Instagram influencer

Why would anyone need an influencer? To be honest, there are multiple reasons why, from brand authenticity to introducing your business to totally new audiences.

Another popular question is where to find a proven influencer?

Today I am going to dive you in the world of Insta and its celebrities.

Who is an Influencer?

An influencer is an online celebrity who has a following of people who believe and listen to their views and suggestions. Their followers are loyal and frequently shape their opinions and interests based on what the influencer thinks, uses, and believes.

In other words, they are social media users who have used their expertise or popularity to cultivate engaged audiences. They exist in almost every niche, from fashion and beauty to food and fitness. They might be celebrities you know from music or TV, or they might be public figures that probably wouldn’t exist without social media.

 

Who can become popular on Instagram?

  • Blogger
  • Social media personality
  • Celebrity
  • Industry expert
  • Thought leader
  • Lifestyle brand

How does influencer marketing work?

Imagine you are a brand owner, let’s say you produce designer handbags, and you would your brand to get more fans to increase your sales and make your business more profitable. And you are also aware of Instagram which is a popular sales platform nowadays.

At this point, you need to find the right influencer who would help increase the visibility of your brand.

Brands can engage influencers by getting them to:

  • Influencers mention your brand and lead their audience to the brand’s website, content, or social accounts.
  • They can become a brand ambassador and regularly mention and share content about your brand.
  • They can cover the brand’s news by writing their own content about the brand’s story, products, or services.

 

So what are the benefits of influencer marketing:

  1. Build brand awareness
  2. Reach your ideal audience
  3. Increase your social following
  4. Build trust
  5. Acquire high-quality backlinks
  6. Gain earned media and social shares
  7. Generate leads and drive sales

By this point, you should understand the basics behind popular social media users. Now it is time to find the right influencers for your brand.

How to find influencers on Instagram?

Search on Instagram for free

There is a standard ‘Search’ option where you can search on Instagram itself. After all, the social platform has millions of users. You’re bound to find the right person somewhere, right?

However, there are some drawbacks here.

Sorting option is quite tricky when browsing through those millions of users. Obviously, not everyone is going to work for your brand. Not every person who has an Instagram account uses it regularly or wants to be an influencer.

 

Search by Hashtags

The same ‘Search’ option also allows you to search by hashtag. However, hashtags on Instagram represent a brilliant way to identify influencers.

After all, hashtags are essential to any sort of promotional or branded content. Brainstorm hashtags relevant to your industry or location to start with.

If you have a fashion brand, you can try something like a #festivalfashion. Then you can narrow down the search by your location. In case if your fashion company is in Toronto, you might narrow your search to #torontofashion or even #torontofashionblogger.

However, keep in mind that there is no universal hashtag that signals that somebody is (or considers themselves) an influencer.

On the other hand, someone who uses the #ad or #collab tag as part of their captions is almost certainly working with brands.

But again, this is a time-consuming process.

Use Google Search

Beyond Instagram itself, Google is another good starting point to explore potential influencers.

There are several approaches here:

  • Type in “top skaters on Instagram” or “top skateboarding accounts to follow” or any other general query related to your business.

Try to narrow down your search. Make a point to specify a location (“Paris”) and industry (“beauty”) to narrow down your results. This will likely lead you to a list of larger, big-name influencers aggregated by bloggers.

Note that anyone who pops up in a Google search is probably notable within their respective industry regardless of their follower count.

YouTube

You can also use YouTube to find influencers there who likely have a cross-over audience on Instagram. Think about the types of video content relevant to your audience (make-up tutorials for beauty, workouts for fitness, and so on) and start your search there.

Use a Marketing Platform

All the above-listed options have been there forever and they all have a big drawback in filtering and sorting the right user.

That’s why the boom of influencer marketing has resulted in a variety of influencer marketing platforms that enable brands to connect with influencers directly.

There are lots of similar tools out there that will connect you with already proven influencers in all sorts of categories and industries. Popular ones include Combin Growth, Upfluence, Tapinfluence, Tribe, and Hypetap.

An Instagram marketing tool like Combin Growth is loaded with powerful features for audience targeting, analysis, management, and engagement.

 

Sounds interested? Let’s check on how it works and how it may help you find the right influencer without wasting hours and hours searching through the popular app.

Combin’s functionality allows using 3 influencer searching strategies:

  1. Searching competitors’ followers and following lists
  2. Searching popular posts by relevant hashtags and locations
  3. Searching popular posts’ authors by event hashtags

On top of that, there are also advanced filters and users analysis features available in the Business plan to search for target Instagram audiences much more precisely.

While users analysis features available in all Plans. I suppose Personal and Business plans have more search results.

You can specify the following parameters in order to narrow down your query and get the results you are looking for:

  • Gender Filter
  • Language Filter
  • Last Activity Filter
  • Followers/Followings Count Filter

 

Another cool feature is the ability to measure the success of your campaign. If you’re planning an influencer marketing campaign, engagement rate metrics are the ones to measure in the first place.

Try Combin Growth to do both – check your own ER and find influencers that are not going to let you down.

Summary

It is important to find a reliable influencer who can promote your brand to attract more people and increase your sales. However, it might be not that easy to complete. And it is up to you to pick the way to do it. If you have some free time to browse the Insta app, you can do it this way. On the other hand, if you are a busy person who would prefer to use a 3rd party app to help you speed the search process, then Combin Growth can be the right choice for you.

About the author
Christina Walker
Christina Walker
Content Contributor for OneTwoStream
Christina Walker is a big social media enthusiast who documents her life in real time to cultivate a loyal social media following.
She is a happy mother, a blogger, and IT geek who not only uses the new technologies but also helps to introduce them to the public.