How to Find Influencers for Instagram Collaborations: 13 Best Methods

Since many brand owners don’t know how to find influencers in their niche, they tend to ignore social media marketing, particularly Instagram and TikTok.

But after knowing how important social media has become in modern marketing, you should be looking for the best ways to promote your business on the platforms.

For that purpose, influencer marketing platforms are among the best tools that you can use to search and find influencers for your brand. And Ainfluencer is one of the best free options in the market. You can easily find the perfect influencers for your campaigns with its advanced filtering.

With an adequate search, you can easily find social media influencers and develop collaborative strategies with them. In this article, we’ll go through the 13 best ways to find influencers for your brand. But first, let’s see what exactly influencer marketing is.

Who Is the Right Influencer for Collaboration

When you are searching for Instagram influencers, you should know what to look for. There are hundreds of thousands of influencers on social media. But very few of them are right for you. So, what characteristics should you look for while searching for influencers?

• Influencer’s content and photos should be related to your brand.
• For a better ROI, their account should be filled with high-quality content.
• They should have an active, high-quality audience.
• Their audience should speak your language and if your products need shipping they should be in range.
• Having fewer followers usually means a higher engagement rate. Therefore, try to prioritize nano- and micro-influencers as your main target.

For example: If you are selling home accessories in the USA then married people can be your potential customers. So, lifestyle influencers can be the perfect option for your campaigns. If you wanted to represent yourself to the younger generation, then you should have searched for Gen Z influencers.

In the same sense, if you are marketing for a women’s sportswear brand, female fitness models can attract a lot of eyes to your products.

Now you know what you should search for when you want to find influencers on Instagram. But how can you search for them? Keep reading to find out.

How To Find Influencers To Promote Your brand?

There are different methods for finding influencers. But here, we’ll introduce you to the best ones.

As we mentioned earlier, in general, there are many ways to find influencers, but some are time-consuming and expensive. Here are 13 top ones to help you find influencers in your industry:

1. Use An Influencer Marketplace

One of the great things about influencer marketing is that the market is evolving rapidly. Today, businesses have a variety of influencer finder tools that let you search for influencers and engage with them without facing a real challenge.

Some of them may even be the key to your challenge when attempting to find influencers. Why? 

They simplify your search for influencers with their influencers database.

Ainfluencer is one of the best influencer marketplaces that help you find Instagram influencers more effectively, packed with lots of useful features to help you find the most relevant influencers to grow your business.

Ainfluencer: Best Instagram and TikTok Influencer Finder

Ainfluencer is a marketplace full of brands and influencers ready to connect and collaborate.

Unlike most of its competing influencer finders that ask for payment upfront, Ainfluencer allows you to search for influencers, create campaigns, have unlimited access to its diverse influencers database, close deals, and run and manage campaigns, all for FREE.

After creating campaigns, you can either explore the influencer database to find influencers you want or wait for influencers’ offers and see who’s interested in working with you.

Additionally, there’s no set price on Ainfluencer, allowing you to make deals with the influencers and bargain, using Ainfluencers’s in-app chat box for the best price that’s mutually beneficial to the parties involved.

Let’s watch this video on how to find influencers on Instagram using Ainfluencer.

Key Features Of Ainfluencer

The followings are a number of features that make Ainfluencer stand out as a marketplace to find Instagram influencers.

1. Free To Use: In contrast to other agencies, anything you do on this platform is 100% FREE with no hidden fees.
2. Risk-Free: Their automated system monitors your campaigns and will freeze funds until you verify the requested content.
3. AI-Powered: The website uses Artificial Intelligence to facilitate influencer discovery for its users.
4. Influencer Audit: Utilizing the power of AI, Ainfluencer provides you with each influencer’s account authority with the number of followers, average comments and likes, quality score, engagement rate, location, category, etc.
5. Campaign Manager: The built-in campaign manager allows you to do many things. You can upload your content, schedule posts, and monitor the performance of each of the running campaigns.

The Ainfluencer’s list of features could go on and on; however, we tend not to spoil all the fun and let you explore the rest for yourself.

Do you know how easy it is to create a campaign on Ainfluencer? Just check out the following video to learn how to create your first campaign:

Sounds interesting, right? Now, join Ainfluencer and grow your business easily and economically.

Join Ainfluencer for Free

2. Search Google to find influencers

Your second option is to use Google to find social media influencers who can help you increase brand awareness and reach your target audience. 

Searching on Google takes much more time and energy to find the right influencers since you need to manually search for influencers and perform an influencer audit to check out their online activities.

But this is highly essential because you don’t want to end up wasting your money on a fraudulent source or irrelevant influencers to your brand and influencer campaign.

For example, If you are looking for the top fitness influencers, you can type it in the Google search bar and check the links.

You can keep scrolling to find a piece of informative content that introduces some viable options for you to find influencers in your industry.

Keep in mind that influencer marketing is a very competitive market. Many agencies are trying to fix their spot at the top of the search results with the help of Google Ads.

So it’s more likely you will encounter a whopping number of advertisements among the top search results. This, again, takes you back to the previous option of using an influencer marketing tool to find influencers.

3. Look At Your followers and followings List

Another easy way to find Instagram influencers is through looking at your followers. By searching your followers’ list, you can find influencers to work with among the people who are already interested in what you do. This is also true the other way around, as you may have been interested in what some influencers do, looking at your following list is helpful too.

4. Do Hashtag Research

One of the most common ways to search for influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is to work with is to do hashtag research. The two best platforms for this purpose are Twitter and Instagram since Twitter and IG influencers are famous for their interest in hashtags and following trends.

You can do this by typing in a few phrases into the search bars on each platform. Then just check out the profiles sharing the most popular content.

For example, you can search for Instagram influencers in the fashion industry by simply searching #fashioninfluencers. If you want to be more specific and niche-relevant, you can go with hashtags like #plussizeinfluencers.

• Search hashtags and see recent, Reels, and top results on Instagram.
• Search hashtags and see results for people, photos, videos, top, and location on Twitter.

Along with following accounts, you can also follow hashtags related to your brand and influencer marketing campaign’s goal.

By doing so, you can always be noticed what content is being shared in your industry, and who is more active in your target niche, to start collaborating with them.

5. Monitor Your Competitors’ Social Media followers, Mentions, And Tags

Find a good vantage point for observing your competitors’ social media posts. This way, you can find influencers in your niche with no effort.

Do they engage with influencers? If so, what sorts of content do they create? 

How do their posts attract engagement?
Checking your competitors’ social media “Tagged” section for sponsored posts will help you find the influencers who have endorsed them.

Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook are the best platforms for analyzing your competitor’s content strategy.

6. Start Following Blogs And Bloggers

In order to find influencers for free, one of the other best methods is to follow relevant blogs. By following blogs, you can get an idea of who the leaders and opinion shapers are in a particular industry. This will allow you to identify which individuals have a significant social media presence and are, therefore, likely to be influencers or brand ambassadors promoting your brand.

7. Find influencer databases

Another place for Instagram influencer search is specialty databases you can buy. These databases offer a larger selection of influencers than a list of open hashtags and may also help you manage relationships with influencers and run campaigns.

But it’s not a clever method for finding influencers on Instagram, because these databases usually lack accurate data and the information can’t be trusted. In fact, many of the influencers they introduce are normal users with a high number of followers. So, they can’t be called ‘Influencers’.

Besides, influencer marketplaces such as Ainfluencer has a large database and advanced search filters. They provide a safe environment to find and collaborate with professional influencers.

So, it’s not logical to go for raw databases when there are such advanced platforms available.

8. Find Influencers Through Your Main Website

Your website should include an opportunity for influencers and brand ambassadors in all niches to contact you in case they stumble across your website through one of your other functions.

Adding a link in the footer to your influencer landing page will enable you to share how you’d like to collaborate with influencers. Leave some contact details as well so that potential partners can get in touch.

9. Take a look at podcasts, events, and newsletters in your niche

When it comes to searching for influencers for your upcoming marketing campaign, the internet is your best friend. There are dozens of online resources, such as podcasts, events, and newsletters, that can help you find influencers. They can also be great means to help you find out who’s being talked about the most and who has the most influence in your field.

Promoting your brand by finding featured influencers by performing a little research is much more effective than simply haphazardly doing it.

10. Leverage Google Alerts

You can also use Google Alerts to find influencers linked to your items or company. All you have to enter are your keywords. For example, if your company is in the health and wellness business, you could specify the keyword “Health influencers” to Google Alerts. And every time a health influencer posts on social channels using the keyword “Health” or a related blog is published, you will receive an alert from Google.

You can select the frequency and the language of the text you want to be alerted to, as well as the regions—the more specific your keywords, the better. After all, you need to find local influencers related to your niche for maximum ROI.

11. Search By Keywords

Searching for the best videos and channels in the area of your interest by using posts’ keywords on Google and many other platforms will help you find social media influencers that have established themselves.

Refine your search terms to discover even more statistics about the creators whose popularity remains high without having to spend a lot of money.

12. Get the most out of Linkedin

In a world where social media reigns supreme, it’s important to know how to utilize all the tools at your disposal. LinkedIn is a powerful networking site that can be used for more than just keeping up with colleagues. You can also use it to find influencers in your industry.

The opportunity to search for influencers on LinkedIn may seem uncommon. Still, the capability to do refined searches based on industry and title can help you find the right people fast. Many brands use LinkedIn for lead generation. But it’s not suitable for all niches.

13. Use social listening Tools

Social media monitoring and listening platforms such as Hootsuite and Mention are great for finding influencers for your brand. These tools can also help discover those talking about you and your brand, who might be people who have already shared your content because they are enthusiastic about your brand or products.
Those who have such familiarity with your products and services will come across as more genuine together with their followers. They might also be more competent influencers for promoting your brand.

Why Finding the Right Influencer Matters

Influencer marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy for brands to promote their products or services to a target audience. However, finding the right influencer is crucial to the success of the campaign. Here are a few reasons why you need to learn how to find influencers:

1. Authenticity and Credibility

Influencers who are a good fit for your brand can provide an authentic voice for your message. When an influencer promotes your brand or product, their followers are more likely to view the message as credible and trustworthy. By partnering with the right influencer, you can tap into their established credibility with their audience and build trust with your own target market.

2. Relevance

It’s important to find an influencer who has a relevant audience for your brand. An influencer with a large following doesn’t necessarily equate to a successful campaign. The right influencer should have an audience that aligns with your target market, which increases the likelihood of conversions and a positive return on investment (ROI).

3. Engagement

The right influencer has the ability to engage their audience and create meaningful conversations around your brand. They can also create user-generated content (UGC), which is an effective way to generate buzz around your brand and promote it in a more organic and authentic way.

4. Cost-Effective

Finding the right influencer can also save you money in the long run. By partnering with an influencer who is a good fit for your brand, you’re more likely to see a positive ROI and avoid wasting resources on an ineffective campaign.

Overall, mastering the methods related to finding influencers is essential to the success of your brand promotion. It’s important to do your research, identify influencers who align with your brand values, and build relationships with them to create a successful and long-lasting partnership.

Tips On How To find social media influencers 

When you start searching for influencers, you should have already set your goals and considered some key factors and criteria in your influencer marketing. Here are the top tips on how to find influencers for your brand effectively.

1. Define your target audience 

The target audience can consist of a wide range of consumers depending on your brand’s niche, demographics, reach, etc. 

When you plan to find influencers to promote your product or service, you should make sure to pick influencers who share the same type of target audience as yours. 

2. Define Your Influencer’s Personality Trait 

You may not have thought about it, but a brand has a personality too. You can call it ‘brand image”, “brand voice,” or your “marketing standards.”

Many marketing professionals advise that if you are trying to find influencers to promote your product, they should be people with the type of personality your brand requires. 

To do this, think of your brand message and how you wish to convey it to increase brand awareness. Then, you will know if you have picked the right influencer for your brand. 

3. Set Your Goals

Do not focus on how to find influencers if you don’t know what you want them to help you achieve. 

Before you begin an influencer marketing campaign, you should determine what outcomes you hope to produce. Your objectives may include:

• Brand awareness,
• Brand engagement,
• Audience building,
• Lead generation,
• Sales,
• Brand identity,
• Customer loyalty,
• Link building,

4. Pay attention to influencers’ engagement rates 

The key is, indeed, engagement rather than the audience size of the influencers you want to learn more about. Consequently, you’re more inclined to look for their number of shares, retweets, and comments than the number of followers they have.

5. Consider The Type Of Collaboration You Are Looking For

You already know the different types of influencers and the importance of your goals. So, remember to take these factors into account when you search for influencers and work out the right strategy and collaboration for your influencer marketing. 

Here are some examples of collaboration between you and influencers.

• Video product review,
• Post mentions,
• Coupon or promo code,
• Bio link ad and more.

6. Define your budget

Influencers are categorized by their followers’ count, and knowing their categories is vital when you try to find influencers who suit your budget and strategy best. 

Let’s take a look at the different types of influencers: 

#1 Nano Influencers 

Nano influencers with 1K to 10K followers are considered to have the smallest yet very loyal audiences. If you run a local business and wish to grow through influencer marketing, nano influencers will only acquire a modest budget. At the same time, they are pretty competitive, reliable, and have a harmonious relationship with followers who easily care and engage.

Remember that it’s important for local businesses to find local influencers; and nano influencers are one of the alternatives that local businesses can pick.   

#2 Micro Influencers

Micro influencers with up to 100K followers are a good choice for both small businesses and mid-sized companies. Their audiences are not too large for micro influencers to lose touch with them, and they can still forge a strong relationship with their audience. 

In addition, they are also more niche and targeted than nano influencers, making them more accessible in an influencer search. So, learning how to find micro influencers on Instagram can massively help you grow your brand.

#3 Macro Influencers

For brands like Amazon that focus on brand awareness above all, macro influencers with 100K to 1M followers are most appropriate. Their large number of followers will result in gaining popularity and authority among so many people.

#4 Mega Influencers

Although the number of their followers might seem intriguing, only try to find influencers at this size if you have a large budget and want to draw people’s attention to your brand globally.
According to a Marketing Charts survey, mega IG influencers raised brands’ engagement rate by only 1.2%, while macro and micro influencers boosted up to 2.1% and 3.7%, respectively.

Clearly, mega influencers have over 1M followers. This type of social media influencer may include traditional celebrities or public figures as well.

#5 KOLs

New strategies, approaches, and measures have been developed in the world of online marketing, spawning all-new terms and definitions. You should already know a lot about social media influencers, but “KOLs” is less well-known.

KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) have parallel professions, such as journalists, entrepreneurs, or writers, who may accept to promote your brand or share a promotional link to your website if you build up a relationship with them successfully. 

Now, if you are asking whether to collaborate with KOLs or influencers, you should know that the answer lies within your marketing strategy and preference. 

Other major factors in your collaboration that affect your influencers search include:

• The influencer’s follower count and engagement rate
• Niche and category
• Quality of content
• Demographics and target audience

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing refers to a form of marketing in which you, as a brand, collaborate with influencers; individuals who can affect the purchasing decisions of others because of their authority, knowledge, or relationship with the audience.    

So, you need to give priority to influencers’ niches and interests while you are searching for influencers. This helps you reach the right audience through their followers.

Influencers can be highly active across one or many social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. In fact, TikTok marketing has become the new norm to reach relevant audiences fast.

Influencer marketing is praised as one of the most efficient and effective marketing tactics any brand or business can use to gain many advantages, ranging from increasing brand awareness to creating a brand affiliate marketing program.

If you’re new to influencer marketing, you should begin by creating campaigns with nano and micro-influencers who have small but more engaged audiences.

Conclusion

Knowing how to find influencers in your industry is critical to your business’s influencer marketing strategy.

This is even more important for small businesses trying to find local influencers in their niche to benefit from working with them.

Overall, it’s best to use an influencer marketplace like Ainfluencer for finding and working with niche-relevant influencers since it’s the easiest and most cost-efficient way.

Remember, you can also check your competitors’ social media accounts or blogs to determine what influencers they’re working with.

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