Finding which influencers to use is one of the toughest decisions you have to make if you want to leverage the influencer marketing trend. The process of preparing a budget is relatively simple, but finding the right people is not. Influencers are plentiful, after all. Various influencer marketing programs need to consider more than celebrities.
Public figures such as Kylie Jenner and LeBron James can sell products, but they also cost a lot. You should ensure their sphere of influence is appropriate for your products if you choose to collaborate with someone of that caliber. We’ll discuss how to find Instagram influencers in detail in this article.
Influencer marketing can be profitable for your business once you learn how to do it. Some techniques are similar to those used on other social networks, but others are specific to Instagram. Be sure to know your goals before you begin any influencer marketing campaign, no matter where you look.
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BEFORE you search for Instagram influencers
We should define some parameters before we begin our search for the right Instagram influencers, including micro-influencers and nano-influencers, to make our search as efficient and effective as possible.
Identify your target audience
A range of consumers may be included in your target audience, depending on your brand’s reach. For instance, a car company might have a subcompact model for those with limited means, all the way up to a lux, loaded sedan for a junior executive. Some brands target niche audiences, such as downhill skiing companies.
You need to identify a target audience for any influencer marketing campaign, regardless of the reach of your brand. You must also understand that audience. This may lead to the car company marketing the lower-cost items in their inventory. Around graduation time, when newly graduated graduates might be shopping for their first car, this is a great option.
During the holidays, junior executives often get bonuses, so the company might decide it’s time to sell the prestige model. Platforms that track influencer marketing can help identify trends that can affect marketing campaigns and decisions.
No matter what decision you make, you’ll want to thoroughly understand your target audience. Their income, where they live, and the types of jobs they hold are all considered. Children are likely to be among the targets. By knowing this information, you’ll be able to identify the type of influencer you need and identify those who are relevant to your needs.
What type of personality would be your ideal influencer?
Brands have a personality, even if many people don’t think about it that way. “Brand voice” or “marketing standards” are terms you can use. However, they function similarly to human personalities at the end of the day. Therefore, people with certain personalities tend to gravitate toward different brands within the same market sentiment.
Think about it this way: Have you ever considered certain types of cars as “going with” someone? Those with a big ego may prefer something showier, whereas fun-loving women often enjoy “cute” cars. This phenomenon manifests itself in a wide range of industries and can influence influencers of all sizes, including micro-influencers.
Therefore, many marketing experts recommend choosing people with a compatible personality to advertise your brand. When it comes to finding Instagram influencers with the right personality, it can be crucial to your success.
Look at the people who purchase your products to start. You can gather this information by surveying your customers, looking at your social media activity, or using other methods. Reach out to niche influencers with a high engagement rate in your target demographics to flesh out your buyer persona.
Your ideal candidate should have the same personality as your buyer persona. Your influencer campaign will be more effective if you target potential customers who are likely to resonate with them. Look at the content an influencer produces and how she interacts with her followers to determine their personality. Consider if your ideal customer is creative and responds to people in similar ways. Influencers like this are what you should look for.
5 best ways to find Instagram influencers
1. Look at your followers for potential influencers
You may not be aware of this, but your current Instagram followers could be a source for finding the ideal micro-influencer for your brand. As long as you are willing to observe, you’ll find them right under your nose. People who follow your brand do so because they love what you do. They already like your brand.
The fact that a micro-influencer has a large number of followers does not mean that they are open to collaborations or sponsorships. It’s easy to tell because these influencers usually drop signals in their profiles that will answer this question for you.
Most micro-influencers provide their contact information to make it easier for potential advertisers to contact them. Understanding the signals can save you time and avoid contacting influencers who are not ready for collaboration.
Therefore, you need to make the effort to show them why it’s worth the effort to promote your product or service. Many of your followers will be very willing to promote your brand if you offer a free sample of your product or service or other incentives.
However, you need to vet them just as you would vet your regular influencers. They should have a following of at least 1000 people, post content related to your brand’s niche, and have an audience that interacts well with their posts. In the next section, you’ll learn the best way to approach an influencer.
You might find that people who have a large following are using your branded hashtags because they like your content. This can also help you find micro-influencers who are just getting started, as opposed to just the established voices in an industry. You never know, right? They may be waiting for your approach.
2. Use relevant hashtags to locate Instagram influencers who are highly engaged
When searching for influencers, it is very important that you find an influencer that is relevant to your brand. The search feature that Instagram provides simplifies the task of finding the ideal influencer. If you want to get the best result, use hashtags for your search.
Use a lot of hashtags related to your brand’s niche. This will give you a list of potential influencers. When you analyze the results, choose the images you like the most. Usually, Instagram sorts its posts by the level of engagement. This should make it easy for you to find good influencers.
Go through each of the profiles and see if they match your goals for your brand. Pay attention to their engagement rates, how often they post, and how much their content relates to your niche.
3. Check your competitors’ followers
This one is sort of reverse market research. There may be significant competition in your industry, and not enough business is available to go around. There could also be some room for improvement even if everyone is doing well. Checking out the followers of your competitors can help you find influencers in your industry.
There are several ways to attract an influencer who is not interested in your social media page. You can use one of my influencer outreach techniques, as an example. You can give influencers free samples or trials of your product.
There are usually ways to contact these people outside of Instagram, or you can send them a message. If you prefer, you can follow the influencer and see how long it takes for them to check out your profile.
4. Search Google for relevant information
In some cases, the answer is hard to find on Instagram itself. Run a Google search instead to find what you are looking for. Even if you already have relationships with some Instagram influencers, it is crucial to know how to find them in multiple places. With each influencer you add to your team, you can reach a new audience. Furthermore, followers themselves have people who will notice when something is interacted with.
Searching on Instagram for a specific niche is one way to use Google. I can type “top marketers on Instagram” or “Japanese social influencers” into a search engine to see a list of profiles. Using influencer lists, I’ll be able to run analytics to determine who has the type of engagement I’m looking for. In addition, I may discover that a particular influencer enjoys Apple products or is interested in Japan. When building a relationship, affinities can be helpful.
You might be able to find out where influencers work by performing a Google search if done correctly. You might also find out what interests them. If you know all of this information, you can determine not just if they’re an influencer, but if they’re someone you want to work with. You should also consider their personality and lifestyle.
5. Use influencer marketing tools or influencer marketplaces
Influencer marketing is maturing, and that is one of the positive aspects. Now, marketers have more ways to find and work with influencers than they did in the early days. Some of them can even help you solve the problem of how to find Instagram influencers. Why is that? It reduces the guesswork associated with influencer marketing. A marketplace or discovery tool can be used to accomplish this.
Let’s start with influencer marketing tools. Blogger outreach and social listening tools are great for finding out who’s talking about your industry. You can find out who is interested in sponsored work using discovery and marketplace tools, and then contact them. Moreover, there are other tools to facilitate your campaigns that do narrower tasks.
If you are looking for influencers by specific criteria or keywords, you can use an influencer marketing tool like trendHERO and use their discovery feature.
The influencers are categorized by category, demographics (geo, gender, language), audience growth, engagement, and influencer activities. Keywords are also available if you want to search more precisely.
The tool also offers a similarity or “lookalike” influencers feature. Depending on the followers’ interests of any influencer or competitor, you could get a list of 500 similar accounts. This list is compiled based on the number of active followers of each account.
There are also influencer marketplaces. You can easily make deals with influencers in your industry there. Your workload varies according to the marketplace.
While most of them will vet the influencers to ensure that they aren’t using fraud techniques, the list will not contain fake influencers.
Remember, though, that the more a marketplace does for you, the more it’s likely to charge you or the influencer. These marketplaces can also be a starting point and, in some cases, facilitate business deals. It’s still your responsibility to choose the right influencer.
Learn about the best influencer marketplaces and platforms.
Check Your Instagram Influencers’ Performance
Influencer marketing is about a lot more than just finding people who are interested and making a deal. Turning over money just to discover that you’ve been defrauded is never a good idea. Fraud comes in many forms. They will buy fake followers or engagements in order to gain influence or increase their fees. Otherwise, they’ll hype themselves up and end up performing poorly. Influencer marketing is about establishing a win-win relationship between brands and influencers. They’ll get paid, and you’ll gain more customers (or brand awareness).
The good news is that you can reduce your potential for being cheated in a number of ways. We can do this by looking at the geographical location and interests of the followers. Alternatively, you can see if their handles have “real” names. Real followers are also likely to have engagements of their own. You can also trust your instincts.
Fake engagement is another enemy of influencer marketing. It is not uncommon for Instagrammers with a large following but little engagement to try to buy followers. Typically, this is done so that they appear more attractive to brands. Others may look popular as a way to boost their egos. The fact that they cheat is bad news regardless of why they do it.
There are several ways to fake engagement. In this day and age, a lot of influencers participate in “pods.” These are groups of people who engage with each other’s posts regardless of their quality. To counter this, check to see to what extent engagement comes from the same people (who are also influencers). Despite not paying each other, it’s all about “scratching my back and you scratching mine.”
A fake engagement is always bad news, regardless of its form. Influencer marketing costs go up when fake engagement occurs, and ROI is reduced. There’s a long way to go before influencer marketing starts to police these issues through detection (and boycotts). If money is on the line, some people are going to try to cheat.
It takes time to learn how to find Instagram influencers, as with anything else. There’s no need to feel alone. Marketers are becoming more adept at using effective methods to locate their ideal influencers, and we are always happy to help.
As soon as you get started, you’ll realize how worthwhile and effective influencer marketing is.