Here’s How to Find Social Media Influencers for Your Business

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With some social media influencers having follower numbers in the millions, working with social media influencers can give you access to thousands of engaged, eager, potential customers. Find valuable influencers that are right for your audience by:

Keeping Your Audience in Mind
Knowing Your Goal
Understanding the Different Influencer Types
Becoming Adept with Relevant Social Media Platforms and Hashtags
Vetting Potential Influencers for Authenticity
Trying Influencer-Finding Businesses and Tools

Let’s dive in.

Keep Your Audience in Mind

If you run a make-up brand, you’d probably be better off with a fashion influencer who has 3000 followers than a book reviewer who has 30,000 followers. Size counts, yes, but the quality or targeting is important here, too. Target influencers who have a synergy with your brand to increase your chances of working with someone and to find the people most likely to be interested in what you do.

Know Your Goal

Before approaching or even looking for an influencer, you’ll find it helpful to pinpoint why you are searching for influencers in the first place. Of course, you want them to help your business grow, but how? Do you want more downloads, content, followers, or subscribers? Would you prioritize better brand awareness over all of these? Knowing the answers to questions like these can help you target the influencers that would be best for you.

Understand the Different Influencer Types

Influencers are often separated into four categories. For a broad demographic, celebrity/mega-influencers and macro-influencers are the way to go. For more approachable influencers with niche appeal, think micro-influencers or nano-influencers.

Celebrity or Mega-influencers

These influencers are likely to have over 1 million followers across social media platforms, including famous actors or business people. To work with someone like this, expect to have deep pockets. While they may have significant numbers of followers, however, this often comes with a lower engagement rate. It isn’t easy to have a close, personal relationship with a million people. You may also find that their subject areas are relatively broad, meaning that their followers are likely less targeted for your needs.

Macro-influencers

With between 500k and a million followers, macro-influencers are well-established in their field. They have many followers but are likely to be more approachable and less expensive to work with than celebrities or mega-influencers. Like the celebrity or mega-influencers, however, you will be sacrificing targeting and intimacy for wider reach.

Micro-influencers

Small and medium-sized businesses often find micro-influencers best. These businesses can leverage an influencer’s niche following and gain access to between 10k and 100k followers with potentially excellent ROI.

Nano-influencers

These influencers are often successful hobbyists. The choice for the most budget-conscious, but not only that. By working with a nano-influencer, you can employ a strategy that involves a narrow demographic and/or a more personal touch. This can help a brand create a loyal following.

Become Adept with Relevant Social Media Platforms

To find a social media influencer, you’ll benefit by remembering that each social media platform attracts different core users and has different styles. The top social media sites for finding social media influencers are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Whichever website you search, pay attention to a potential influencer’s top-performing posts and the number of comments and shares.

When it comes to Twitter, try the new Tweetdeck or one of many alternative tools to find potential influencers. By examining the hashtags they use, you can get an idea of their specific interests and specialties and whether they align with your brand. Keep an eye on how many retweets they get to gauge how influential they could be if you work with them.

Whichever social media platform you target, consider the influencer’s audience demographics (how old they are, what they do, where they live) and engagement level (retweets, shares, and comments).

Use hashtags relevant to your business to identify influencers talking about the subjects that matter to you and your customers. And ensure that your influencer is active by examining their current content and posting rate.

Vet Potential Influencers for Authenticity

Having many followers is not always a sign of authenticity. Some people use underhand means to gain followers, or they pay for lists of followers. And nano-influencers can be harder to identify, track down, and verify than influencers with more sway.

To check on the authenticity of any influencer, scroll back through their history to see how long they have been on social media. An influencer who gains thousands of influencers within days is likely to have paid for those followers, meaning they will not be high-quality, targeted followers interested in the subject.

Look at the way they interact with their audience. Do they really know their subject?

You may also spot inauthentic influencers by the use of stock photography in profile images and posts. Excellent influencers often create a personal connection with their audience through real, “behind-the-scenes” imagery. These are likely to be high quality, but they may still be a little rough around the edges compared to stock imagery.

Nuwber is an excellent tool to help you get a handle on the authenticity of an influencer, too. It will help you find people by their name, phone number or address. With this information, you can learn more about the identity of any influencer and whether or not that aligns with how they portray themselves on social media.

Try Influencer-Finding Businesses and Tools

As you can see, finding a social media brand ambassador is not as simple as searching for those with the most followers. There are many factors to consider. To help you find the people that can help your business reach more of the right people, consider using social media listening applications and other tools that can provide the data you need to make better decisions.

In conclusion, start your search for a social media influencer by thinking of your audience’s desires and your business goals. Then you will be in a better position to secure the right influencer for your needs. Use social media hashtags to zero in on influencers that are on the same page as you and your audience.

Vet potential influencers to make sure they are who they claim to be and don’t end up damaging your business. And consider using social media listening tools, apps, and businesses to help you target the influencers.

Whatever you do, keep creating great quality content and stick to your values so that you can develop meaningful, lasting, and mutually rewarding relationships with social media influencers.