Influencer marketing is nowadays one of the best ways to spread the word quickly about a product or brand. Executed correctly, it can generate many benefits for a business, including brand recognition and more sales.
The key to a successful influencer marketing campaign is to find the right influencers, and this is exactly the goal of this post.
You will learn about free and paid tools you can use to find influencers for your brand on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Towards the end of the post, you’ll also get tips on selecting and hiring the best influencers for your campaigns.
- How to Find YouTube Influencers
- How to Find Instagram Influencers
- How to Find TikTok Influencers
- Tips For Finding the Best Influencers For Your Campaigns
- Tips For Hiring Influencers
1. How to Find YouTube Influencers
Finding influencers on YouTube is easy if you use the right tools.
The first tool you can use is BuzzGuru, Semrush App Center's Influencer Analytics app.
It’s not a free tool, but as you can see below, it’s an excellent tool for finding influencers on various social media channels.
You can register for a 7-day free trial of Semrush App Center's Influencer Analytics app and follow our step-by-step instructions for finding the ideal YouTube influencers for your campaigns.
Login to BuzzGuru and then select YouTube from the Influencer Discovery menu.
Click on the Filters button to narrow down your selection.
For example, let’s say you’re looking for YouTubers in the auto industry targeting the US market.
You can add filters to set the channel topic to Autos & Vehicles, set the minimum number of subscribers (in this case, I’ve selected 1 million), and choose the influencer country and channel language.
Create your shortlist
Once you apply the filters, you’ll see a list of YouTube influencers matching your criteria.
For each channel, you can see their subscriber number, total views, and average price (that’s an estimate of how much the influencers are charging for inclusion in their videos) and their latest videos.
You can select the ones that are more relevant to your campaign goals and add them to a list.
Clicking on any channel will give you more details on the channel quality, engagement rate, number of comments, and other helpful information to help you decide if this is the right influencer to contact for your influencer campaign.
You can then use your shortlist to create and manage a campaign within the Semrush App Center's Influencer Analytics app.
Other Free Ways To Find YouTube Influencers
If investing in a tool is not within your budget, you can use a nice trick to find influencers using YouTube search.
Go to YouTube and type your search in the box and then use the Filters button to show Channels in the results and not Videos.
For example, if you type “car channels united states” and set the filter to channels, you can get a list of popular car channels in the results.
Of course, the information is not comparable to what you get with a dedicated tool, you still need a YouTube Analysis tool to find out more details about each channel.
Important YouTube Metrics To Look For
When analyzing YouTube accounts, make sure that you give special attention to the following metrics:
- Subscriber Count: A larger subscriber base generally indicates a broader reach.
- Video Views: Find out the average number of views per video and look for consistency.
- Average Watch Time: Videos that retain viewers longer are more likely to deliver the best results for your campaigns.
- Engagement Rate: Likes, comments, and shares show how active and engaged the audience is with the content.
- Video Frequency: The regularity with which the influencer uploads new content. Consistency often correlates with a dedicated and engaged audience.
- Channel Growth Rate: How quickly is the channel gaining new subscribers? Look for channels with a steady growth rate and avoid channels with spikes that might lead to purchasing subscribers.
2. How to Find Instagram Influencers
One of the tools you can use to find Instagram followers is Trendhero. You can register for a free 14-Day Trial and search through their 110M+ database to find the most relevant Instagram influencers for your campaigns.
Login to TrendHero and then select Discovery from the left menu.
Use the search filters to specify the category, country, language, account type, number of followers and click the Search button.
You’ll be presented with a list that meets your search criteria. You can create your own shortlists by clicking the list button.
Clicking on an influencer can give you more information about the account, including their latest posts, engagement, follower growth, and much more.
You can also use BuzzGuru to find Instagram influencers in the same manner as we did above for YouTube influencers.
You can use the custom filters for Instagram to narrow your selection to find the best influencers for your campaign needs.
Other Free Ways To Find Instagram Influencers
If you want to go the manual way to find Instagram influencers, you can:
Use Google Search to Find Top Instagram Influencers List
Go to Google and enter your search terms (like the example below) and go through the results. You’ll find some great list posts with the names of Instagram followers you can contact.
Search For Related Hashtags on Instagram
Another way to find Instagram influencers without using a tool is to use Instagram’s search functionality and search for hashtags related to your campaigns.
You can then examine the results to find posts that have a high engagement rate (likes and comments) and then follow through to find the creator of the post.
It’s not the most efficient way, as it can be time-consuming, but on the other hand, it will help you understand what others are posting related to your campaigns that can prove helpful in the long run.
Important Instagram Metrics To Look For
Similar to YouTube, when analyzing Instagram influencers, make sure that you give special attention to the following metrics:
- Follower Count: Provides a good indication of the influencer's reach.
- Average Likes and Comments Per Post: A snapshot of how engaged followers are with each post.
- Growth Rate: Monitor the speed at which the influencer gains or loses followers to determine momentum.
- Branded Content Performance: Analyze metrics from past sponsored posts to see how well the influencer's audience responds to promotional content.
3. How to Find TikTok Influencers
After testing several tools, we recommend using the following platforms for finding TikTok influencers.
Tokfluence has one of the most extensive databases with more than 10M accounts and a very good search functionality that allows you to find precisely the influencers you need for your campaigns.
Here is an example of how it works. You can register for a free account and follow our steps.
Use the top filters to specify the platform (TikTok), keywords (in our example, we used ‘automotive’), country, and min number of followers.
Click on any of the TikTok influencers to get more details about their account performance and contact details.
Select the influencers that are a good fit for your needs and add them to a campaign.
BuzzGuru is our favorite tool for finding TikTok influencers. As mentioned above, it’s a paid tool with more functionality and features than other paid tools we tested.
To find a TikTok influencer, the procedure is the same as before. Use the filters to specify the country, language, account type, and other criteria, get a list of influencers, and add them to your campaigns.
Other Free Ways To Find TikTok Influencers
Besides using the free versions of the above tools, another way to find TikTok influencers without paying a subscription is to use the Search feature of TikTok.
Enter your keywords or hashtag in the search box and select Accounts to view a list of related accounts or navigate through the Top posts.
Important TikTok Metrics To Look For
When searching for the best TikTok followers for your brand, give special attention to the following TikTok metrics:
- Follower Count
- Video Views
- Number of Likes
- Number of Views
- Number of Shares
- Number of Postings per day
- Channel Growth
4. Tips For Finding the Best Influencers For Your Campaigns
Regardless of the methods you use to find influencers, there are some tips to consider for selecting the best possible creators for your campaigns.
Set Clear Campaign Goals
Even before searching for influencers, you should define exactly what is the goal of your influencer campaign and what you expect from the chosen influencers.
Some typical campaign goals include an increase in brand awareness, an increase in sales, an increase in website traffic, and an increase in followers.
You need to ensure that you can monitor the right metrics and KPIs otherwise, it would be difficult to evaluate the success of your campaign.
Usually, influencer campaigns cost a significant amount of money, and you need to think carefully about how you will measure the outcome.
Creating dedicated landing pages for the products to be promoted by influencers, special coupon codes, and unique hashtags are ways to measure the success of a campaign effectively.
Analyse Influencer Demographics
Another factor to consider is that the influencer's audience aligns with your target demographic.
Unfortunately, the only way to do this is with the help of tools.
Instead of selecting an influencer based on the number of followers alone, analyze their audience demographics to ensure that it has similar characteristics (age, gender, location) to your target audience.
Omitting this step will dramatically reduce the success of your campaigns.
Analyse Influencer Engagement Rate
A high number of followers doesn't always equate to effectiveness. Look for influencers with a high engagement rate (likes, comments, shares) relative to their follower count.
Again, with the help of tools, you can make this analysis easily and without spending too much time working with spreadsheets.
Select Influencers That Align With Your Brand’s Values
Be careful not to be carried out away with numbers but look into the quality of the content posted by influencers.
The selected influencers will be ambassadors of your brand, and their overall social media presence should be taken into account.
Invest in building relationships with creators, consistently publishing high-quality content that adheres to your brand's ethical standards and values.
Review Their Past Collaborations
Ask influencers to give you examples of their past collaborations with other brands. Were they successful? Did they fit seamlessly into the influencer's content?
Study Their Follower Growth For Unnatural Spikes
Look out for sudden spikes in follower counts, indicating purchased followers. Also, an abnormally low engagement rate compared to follower count can indicate inauthentic growth.
Work with influencers that have a steady and natural growth of followers.
5. Tips For Hiring Influencers
When you go through the process of finding and filtering influencers, the next step is to hire the ones that align with your campaign goals. Here are some tips to help you with the hiring process.
Sign a Contract
In the contract, make sure that you specify the terms of collaboration. Clearly discuss expectations, deliverables, and compensation.
If you can afford a lawyer, it’s even better. If not, ensure that all the details of your cooperation are set out in the signed contract.
Keep an Open Line of Communication
Ensure that there's a clear line of communication between you and the influencers. The best partnerships are collaborative, allowing both the brand and the influencer to share insights and feedback.
Avoid collaborating with influencers that are hard to communicate with.
Do a Pilot Project First
Before investing the full amount in a campaign, consider starting with a smaller pilot project to gauge the influencer's effectiveness and commitment to the project.
Compliance and Transparency
Influencers need to disclose partnerships to maintain trust with their audience.
Familiarize yourself with platform-specific regulations regarding paid partnerships and ensure that this is clearly mentioned in the promoted material.
Conclusion
Finding influencers for your social media campaigns can be challenging. To make the process easier and select the best possible creators for your needs, it is highly recommended to invest in a paid influencer analytics tool.
Tools like Semrush App Center's Influencer Analytics app, TrendHero, and Tokfluence can make the process of finding influencers on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram easier.
They will give you the functionality to analyze the history of the accounts, view demographics and decide that the chosen influencers are the best representatives of your brand.
