How to Find Influencers on Instagram: Complete Guide

Instagram is a platform that can be vital to your brand and its growth over time, especially if you work with influencers. Instagram influencers are users with a large, loyal following who can help bring credibility and attention to your brand. Use these 5 steps to find the right Instagram influencer.

Social media can be a powerful platform to promote your business and brand if you know how to take advantage of it. A strong social media marketing strategy is key if you want to revitalize your brand and build trust—especially on Instagram.

Instagram has proven to be one of the most popular forms of social media at this time, with well over one billion active users worldwide. It allows users to post photos, videos, and stories and gives them the freedom to advertise. Because of this, one of the best ways to take advantage of influencer marketing is by working with influencers on Instagram.

Because Instagram is one of the most ideal platforms for an influencer to use, many businesses use it to promote their products and services. By working with top Instagram influencers, companies can more easily connect with their target market and share a more authentic side of their brand, even through a screen.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy businesses use to grow their brand. They do this by partnering with content creators across different social platforms, such as Instagram or TikTok. Influencers can range from everyday people with thousands of followers to well-known celebrities with followers in the millions. The right influencers for your company will have a large, engaged audience that corresponds with your target audience.

Influencers create content that explores and reviews products or services, sharing their opinions with their followers. They include product names and brand mentions in their posts, along with relevant hashtags, so the content about your brand comes up in the platform’s search tools.

Why Should You Find Instagram Influencers?

Making connections with Instagram influencers who can promote your campaign is a clever marketing tactic that will benefit your company in many different ways. These connections build trust regarding your brand/business, help you build strong partnerships, and improve your brand awareness along the way.

By creating connections with various Instagram influencers, you will reach the desired demographic for your brand and build a community of consumers. You can also monitor how effective this can become to build success in the future.

54% of influencers have stated that they will work with brands they respect and view as legitimate, who respect them in return. It is vital to find top Instagram influencers that best fit your campaign. It is valuable to make connections and build relations with these Instagram influencers and see how they can make the most of being involved in your campaign.

By using Podium, a new messaging tool that makes partnering with Instagram influencers easier, you can connect with potential customers and clients, receiving the tools you need to grow and improve your business. You can reach your desired audience, connect with Instagram influencers who can benefit your campaign, and continue to help grow your brand/business.

How to Find Influencers on Instagram—8 Ways

To answer the question “How do I find influencers on Instagram?”, you first need to know your goals as a company and take steps to ensure these influencers can help you achieve them. By working with an Instagram influencer, what outcome do you wish to achieve? Are you looking to find local influencers to promote physical stores or do you want to increase brand awareness nationally? How do you want influencers to benefit the future of your campaign? Answering these questions and understanding the eight steps you should take will help you find the best match for your company.

1. Use Influencer Discovery Tools

Finding an Instagram influencer who is the right fit and aligns well with your campaign is the most critical step you should take. Find influencers on social media whose interests relate to your campaign, which lets you add to the authenticity of your brand/business. Ensure that the Instagram influencer you choose is relevant, has active followers, and can benefit from creating a partnership with you in your campaign.

For example, if you are building a campaign centered around protein bars, finding an Instagram influencer who is focused on fitness or nutrition will best benefit your brand and your influencer marketing campaign.

The more an Instagram influencer can utilize the product/service in their daily life, the more future consumers will be interested in your campaign. This starts by making sure the influencer’s lifestyle aligns with what your campaign is all about. This makes the partnership more legitimate and realistic.

Even 92% of consumers trust an influencer over traditional advertisements or endorsements that use celebrities.

An Instagram influencer is a more relatable entity, and they can reach consumers on a better and more personable level. This is why an influencer can be an important addition to your marketing strategies to fulfill the success of your marketing campaigns.

You want the consumer to relate to the influencer and then find legitimacy within your brand/business. Having the power of legitimacy is key to creating trust and value in your campaign, but finding the right fit for your company is crucial to meeting this need.

2. Look At the Follower Count on Their Instagram Account

An important step to take when finding an influencer for your marketing campaign is to look for the number of followers on their account and if the number is continually growing. It is also important to note what demographics they can reach. The follower count and demographic amongst this population are important for ensuring you can expand your campaign. The more followers, the better; choosing Instagram influencers with a million followers or even 1.5 million followers can be very lucrative.

The demographic is the specific population that an influencer can reach, including age, gender, and ethnicity. This can give you a general idea of who is in the audience the influencer will be speaking to regarding the posts made about your campaign. You need the right influencers that will fit your brand well.

If the influencer’s follower count is constantly growing, this will mean endless amounts of consumers may run into information about your campaign, but focusing on the demographic is key. You want to be sure that the audience who is seeing posts for your campaign will actually be interested and intrigued enough to check out your company or visit an affiliate link.

The more followers, the larger the audience, and the more chances there will be for your brand/business to succeed, now and in the future.

3. See How Often They Post on Instagram

When trying to find an influencer for your influencer marketing campaigns, it is important to see how often they post. It is also a good idea to review the number of likes, views, or comments they receive as well. This will show how active their account is and if it will be beneficial to you to work with them.

You want to ensure that the influencer is posting often, in their feed, and on their story. This will guarantee high engagement on their Instagram page. Additionally, you want to make sure that followers are engaging well per post that they make.

It is also good to know if they are active on any other social media accounts and be sure that Instagram contains the majority of their posts and activity. This will ensure that a majority of their audience is on Instagram, and you can reach them easily.

The number of posts they share, the followers they continue to gain, and the frequency of posts on their page can all benefit your campaign when they share your product with their followers. It will show their audience something new, build awareness for your campaign, and help maintain a flow of activity on their posts that lead to your company’s link.

4. Check Out Their Engagement Rate on Their Instagram Account

When understanding the engagement rate, you must look at the performance of a piece of content posted on social media. See how many likes, views, comments, and replies they receive whenever they post new content in their feed or story.

Do their followers feel they can trust this influencer and engage in communicating with them through their posts? Does the influencer receive positive commentary and support regarding their posts?

It is important not only to see how the followers interact but how the influencer responds.

Are they active in replying to their followers and creating a real relationship with those who support them? Do they try to create a welcoming conversation for followers to engage in?

The influencer should utilize their followers and allow them to be a stepping stone in their social media presence. They should find time to interact with the people who keep them thriving on Instagram and, ultimately, in their careers.

The more engagement that is happening on their posts, the more authentic the influencer can become. This brings legitimacy to what they promote and feature on their page, thus creating more traffic towards your campaign.

5. Monitor the Effectiveness of Your Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategy

When you find influencers for your brand and begin working with Instagram influencers, it is important to see how effective it has been for the content and consumers within your campaign.

See if there has been an increase in clicks to their affiliate link and see if sales have risen since they introduced their audience to your campaign. If affiliate links are being utilized and sales seem to continue to grow, then the influencer must be doing something that is helping to expand your company and campaign.

Look at numbers that prove this increase and see how your company can flourish in the future, especially if these numbers continue to rise as you gain popularity.

6. Track Brand Mentions to Find Instagram Influencers Who Love Your Brand

Partner with someone who already knows your brand and sings your praises on Instagram. Many micro-influencers review brands they use or that otherwise appeal to their audience. Setting up tagged notifications for your Instagram account alerts you when someone tags your brand in a post, story, or reel, so you can easily find and evaluate new content creators.

7. Create a Brand Ambassador Program to Attract Instagram Creators

Building a brand ambassador program helps attract and retain Instagram influencers by offering benefits or rewards when creators meet specific requirements. Brand ambassadors may receive discounts on products or services when they follow your business on Instagram and make a certain number of posts.

8. Ask for Referrals From Your Existing Instagram Influencers

If you’re already working with influencers on Instagram, don’t be afraid to ask them for referrals. They’ll likely know another creator who is a great fit for your company. Just make sure to include your specifications (like follower count or engagement rate).

Find the Right Instagram Influencers with Podium

Even after learning how to find influencers on social media, your job isn’t done. To fully utilize social media to your advantage, it is important to find top Instagram influencers who can vouch for your campaign and assist in creating success for the future of your company. In these times, social media is becoming more and more popular every day.

With the average Instagram user spending up to an hour a day scrolling through their feed, it’s a great channel to place your product. Instagram is a platform that can be vital to your brand/business and its growth over time.

Ensure the influencer is the perfect fit for your Instagram influencer campaign by finding influencers that maintain authenticity in their online presence; this genuine approach will add success to the future of your company. It is also important to review their follower count and the demographic breakdown of their followers. How often they post and the engagement rate of their posts are all factors that can benefit your campaign.

These influencers on Instagram can provide a better sense of value and trust in regard to your product and produce a stream of consumers who want to see what your company is all about. As you master the art of influencer marketing, you will create a sense of legitimacy in your campaign and reap the rewards of utilizing the most popular forms of social media.

After finding the best fit for your influencer campaigns and a newfound ability to reach a certain target audience, you will continue to see the benefits you receive as they flow into success for your company.

Using Podium to assist you in creating these connections online has never been easier. Our new Instagram integration lets you consolidate all of your channels into one inbox, giving your entire organization greater visibility in Instagram and other influencer marketing platforms. You can quickly view brand mentions and instantly respond to direct messages, stories, reels, and more—all from your Podium Inbox.

Plus, it’s included for free in all Podium packages. Watch a demo to see how Podium can help your business grow.