Before you can market to an influencer, you first need to find them. And oftentimes, finding the right influencers can be a bit tricky. How do I know if they are even a fit? Do they have any desire to work with me?
Let’s walk through 4 steps that you can use to find influencers. And by the end of this, you’ll have all the tools you need to start identifying and connecting with those most valuable to your business.
Before we talk about whom you should describe as the “right” one for your brand, let’s first understand why that person is so important.
Why is it so important to choose the right influencers?
When you are trying to market your ideas and content, influencers can be a powerful ally.
Whether you’re looking for exposure to grow your brand or exposure for your product or service, identifying the right influencer to partner with will take some research. And that’s where this guide comes in.
Step 1: Evaluate Your Target Market
When deciding which influencers and channels to target, it’s important to first consider what kind of an outcome you hope to achieve.
Before you can find influencers, you need to check the target market that you plan on creating content. Evaluating the market will help you determine whether it is relevant and how big it will be. The idea is to choose a specific industry and look into different sources of information.
Today, brands use influencers to promote new product launches, run sales promotions, build their brand, and more. The goals can be a variety of things, from more app downloads to more website visits to more impressions, etc.
Step 2: Knowing which influencers to collaborate
Influencers have gained a high level of trust when it comes to brand marketing. Influencer marketing deserves the attention of all brands and businesses on social media. Influencer marketing is important because it gives your brand a more trustworthy voice.
Influencer marketing is a hot topic right now, and for a good reason. It’s an excellent way to build brand awareness and generate leads. But the trouble is that it can be confusing to figure out who you should be collaborating with.
Let’s look at the different types of influencers that a brand can choose from. One way to group influencers is based on their audience size. Knowing the different groups will help you plan your strategy more. Here’s what you should know:
Different types of Influencers
Nano-influencers
Nano-influencers are like regular influencers, except they have fewer followers. Nano-influencers have less than 10,000 followers, yet they influence their niche. They build close relationships with their followers and have a lot of influence over their small community.
Nano-influencers, or micro-influencers, are much cheaper to work with than their high-profile counterparts. They may not even charge brands for their services, as they build their followings and partnerships with brands.
Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. Micro-influencers may not be as polished as bigger influencers, but their content often feels more authentic. Depending on its business goals, this could influence how successful a brand is with influencer marketing.
They are a good fit for newer startups and brands looking to position themselves in their field.
Macro-Influencers
Macro-influencers are big players in the world of social media. Influencers have at least 100,000 followers and are usually open to working with brands. Influencers make their living using social media, so they can be very effective in promoting your product. Macro-influencers usually charge high rates for partnerships.
Macro-influencer content tends to be more professional than micro- or nano-influencer content. Some brands may find this to be a better fit for their audience and goals.
Celebrities
Celebrities have millions of followers on social media and are a highly visible part of the influencer marketing world. They’re active on the platforms their audience uses and generate a ton of engagement. This makes them attractive to brands that want to leverage influencer marketing, which is why they often command high prices.
Celebrities are ideal for luxury fashion brands or big cosmetics companies because of their high rates. For smaller companies, it can be hard to attract their attention, let alone build a long-lasting relationship with them.
To help you determine your budget for influencer marketing, it’s important to select the right tier of influencers. Consider whether you want to reach many potential buyers or a niche audience.
Step 3: Look for relevant influencers
There are several ways to find the influencers you want to work with, for example:
· You can use Google to find lists of promising influencers.
· You can search manually on different platforms such as Instagram and YouTube by using hashtags and names.
· You can use tools specialized in influencer discovery that take you straight to your goal.
If you’ve tried the first two options for finding influencers and have had no luck, try searching through a platform.
Referwo
Connecting businesses with content creators has always been a challenge. This platform helps businesses find and work with the best content creators, allowing them both access to more opportunities and an easier time creating the kind of content they love.
You can search for influencers by looking up different keywords related to your product or brand. For example, you could search for ‘fashion’ or ‘sports’ and browse through posts and profiles of available influencers.
To estimate their account size, start by checking basic KPIs like followers and engagement. Then, go on to look in more detail at their content.
Step 4: Reach out to influencers
You don’t want to be a pest, but you do want to make sure that the people you’re reaching out to are interested in your content. So how do you know when it’s appropriate to reach out?
The best way is to pay attention to their social media accounts. If they post about the same topics as your brand, then they’re likely interested in what you have to say too. You can also look at the type of content they share: if it’s similar content, then chances are they’ll be open to receiving more from you.
You can use Referwo to know how influential someone is on social media. This tool can help you determine who your target audience follows on social media and who will most likely engage with your brand.
Conclusion
It doesn’t have to be difficult to find influencers. In practice, you can approach influencer marketing in a few different ways. The best choice for you will depend on your resources and needs. The following four steps can help you find influencers on social media, and it is particularly useful when looking for new customers.
That’s why we created Referwo. We want to help businesses connect with the right customers without having them waste their marketing budget on ads that won’t work for them. And we want content creators to be able to better monetize their content by connecting them with brands who really care about what they have to say.
