Finding Influencers: How to Spot Influencers in Your Niche

In the world of marketing, no man is an island. This is the reason why most marketing experts tend to join the bandwagon. Are you wondering what is the most up-to-the-minute marketing strategy that most of them employ to boost their business? You guessed right–Influencer Marketing. This marketing method has been around for a long time, it’s only now that it has been receiving much attention, thanks to the onset of new technologies, such as social media platforms. It’s no wonder many businesses are asking the question–How do I find niche influencers on Instagram?

Influencer marketing requires you to connect with influencers to promote your products or services. But before scouring the internet and looking for Instagram celebrities, you need to sit down and figure out how to find influencers in your niche first. If you’re planning to get into this marketing method, learning how to identify influencers in your niche is always a good start. To make your search a lot easier, we have come up with a detailed guide to walk you through the process of spotting influencers that could help your company.

Why Is It Important To Know How to Find Influencers In Your Niche

There are numerous social media queens and kings and self-proclaimed celebrities these days. It will be so difficult, if not borderline impossible, to go over all of them on your search. And to be candid, it is a waste of time.

When crafting content or preparing a campaign for your business, it is necessary to understand who your target audience is. It is never ideal to manufacture a marketing plan targeting people from all walks of life. The practical approach is to curate a strategy focused on a specific target group. In this case, you must find an influencer that embodies your marketing scheme because your target consumers or clients are bound to respond and relate to such a persona.

In fact, you do not have to source out as many influencers as you can to strengthen your campaign. Bagging an influencer with irrefutable authority in your niche can solidify your marketing efforts and lay the groundwork in establishing your company’s message.

Who are Considered Influencers?

Just to verify that you have a clear grasp of who you can hire to promote your company, let us first define what makes an influencer an influencer.

An influencer is someone who has enough following that respect and listen to his or her insights and opinions. Followers look up to influencers, putting them on a pedestal, and tailoring their beliefs and ideas accordingly. This behavior is not limited to their way of thinking, but it also affects interest and sparks curiosity when an influencer uses or promotes something.

An influencer could be any of the following:

• a celebrity
• a social media personality
• a blogger
• a subject matter expert/professional
• a lifestyle brand

There is no yardstick by which an influencer should be measured. In fact, some influencers do not have a large enough audience. Macro influencers, as the name implies, have a considerable number of onlookers and supporters. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have active followers who exhibit the same passion and interest. There are also nano-influencers who are your typical guy or girl next door. We will talk more about them later on.

When discovering how to find influencers in your niche, it is important to consider which type can show a more significant progress in reaching out to your ideal audience. If you have the budget, hiring a famous celebrity or a professional is the quickest way. However, there are other types of influencers you can hire to increase your online presence for a fraction of the cost.

Identifying Influencers in Your Niche

Now that we have substantiated the relevance and discussed the basics of influencer marketing, let us delve into the details and answer the biggest question in your head right now: “How do I find influencers for my brand?“ Below are some tips on how to find influencers in your niche:

Have a clear and definite direction before you begin your search

Do not just focus on connecting with an influencer, the idea that any influencer will do as long as they have a good number of followers on their social media account won’t cut it. No, remove that from your thinking. What your brand needs is the right influencer. Right influencers hold the attention of your target audience. Therefore, they are most likely in the same niche as you are.

When devising your influencer marketing plan, you need to draft an outline or lay down some objectives for your work. Include goals such as:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Growing your audience
• Establishing brand identity
• Generating leads
• Generating links
• Improving sales
• Earning customer loyalty
• Reinforcing engagement

By having clear cut goals, you can identify which influencer can give that to you and help you garner effective results.

Identify what campaign type you can engineer and control

Aside from pinpointing the right type of influencer to have a relationship with, you also need to stick to a specific marketing plan–one that will hopefully land you the best influencers in your niche.

Sponsored content is a go-to choice because of its straightforward approach. You contact an influencer and pay him or her to endorse your product in the form of content, either shared or created. Gifting and hiring influencers as brand ambassadors works similarly as you provide the influencer some goodies for posts or mentions. Giveaways, discount codes, and contests also have a similar premise. All of the above requires the influencer to offer your products to his or her followers. Affiliates are rewarding for influencers because you give them a cut whenever someone from their end makes a purchase. Through guest posting and influencer social media takeover, you invite an influencer to participate in your blog or social media account.

Search for influencers in your niche

If you are curious about how do I find bloggers in my niche, a simple Google search of some celebrities or famous personalities in your industry can help give you some answers. These individuals share the same target market, so they can aid in increasing brand awareness. You can arrange Google alert settings to notify you whenever someone blogs about matters related to your industry. You can also look at different websites and forums to land an engaged and passionate blogger to do business with.

Do not limit your search to those in your industry

While it is a good place to start looking for influencers under your roof, it would not hurt to explore outside. Think about your audience. If you and the potential influencer share the same audience, they can give the same results as those in your industry. In fact, they can probably provide more. Why? You can reach more potential customers or clients through that influencer’s actual industry. It is therefore a must to analyze your target audience well. Doing so will help you discover their interests and needs, so you can place yourself at the forefront.

Check out the competitors’ pick of influencers

If you are at your wit’s end wondering how to find instagram influencers in your niche, one simple way is to piggyback off of your competitor’s work. Take a look at some influencers or celebrities they have worked with in the past. Chances are if these famous individuals have endorsed brands that are similar to yours, they would not hesitate partnering with you. Check hashtags regularly to see who are actively promoting your competitors. This is an easy fix to the dilemma most small business face–how do I find influencers for my brand?

Understand how relevant an influencer is in your niche

Plenty of factors affect an influencer’s significance to your campaign. The obvious ones include the ability to produce noteworthy content and the total number of followers and their engagement rates. However, you also need to recognize their relevance to your niche. Verify if their reach is enough for your campaign. Some may draw some positive impact, but if it is not enough for your company’s marketing objectives, then give it a rest.

These six tips come in handy when starting your influencer marketing campaign. However, there are platforms that can do the bulk of the work for you. Some of them are:

• GroupHigh is no doubt the most comprehensive blogger database. If you are looking for a blogger to promote your service, product, or company, you have over 50 million choices.
• Influencity comes in really handy if you don’t know how to find instagram influencers for your business. It assists you search for influencers based on the content they create and the quality of their followers.
• Cision enables you to locate influencers relevant to your marketing strategy and perform tasks on the website, provided you have an account.
• TapInfluence allows you to go over 50, 000 influencer profiles. They are categorized accordingly, making it easier to find who exactly you are looking for.
• The first four are paid tools, but Klear is free. You can find influencers from Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and also bloggers.

Whether you have decided to take matters into your own hands or resort to the use of any of the aforementioned websites, never dismiss the importance of tracking the results. Otherwise, you will not discover if a campaign is successful or not. If it isn’t, you can remedy it if possible or learn from your mistakes.

The Advantages of Integrating Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has been proven effective in different aspects. It helps drive brand awareness. There are many people who have never heard of your service, product, or company who you would never be able to reach without the help of an influencer.

Daniel Wellington, perhaps, is the most fitting example of an effective influencer marketing strategy. Not having enough on its hands, the company decided to shift its focus to micro-influencers. It knew that this strategy was more feasible for the business at that moment. In 2010, it used Instagram micro influencers to promote its products and offer a discounted rate to those influencers’ followers. All in exchange for a free watch. There is no doubt that traditional marketing could have achieved what Daniel Wellington did, but it sure would have needed to spare more dough than what it could at the beginning. These days, Daniel Wellington is one of the best in the watch business.

Another company that knew what they were doing regarding influencer marketing is Glossier, who was once a New York newcomer in 2014. Since then, the business has long made its mark in the beauty scene. It has developed different products in both skincare and make-up. We all know how congested and competitive these businesses can be, with numerous established companies already occupying the top positions. You know, companies that no longer have to vie for consumer’s affections because they have been around long enough, such as L’oreal, Olay, and many others.

However, Glossier used a perfect tool that is surprisingly, at everyone’s disposal these days. The company decided to create its own narrative and spread its name by reaching out to people (500, to be exact) who are already fans of their product, branding them ambassadors. The company did not approach a famous celebrity to plug its skincare and make-up. Instead, it capsized traditional influencer marketing by making influencers of its own. Today, Glossier is one of the leading skincare names in the United States.

What Does the Future Hold For Influence Marketing?

A lot of people have looked down on influencer marketing, but according to a Forbes article, it is just the beginning. In fact, a lot of individuals have been curious of what Influencer marketing can do for their business as proven by the graph below:

It stands to reason that the number of social media users have skyrocketed over the past few years. Analysts believe that the industry will exceed $15 billion in the next two years.

Instagram has always been the home of influencers until Tiktok’s popularity surpassed it. There are now more than a billion Tiktok users. Of course, both platforms are bankable areas for your influencer marketing campaign. One surprising fact is that of all the types of influencers, the most effective ones on Instagram are the nano-influencers. They provide higher engagement rates, which is the very goal of implementing marketing efforts.

The TL;DR of this article is that influencer marketing is a powerful marketing strategy many have sworn by. It is not too late to get behind this marketing trend. There are many ways to find influencers in your niche, be it through the help of certain platforms or by doing your own research.