FREE HANDBOOK

Quick Guide:
How to find and locate
the right influencers
for your brand
+ cheat sheets
Content

1 → INTRODUCTION 03

2 → TYPES OF INFLUENCERS 05

3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT 08

INFLUENCER
3.1 Influencer Metrics 12

4 → HOW TO LOCATE 15
INFLUENCERS
4.1 Finding Influencers 16
Manually
4.2 Using Influencer 18
Search Tools

5 → SUMMARY TABLES 19
AND CHEAT SHEETS

6 → USE AN AUTOMATED TOOL 24

LIKE INFLUENCITY
 1 → INTRODUCTION

Choosing the right influencer has a huge impact

on a campaign’s results. Many brands make
the mistake of only looking at the number
of followers an influencer has instead of
considering other more important aspects.

Searching for an influencer is similar to

a recruitment process. You would never
look only at the basic data, you would
analyze a CV thoroughly to see if it fits
your company.

Your list of requirements should at least include

industry, niche, location, and performance
metrics. However, sometimes these filters still
leave you with a never ending list of candidates.

We understand how difficult this process can

be, so we have prepared this guide with useful
information (and even a cheat sheet!) on how to
find the absolute best influencer for your brand
and product.

In this quick guide you will learn which data to

analyze when trying to find the best influencers
to promote your brand and, above all, how and
where you can find them.

04
 2 → TYPES OF INFLUENCERS

Nano, Micro or Regular?

Before diving into the formula for finding the right influencers, you need some
information regarding the type of influencers out there that you should be aware
of.

There are many types of influencers but the most popular ones are usually those
that have a high number of followers.

Influencers with bigger audiences have a mainstream following with a wide range
of interests. They are often expensive to work with as they usually are professional
content creators.

Others became famous in the offline arena (actors, singers, TV personalities) and,
although they are not professional influencers, they are open to sponsorships.
Reaching out to them is often almost impossible for small brands, as they are
inaccessible and demand high fees.

Below is the classification of types of influencer by number.

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 2 → TYPES OF INFLUENCERS

NANO-INFLUENCER
Number of followers: 1,000 – 10,000
These are non-professional influencers who have a closer connection with their
audience, higher credibility within a particular group, and higher engagement rates.
Nano-influencers are a cost-effective option for smaller brands and can also
provide authentic reach for larger brands when used at a scale.

MICRO-INFLUENCER
Number of followers: 10,000 – 100,000
These focus on a specific niche or area and are generally regarded as an industry
expert or topic specialist. Some of them are what’s called KOL (Key Opinion
Leaders). They usually have a very uniform audience.

MACRO-INFLUENCER
Number of followers: 100,000 – 1 Million
One step behind mega influencers, they usually gained fame through the internet
itself (vlogging, content creation, etc.). They help brands target a wide, mainstream
audience. They are usually professional social media content creators.

CELEBRITY INFLUENCER / MEGA-INFLUENCER

Number of followers: More than 1 Million
These are celebrities whose popularity goes beyond their social media presence.

TRY INFLUENCITY OUT FOR FREE

07
 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

The Three Keys

Now that you are aware of the types of

influencers there are, let’s go over the process
of picking one.

There are three elements and key questions

that you must look into when considering an
influencer for a collaboration.

→ The audience: does the influencer’s audience

match your brand’s target audience?

→ The content: does the influencer’s content

align with your brand values?

→ The performance: is the influencer data

promising in terms of engagement and
conversions?

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 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

THE AUDIENCE

First, study your audience demographics by analyzing your website or platform’s

traffic and your existing customer base. What is their location, age, gender, and
language?

Then, investigate your influencer’s audience. It should overlap with your

brand’s target.

For example, if you are providing a solution for middle aged people living in rural
areas, you obviously are not going to opt for a city-based millennial influencer.

THE CONTENT

The chosen influencer is going to be the face of your brand and speak on behalf of
it. Be sure that he or she matches your values and industry.

Do a little research on his or her profile, especially if your brand has strong ethical
values.

For example, if you are a vegan cheese brand you don’t want to
collaborate with the Instagram influencer that posted pictures going
hunting last month.

Review the influencer’s feed, the kind of content they post and the kind of brands
they collaborated with in the past. The influencer’s tone and aesthetic should
go well with yours and make sure that their social networks are well-aligned
with your industry.

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 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

THE PERFORMANCE

It’s likely that you are worried about the ROI. You want your influencer marketing
campaign to deliver results, whether they are based on awareness, engagement,
or conversions. This is where performance metrics come into play.

This might be the most important part once you have picked your influencers,
because it will determine whether you keep collaborating or not.

Let’s review this point in depth.

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 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

3.1 Influencer Metrics

FOLLOWER COUNT

Check chapter 2 of this guide again if you haven’t already decided what kind of
influencer (in terms of followers) are you looking for.

Sometimes it is a question of budget and you can only afford nano or micro-
influencers. But oftentimes, even if you have the budget, you need to take other
aspects into consideration. For example, if you are looking to increase awareness
among a wide audience because you are still not quite sure who your customer is,
you may want to work with one macro-influencer.

However, if you know your brand is quite niche, it’s better to invest your budget in
3 or 4 micro-influencers with an audience that matches your brand. Choose your
strategy, then choose your influencer.

ESTIMATED REACH VS IMPRESSIONS

Reach is the number of unique people who see your content. Impressions is the
number of times that content has appeared on people’s feeds.

Oftentimes the number of estimated impressions is higher than the

estimated reach, simply because the same person can see the same
content many times.

Keep in mind that impressions do not mean someone actually saw the content. It
could appear on the feed but the person scrolled down without even looking at it.
That is why we take into account the engagement rate.

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 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

ENGAGEMENT RATE

This metric looks at how many people are interacting with this influencer’s content.
It equals the number of average likes and comments an influencer receives
compared to the total number of their followers.

Total engagements
Engagement Rate = x 100
Total number of followers

So, what is a good engagement rate? Typically around 1-3%. But again, this depends
on the audience’s size as well. Smaller influencers normally have higher average
engagement, with rates between 4 -10%.

FAKE FOLLOWERS

Buying followers or using bots are common tactics in the influencer business. You
want to be sure your brand is going to interact with a real audience. Therefore, you
should find out what percentage of an influencer’s followers are considered ‘real’
people.

This is tricky to do manually. Fortunately, there are tools like Influencity that help
you see the reality of an influencer’s audience, giving you an accurate percentage
of their quality followers. You should always work with influencers who have at
least 85% real followers or higher.

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 3 → CHOOSING THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

BRANDED CONTENT FREQUENCY

People don’t follow influencers for their

promotional content. They follow them because
of how the influencer’s organic content amuses,
educates or entertains them.

When an influencer begins to post too much

promotional content the audience may
disengage.

Moreover, you don’t want your brand to

be quickly forgotten in a sea of ads.

That’s why you should take a look at the

influencer’s saturation rate, meaning the
balance between organic and branded content.

BOOK A DEMO

14
 4 → HOW TO LOCATE INFLUENCERS

Now that you have a clear idea of how to correctly choose an influencer, you might
be wondering where and how you can find them so you can get in touch and begin
collaborating.

4.1 Finding Influencers Manually

SEARCH USING HASHTAGS

Search for trending hashtags that are related to your brand and see which
influencers are using them. You’ll get an idea of the biggest creators in the space,
but you will have to analyze them one by one using an excel sheet in order to
narrow your search down.

Downside: time consuming.

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 4 → HOW TO LOCATE INFLUENCERS

INDUSTRY MEDIA

Blogs, newsletters, and events can be useful sources of information about

influencers in your industry, especially rising stars and macro influencers. Some
marketing blogs have influencer lists that will help you get to know popular creators
in your niche.

Downside: these influencers might be expensive and extremely in demand.

SEARCH USING BRAND MENTIONS

Find influencers that are already talking about your brand using a social listening
tool or even Google Alerts. This is an effective way to find people that are already
interested in your brand, so the negotiation will be easier. In addition, influencers
who already trust a brand are likely to create more authentic content.

Downside: the fact that they are interested in your brand does not always mean
that they fit your brand in terms of values, content, and other criteria.

WORD OF MOUTH

Turn to your colleagues and friends to search for influencer recommendations.

Maybe they know a hidden gem you haven’t heard of. Also, see if some of them
have the potential to become a nano-influencer themselves. In addition, see if you
already have an influencer at your company. You may be surprised!

Downside: it might take time to find just one influencer this way, so it’s not a useful
way of doing things if you are thinking about setting up an influencer campaign in
the short term.

USE YOUR WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Set up an application form on your website or social channels which explains what
you’re looking for in an ideal influencer and invite people to apply.

Downside: time consuming, you will have to review the applications.

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 4 → HOW TO LOCATE INFLUENCERS

4.2 Using Influencer Search Tools

Manual search is only recommended for brands

with zero budget or that are running their very
first influencer campaign, because it is very
time consuming. If you are planning on doing
influencer marketing, you will probably need to
find a tool to help you maximize ROI.

Influencity allows you to segment and choose

influencers based on the content they publish
through keywords and hashtags. It also allows
you to detect fake followers and to identify
which influencers are more relevant for your
brand by comparing their KPIs across different
social networks. You can also analyze their post
results and study their audience overlap.

TRY IT OUT FOR FREE BOOK A DEMO

18
 5 → SUMMARY TABLES AND CHEAT SHEETS

Summary Table 1. How to Choose the Right Influencer

DATA MEANING TIP

Influencers with a higher

number of followers
are not always the best
Influencer’s number The audience you could
choice. Sometimes, a
of followers potentially reach
campaign with micro-
influencers can yield
better results.

Compare the average

Percentage of followers
Influencer’s interactions to the
who interact with this
engagement rate number of followers to
content
get the engagement rate.

Look at the influencer’s

feed. Analyze their last 50
Influencer’s Balance between organic posts. How many of them
saturation rate and branded content are branded content? If
it’s higher than 60-70%,
that’s a red flag.

Determine whether or not Content quality and

Influencer’s content it fits in with your brand core values are two very
or product important aspects.

The real followers should

The percentage of the
Influencer’s be at least 85% of the
influencer’s audience that
percentage of fake audience. Use a tool like
are real people (not bots
followers Influencity to help you
or bought followers)
obtain accurate data.

Your brand’s
audience You can use Google
Analyze your website or
demographics (age Analytics, your CRM
platform’s traffic and your
groups, interests data, and interviews with
existing customer base
and preferred social existing clients.
networks)

20
 5 → SUMMARY TABLES AND CHEAT SHEETS

Summary Table 2. How to Find Influencers

STRATEGY WHAT IT IS PROS CONS

Search for trending

hashtags that are
Manually by related to your
# hashtags brand and see which
Free Time consuming
influencers are using
them

Time consuming.
Manually by Find influencers that Your findings might
@ brand are already talking Free not match the
mentions about your brand profile you are
looking for.

Place a form on your

Time consuming.
website and social
Recruitment Your findings might
networks where
on your own Free not match the
people can apply to be
channels profile you are
an influencer for your
looking for.
brand

Ask your
Friends, acquaintances if they It’s a long shot.
family, and know someone (or if Free Not for short-term
employees they are influencers needs.
themselves)

Healthy
By using database,
A software that allows The professional
an influencer automatic
you to find influencers ones are normally
marketing processes,
and analyze them. pay-per-use tools.
platform accurate
analytics

21
 5 → SUMMARY TABLES AND CHEAT SHEETS

Cheat Sheet for Finding Influencers

By Hashtags

DOES THE
DOES THE
SOCIAL NUMBER OF ENGAGEMENT PROFILE FIT
HASHTAGS INFLUENCER CONTENT FIT
NETWORK FOLLOWERS RATE YOUR TARGET
YOUR BRAND?
AUDIENCE?

#traveladdict @mytravelworld IG 17,1 K 2% Y/N Y/N

22
 5 → SUMMARY TABLES AND CHEAT SHEETS

By using brand mentions

DOES THE
DOES THE
SOCIAL NUMBER OF ENGAGEMENT PROFILE FIT
MENTION INFLUENCER CONTENT FIT
NETWORK FOLLOWERS RATE YOUR TARGET
YOUR BRAND?
AUDIENCE?
“Love Diamonds
hotel and its view” @mytravelworld IG 17,1 K 2% Y/N Y/N

23
 6 → USE AN AUTOMATED TOOL LIKE INFLUENCITY

1. Log onto the platform and click on the option “Search influencers.”

2. Adjust the filters to narrow down your search. Filter by audience size, account
growth, follower quality, location, interests, and more!

3. Click “Show results” to see all the influencers who fit this criteria.

4. Your search results will include some complementary performance metrics

and will allow you to view an influencer’s profile.

5. To see an influencer’s full stats and start a conversation, add them to your
IRM!

TRY IT OUT FOR FREE

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