There are currently between 3.2 million and 37.8 million global influencers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Trying to find the right influencers for your brand can seem like trying to find a needle in a haystack - no wonder a recent study highlighted finding influencers as the biggest challenge facing influencer marketers today!
While the number of influencers continues to increase, there are more ways than ever to find influencers. Methods range from searching social media, to Google, to personal recommendations, and various influencer marketing databases and platforms.
The ways of finding influencers are changing. As technology advances, what was best-practice just a few years ago won’t cut it in 2023. The Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2023’s Benchmark Report revealed that 63% of influencer marketers are planning to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) in 2023 to discover influencers or create effective campaigns.
Luckily, finding fabulous influencers who are a perfect brand fit is what we do every day at Storyclash! Read on as we share the best ways to find creators and how to leverage AI.
A step-by-step strategy for finding influencers
Influencer marketing is extremely powerful. However, you need the right strategy to find influencers who will really help you hit your marketing and sales goals. So, let’s dive into our proven 5-step strategy for finding the perfect influencers for your brand.
- Determine your target audience
- Search for relevant influencers
- Analyze the audience and content
- Reach out to influencers you’re interested in
- Foster a long-term collaboration
Let’s take a look at each of these steps in detail.
1. Determine your target audience
Who are you trying to influence? Any marketing campaign starts with your target audience. If you are in the DTC Industry and trying to reach the younger, female population, your choice of social media platform and the influencers you work with will be different from those companies trying to sell their products B2B.
Think carefully about who buys your products. What traits and demographics do they have in common? Going through your company’s CRM data and looking at your followers on social media will give you a good idea of who to focus on.
2. Search for relevant influencers
Once you are clear on the location, age, gender and interests of your target audience, it’s time to figure out who is influential in this space.
There are multiple ways you can take to get to find your desired influencers, for example:
- Search natively on your platforms e. g. Instagram Search or YouTube Search by using account names or hashtags.
- Use Google to find lists of promising influencers you can work with. There are for sure some popular names in your industry already out there. Search for influencers who post about your topic and scan through some blog articles, rankings and case studies.
- A tool specialized on influencer discovery takes you straight to your desired goal. Check out our compehensive list of influencer marketing platforms here and evaluate your options.
If you have tried the first two options of influencer discovery and you haven't found the perfect fit, try your luck with an influencer marketing platform. Most of them have the option of looking up influencers by searching for different keywords. Simply type in words or hashtags related to your product or brand, like 'fashion', 'beauty' or 'fitness', and browse through the posts & profiles of available influencers.
Start by checking basic KPIs like followers and engagement so you can estimate how big their account is and how loyal their followers are. Then, go on to look in more detail at their content.
Do you know what your competitors are up to? Competitor analysis is a hugely important - and underrated - part of influencer discovery. Try using the Storyclash influencer search tool for free to gain insight into which influencers your competitors or other brands in your space are working with and the kind of content they are creating together.
This will enable you to jump on the train of their success - and figure out who to avoid - saving you precious time.
3. Prioritize content-based discovery
Content-based discovery is the best way to find influencers who are truly a good fit for your brand. Demographics and data, while important, aren’t enough to find influencers who create high-quality content, share your brand values and resonate with your target audience.
Use a tool like Storyclash to find influencers who are creating engaging content on topics that matter to your target audience. Look past vanity metrics.
80% of brand mentions on Instagram happen on stories. On average an influencer posts 11 stories per day! So don’t forget to check previous stories that your influencer has posted. Storyclash offers a specific functionality for saving Instagram stories after they expire, since Instagram stories disappear from the platform after 24 hours.
Check out our solutions for finding influencers on Tiktok and finding influencers on YouTube. The Storyclash database makes it easy to see at a glance how active an influencer is, how engaged their followers are and what their content is about.
For example, if you search for influencers who live a sustainable lifestyle to promote your vegan, environmentally friendly product, type in 'sustainability' into the keyword search bar and browse through thousands of influencer posts.
By screening the posts and the content of the influencer first you get an immediate feel of the work and style of the person. This way you can evaluate much faster if a cooperation would make sense for your brand.
4. Reach out to influencers you’re interested in
So you’ve found an influencer you want to work with? Great! It’s time to get in touch. Popular influencers get several offers every single day, so it’s important to stand out.
The best way is to send them an email introducing your brand and letting them know you would be interested in a collaboration. Keep it friendly and personal and be sure to let them know why you would like to work with them specifically.
Although down below we give you two ready-to-send options to contact influencers, please make sure to tailor the messages and make them feel special! A personalized mail will grab their attention, a mass mail does not.
So definitely add something personal to the message, mention a previous post or a topic they passionately talk about so your inquiry stands out.
Influencer Marketing Hub has put together a few outreach templates if you prefer to skip directly to email, like this one which relies upon a “free sample” approach:
Here’s an example of a simple way that you can reach out, courtesy of ThriveHive (this one is meant for a fashion retail collaboration in particular):
5. Foster a long-term collaboration
It’s essential to stay on good terms with the influencers you work with. Many popular influencers work exclusively with brands offering a long-term collaboration, which is actually better for brands as well.
Why? Firstly, if an influencer promotes your brand regularly, it creates a consistent user experience and seems more credible.
It is better for driving sales, since an influencer’s followers are more likely to purchase from you if they have been exposed to your brand more than once.
The best ways to find influencers
Let’s dive into some of the most common ways to find influencers.
Hashtags
Search for hashtags that are relevant to your industry or niche on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. This can help you discover accounts with a large following and high engagement rates that may be potential influencers.
Social media
Conduct searches on various social media platforms to find influencers who are active in your industry or niche. You can use search terms such as keywords, phrases, or topics to identify influencers.
Basic, but classic. Search for influencers in your industry or niche using Google. You can use keywords such as "top influencers in [industry/ niche]" or "popular [industry/ niche] influencers" to find relevant results.
Lookalikes
Are you already working with Influencers and running successful campaigns? Try to find influencers similar to those you are already working with. You can manually search for influencers with a similar appearance and follower base, or you can use a tool. With Storyclash, it’s easy to run a lookalike search to find Influencers with similar content and audiences as your current favorite brand ambassadors.
Competitors
Do you know what your competitors are up to and who they work with? Competitor analysis is a hugely important - and underrated - part of influencer discovery. Try using the Storyclash influencer search tool for free to gain insight into which influencers your competitors or other brands in your space are working with and the kind of content they are creating together.
This will enable you to jump on the train of their success - and figure out who to avoid - saving you precious time.
Influencer marketing platforms
If combing through social media to find influencers sounds too tiresome, you might want to consider using an influencer marketing platform like Storyclash to find influencers who match your specific criteria. These platforms allow you to search for influencers based on demographics, location, interests, and engagement rates.
Searching for influencers with Storyclash
Storyclash uses AI technology to makes it easy to find brand-fit influencers who resonate with your audience.
Type in any keyword to find Influencers in your industry (e.g. “mom influencer”) then specify any other relevant criteria like location, follower count, and engagement rate. You also get personalized recommendations and can also find creators who are “hidden gems” in your industry!
How to find influencers with AI
As brands find themselves trying to do more with less resources, AI technology represents a handy way to save time and make the influencer discovery process more efficient. You can read more about how Storyclash uses AI to transform the influencer discovery process, or try our free tool here.
Finding influencers - FAQs
How can I find influencers for free?
You can use the Storyclash influencer search tool for free to find Instagram influencers who are already talking about your brand, or other brands in your industry. You can also use the free Storyclash AI search tool to find influencers by describing their content.
How can I find influencers for free?
You can use the Storyclash influencer search tool for free to find Instagram influencers who are already talking about your brand, or other brands in your industry.
Where can I find social media influencers
The cheapest way to find influencers is to natively browse social media or the web. The easiest, more effective way is by using a social media database. With Storyclash, you can search through various influencer profiles based on the content they create and the brands they work with. This will enable you to find influencers who create quality content and can tell your product or brand’s story!
How do I find an influencer for my product?
The best way to find influencers for your product is to define your target audience and then explore which influencers and content are popular with them. Use Storyclash to search for relevant keywords and find related content created by influencers. You can also figure out which influencers your competitors or brands you admire are working with.
How can I find a small influencer?
If your product or services are very niche, an influencer with a small yet loyal fanbase is a good choice. Storyclash has an in-built influencer database to find influencers in your space.
Ready to find amazing influencers for your brand?
Finding the right influencers can make or break your influencer marketing. Now, you should have a good understanding of how to find influencers who suit your brand while avoiding common pitfalls. Happy influencer hunting – and feel free to check out Storyclash, the leading software for influencer marketing that makes influencer discovery, tracking and reporting easy.