and select Facebook. Add your search term, and it will display influencers that are relevant.

You can compare the performance of up to 10 Facebook pages at a time to find the best influencer for your brand.

Find Metaverse influencers

While the Metaverse is still an emerging trend, mainly due to Facebook’s rebrand at the end of 2021, it is an exciting space for brands to explore. With brands popping up in Decentraland and other VR companies growing in popularity, there are increasing opportunities to work with influencers in this space.

Connect with influencer marketing companies in the Metaverse

PostForRent, an influencer marketing agency, has already created an HQ in Decentraland. This will help them find new influencers, and for brands, it is a great way to connect with influencers active in the Metaverse already.

Note: the editor checked to find PostForRent in Decentraland on a guest pass and couldn’t find them there, but the guest version is restricted, and you don’t get the same experience as a full member). Their location on the map is 62,43.

Search for “Metaverse” on Instagram and other social channels

There are many crypto influencers in the Metaverse space, but it will be easier to find influencers in other categories when the technology gets cheaper. The Metaverse lends itself well to gaming, crypto, and exercise.

Find TikTok influencers

TikTok is growing rapidly. Over 2021, TikTok surpassed 1 billion users. Research shows that users spend more than 21.5 hours per month on TikTok – talk about a captive audience. Plus, TikTok influencer marketing is growing in popularity, so it’s a great place to find influencers to promote your brand.

Check to see if your influencers from other social networks are on TikTok

Checking with your current influencers is probably the quickest way of finding influencers for your TikTok campaign. More and more influencers are making their way onto TikTok as it grows, and, likely, influencers on other platforms are also active on TikTok.

Use the search function on TikTok

Use industry-specific or product-specific hashtags to find relevant TikTok content creators. With any search terms, you’ll be able to see the top videos, users, and hashtags.

Go through these and add any influencers that catch your attention to your list. You can use the hashtags to find other relevant TikTok content creators.

Search for top TikTok creators on Google

When using Google to find TikTok influencers, you can use the site search mentioned above or look for “top TikTok influencers” and then your chosen topic or category. This will give you a pretty broad net, so you can use advanced search to sort by language and country to ensure that the list’s publisher is in your home country.

From these lists you should be able to find TikTok influencers relevant to your industry.

Search for the TikTok influencers your competitors are working with

Checking to see what your competitors are posting can help you find relevant influencers and hashtags to broaden your search.

In the example below, Sephora has tagged the influencer and used the social media hashtag for their influencers, making it easier for you to find.

You might be able to convince these influencers to work with you, or find other influencer using these hashtags.

Find youtube influencers

Youtube is a popular video streaming service. It can be a great place to find influencers who have an engaged following on their Youtube channel.
Video content is a great place to show off your products and what they can do. There are plenty of ways you can get creative with your YouTuber. Finding them is the first step.

Top tip: When searching for influencers on Youtube, always use the filters to find active YouTube content creators. You can filter by upload date and sort by view count to see the most popular videos in your category.

So, with that said, how do you find the best Youtube influencers?

Search for sponsored content in your niche or category

Start by searching for the word #sponsored or #ad in the search bar on YouTube. Filter your results so it shows recent content. This will mean that you find active creators who are open to doing influencer YouTube campaigns with brands.

You can scroll through and see the number of views and how old the content is. Scroll through and click on some of the videos. You can usually find their contact information underneath the video itself.

Use Youtube search and discover to find YouTube influencers

YouTube’s search function is a great tool for finding influencers in your niche. Ensure that you’re searching for industry keywords and categories, your brand name, and product categories. Use hashtag searches to find other content that may not include your search terms in the title of their video.

Find trending content that might fit your niche

On YouTube, it’s effortless to find trending content by using the trending content tab. Click on explore and then trending to scroll through and see content creators who are trending. You can also click on one of the popular categories to find other content. If you find a creator who might be interesting to you, you can check out their profile to see if their other content might be a good match for you.

Check the comments of larger YouTube creators

One thing a popular YouTuber has is comments. Usually, they attract other YouTubers in their niche. Check the comments section and their followers to try and find new creators to work with.

This can be time-consuming, but a good rule of thumb is to make sure they have a profile photo. Sometimes the channels stand out more than others due to their names.

Look to see if a YouTuber has done collaborations

Finding collaborations between YouTubers can be a goldmine for finding other YouTube creators. An excellent way to do this is to scroll through their videos to see if there are any with other people featured or check on their community tab to see if they have any information about collaborations.

Check the YouTube blog

On the YouTube blog, they have a section called “Creator and Artist stories.” Here, you can find great YouTubers with a big audience.

If you’re looking for smaller audiences, they highlight several creators on the rise in different niches every month, which can be an excellent way to find influencers that don’t have a huge following.

Ask your current YouTubers if they have someone in their network
If you are already working with YouTubers, they might already know some others that might be interested in working with you. Ask them to refer you to their YouTube friends that are in their network.

Use BrandConnect to work on your influencer campaign

For US, Canadian, and UK users, Youtube has set up BrandConnect to help advertisers connect with the right Youtube influencers for their campaigns. You can connect to creators who have more than 25,000 followers.

If you’re looking for smaller influencers, then this probably isn’t the right place to look. You’ll pay a set pre-negotiated fee per campaign video.

Sign up to Tapfiliate’s free trial to start tracking your influencer marketing results ❤️

Find Twitter influencers

Twitter has been around almost as long as Facebook. They started the hashtag trend and are now following in Clubhouse’s footsteps by launching audio. Like any other social network, learning how to find influencers on Twitter can take time, but when you know how it’s easy.

Search on Twitter

Searching on Twitter is the best way to find influencers in your niche. If you’re not sure what to look for, there are some free tools out there you can use to check.

It’s good to look for your brand name, niche, category, or even products and scroll through. You can find users, tweets, and hashtags. For example, if you are a wine brand, you might do a more general search for “Wine,” or be more specific and search for wine bloggers.

Check your follower list

Checking your follower list will help you find Twitter influencers who are already familiar with and interested in your company who have brand affinity. Not all followers will be the right fit, but it’s a great place to start. This can be time-consuming if you’re not a small brand, but it can also lead to you finding some great influencers to work with.

Attend Twitter chats

A Twitter chat is a conversation hosted on Twitter around a specific topic or industry. They can be weekly or biweekly events, and popular chats can have several people joining in. They are usually at the same time each week, so that you can put a reminder in your calendar. To find chats use the search bar.

Follow the account hosting the chat and the hashtag they are using to discover influencers you might be interested in working with. You can also google for the best industry Twitter chats to find good options for you to get involved with.

Use Twitter lists

You might have created your lists on Twitter, but it’s time to use other people’s lists to find influencers. This is quite limited as you can’t easily search for lists, and not everyone uses them.
Go to your competitors to see if they have any public lists. Click through them to see if there is anything of value there. You can do this with brands in similar niches too.

To find these, click on the ellipsis next to the message button.

This will bring up a menu, including “View Lists”

When you click on it, it will show all of the public lists available. You can click on any list to see the tweets.

You can click on any list to see the tweets. Click on the members to see a list of who has been added to the list.

Scroll through to see if you can find any influencers relevant to your business and niche, and add them to your outreach list.

How to find Twitch influencers

Twitch is a live-streaming community popular with gamers. There are also additional categories of Twitch streamers, so it isn’t limited to the gaming community. You can use a couple of methods to find the best twitch influencers for your brand.

Use the browse tab

The browse tab is a great place to find popular live streams in different categories. You can also search for something specific in the search bar.

When you click on a category, you’ll find suggestions and recommended channels. You can click on recommended channels or go to specific subcategories to find twitch influencers.

Tip: It’s a good idea to go to the “Just Chatting” channels to see whether the influencer’s personality would be a good match for your brand

Use websites to find top streamers

There are a couple of great websites to find popular streamers in specific categories. Twitchtracker and Twitchmetrics are great options for this.

Other great tips for finding influencers

Set up a landing page for influencers and brand ambassadors

Setting up a landing page on your website so that potential brand ambassadors can find you is one of the easiest ways to get influencers to find you and to sign up to work with you.

Open up your search with bloggers

Looking for blogs with content that aligns with your products or industry is a great way to find influencers. These people are usually master content creators, and they typically have a good following on social media. Click through to their social media pages and have a look.

Run an email campaign

As part of your email marketing strategy, telling subscribers that you are looking for brand ambassadors with a link to your influencer landing page will help you find influencers interested in working with you.
Search on LinkedIn: This might sound like a long shot, but it can be a good way of finding relevant influencers for your brand. Look for “content creator,” “influencer,” and “blogger,” plus your niche keyword and connect with them.

Use influencer marketing tools

Using influencer marketing tools like Awario can help you search for influencers that would be a good fit. They cover Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, plus options to see websites, Reddit users, and news blogs. Set up alerts, hit the influencer menu and start scrolling through to find what you need.

Use influencer marketplaces

If you have a big budget, this can be a quick way of finding influencers that fit your niche quickly and easily, with less hassle. If you’re on a tight budget, then this may not be for you.

How to find micro influencers

If you don’t have a huge budget, then finding micro influencers might be a better option for your brand. Generally speaking, these are smaller influencers who have a higher engagement rate. Follower numbers vary from platform to platform but they have between 10-40,000 followers on any one social media platform.

Micro influencers exist on all social media platforms. The tips and tricks for finding micro influencers are the same, but some methods are more impactful than others.

The most effective methods are

• Searching for them on social media using industry terms or using Google
• Checking your own following
• Use social listening tools like Awario to find relevant influencers
• Asking for referrals to other influencers who might be interested in working with you

Get started

Finding influencers, no matter what the social platform, takes time, but it’s essential to get it right. Having the right influencer for your brand can mean more successful campaigns, more revenue, and brand awareness.

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