So you want to know how to find Instagram influencers. You have come to the right place my friend. We’ll walk you through why Instagram influencers are important for your brand, how to find the right Instagram influencers for your brand, and finally some ways to actually find Instagram influencers.
OK, we have a lot to cover, let’s get started.
Why Instagram influencers are important
Instagram has roughly 1 billion active users per month.
1 BILLION - did you hear that? To put this in perspective, the world's population is just under 8 billion to date.
That means that hundreds of thousands of eyeballs are on the Instagram app each day. This also means that Instagram is the prime place for your brand to advertise its products or services.
Instagram is shoppable
Instagram has a handful of features that support easy shopping for consumers.
- Instagrams Ads
- Instagram Shopping
- The Instagram discover page
- Organic posts & Stories to your follower base
Each of these formats make it easy for consumers to discover your offering and sometimes even purchase within the Instagram platform. With over 130 million Instagram users tapping on shop posts each month, Instagram is the place to showcase your brands product or service.
Recommended Reading: Find & Hire Instagram influencers to boost your marketing.
Authentic Instagram influencer endorsements sell products
It’s one thing to sell your offerings via your own brand channels but it is an entirely different thing to have someone advocate on behalf of your brand. Instagram influencers develop their following via authentic posts and interest in specific topics. This allows them to create loyal followers who trust their advice and commentary on given topics. In fact, 50% of consumers rely on influencer recommendations to guide their purchase decisions. When you use Instagram influencers for your brand you reach your audience in an entirely new way. But it’s not enough to just work with any Instagram influencer. You must be thoughtful in your selections.
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How to find the right Instagram influencers for your brand
It’s easy to find a random Instagram influencer. It is difficult to find the right type of Instagram influencer for your brand. Make sure you consider the following before you dive into searching.
- Is an influencers location important to your brand?
- Does the influencer's vertical matters for your brand?
- Does the influencers demographics impact your decision?
- Is the influencer audience important for your brand?
Hack ways to find Instagram influencers
Now that we have covered off on why Instagram influencers are important and the things you should consider before beginning your search, here is the moment you have all been waiting for - ways to actually find Instagram influencers.
Use Instagram itself to find Instagram influencers
Instagram itself has the largest database of Instagram influencers bar none. Unfortunately Instagram was not built as a search tool for finding Instagram influencers. However, this doesn't mean that you can’t use some specific features on the platform to discover your perfect partners.
The Stalk method
Which brands do you admire? It’s likely they are already working with partners for their own activations. Take a second to hop on their channels and see what they have been up to. Maybe they are working with micro influencers who you hadn’t previously considered. This is a great way to source partners who you have seen perform for other brands in a way you would like them to perform for your brand.
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The Carrot method - 1
First, start by finding one Instagram influencer who matches your perfect parameters (remember location, vertical, demographic, and audience).
As an example, let’s pretend we are an American millennial beauty brand, named Poppy.
We want an Instagram influencer who is based in the United States, specializes in the beauty vertical, is on the younger side and has a younger audience.
We’ll start by using the ‘competitor method’ just described above to find our perfect influencer type. For this example, we are going to scout @deardahalia_beauty (who by the way I personally found via an influencer Instagram ad, and have purchased a product from - it really works speaking from a consumer on the other end). From briefly scanning Dear Dahalia's Instagram page, we can immediately see that it seems they work with @sophmartin, who has distinctly branded herself as a beauty influencer as evidenced by her bio descriptor and the content on her feed.
Now here is where the age old phrase, “where there is one is many” comes into play. Once you have found one Instagram influencer in your domain it will be much easier to find others like them.
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Second, click the drop down carrot next to the follow button. For our example, these are what accounts show under @sophmartin’s drop down carrot.
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Third, browse suggested accounts and click into them to go through the vetting process again. Continuing to use our example, if we click into @bexcxmpbell’s account I see that she is also a niche beauty influencer, and might also be someone I would like to work with.
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Finally, DM or email your preferred partners. Usually Instagram influencers include their email in their bios so you can get in touch. Otherwise, DMing them is also an effective way to engage and ask to work together.
The hashtag method
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Scroll to the search section of Instagram, as seen below.
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Click into the search bar at the top of the discover page, also pictured below.
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Type in your desired type of influencer, ie: “beauty," then scroll to the tags section of the page.
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This will surface many hashtags correlated with your keyword. If you click into, “#beautyinfluencer’ hundreds of accounts will surface that have used this hashtag on posts. This is also a fantastic way to source potential partners.
The Mirror Method
One easy way to discover potential partners begins with your own brand channels. Who is already adoring your brand that you can turn into an advocate? Evaluate your comments, and likes to understand who has already raised their hand and expressed interest in a potential partnership.
Now enough ways to find Instagram Influencers via Instagram itself. Let's look at a couple of other solutions.
Use Facebook groups to find Instagram influencers
A great way for finding Instagram influencers is to browse preformed online communities. Facebook groups are a great place to start. Groups on Facebook span every category and niche. Navigate into the groups landing page and start sifting through the endless options.
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Use Google search to find Instagram influencers
Use keyword searches as simple as ‘Instagram influencers’ and plenty of lists will pop up like top Instagram influencers. If you want to get more specific in your search, add in some qualifiers, like ‘beauty’ or ‘travel’ and Google will also work its magic and surface lists of Instagram influencers that fall under these descriptions. This is a great place to get started. Once you grab a handful off of these lists, you can find others like them using the carrot method we covered earlier.
Instagram influencer search tools
If you don’t want to take the time to manually search for Instagram influencers, you can turn to the influencer search tools. Some are free, some are pay to play. Most of the ones that are worth your time will cost money. Usually they range anywhere from $99 - $199 per month with the option to cancel at anytime. Pop Pays Lite subscription lets you search, vet, organize, and chat with Instagram influencers for only $199/month.
Flexibility in cancellation is key as many brands only engage influencers on an ad hoc basis and don’t need to access the tool longer than a couple of months. However, if you have found influencers to be a lucrative channel for your brand, then an always on solution might better fit your bill. Today, brands are using influencers in a more always on capacity or as brand ambassadors.
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To wrap it all up...
All in all there are many ways to go about finding Instagram influencers. Before you get started, cover off on the foundational elements of:
- If it makes sense to use Instagram influencers for your brand
- What types of Instagram influencers will make the best partners for your business.
From there you can take a look at your marketing resources and decide if you want to go the manual route of searching and vetting on your own with some of the hacks we provided or if you want to pay for an influencer search tool.
Happy searching!
Much Love,
Pop Pays
