A Quick (Micro) Guide to Finding the Right Micro-Influencers for Your Brand

Finding the right influencers for your next campaign can often lead to some difficulty, last minute changes in scope from your client, or frankly, can make you want to bang your head against your desk. Manually searching through pools of thousands of people, hashtags, or Twitter accounts can seem like a tedious and timely task, however, below are 4 quick tips to help you better navigate this world of influencer marketing we now live in!

First, a quick overview.

If this term is new to you, let’s break it down quickly: social media influencers are power users who can help your current and/or potential customers make a buying decision through social networking. Whether they’re a blogger, product reviewer, industry expert or a trusted source of information, social media influencers are unique to your field. Furthermore, they help brands build trusted relationships with their networks.

There are some influencers labeled as micro-influencers, which in short means  “an influencer with a smaller audience than a ‘macro-influencer.” These individuals typically have under 10K followers, less reach, but can drive greater engagement.  Their importance is great, and in some cases can really be more beneficial and effective to your campaign.

Let’s Explore the 4 Ways to Help Find Your Next Micro-Influencer.

As mentioned previously, micro-influencers are sometimes found using a manual process, which yes is very time consuming, but can be more impactful and personal than using a paid influencer marketing tool; not to say they aren’t helpful or worth it, because let’s face it anything to make managing multiple influencers under one campaign can’t hurt!

1.   Mine your current following.

Often your best candidates are right under your nose. Take a look at what people are already following you and engaging with your brand. These people are your biggest cheerleaders already, which can mean very little convincing to onboard them and could possibly help save on your budget too, but most importantly they already have a reason to believe. Identify these individuals and start reaching out, you won’t be sorry!

2.   Search for hashtags or words your micro-influencers are likely to use in their posts.

Knowing what keywords and hashtags to search through on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn is crucial to identifying new potential individuals. For example, if you were trying to search for an expert in future tech, specifically automotive, just searching for #car will be extremely overwhelming and too broad. Knowing your own industries phrases and terms, and those that people are using on a daily basis will go along away. Therefore, searching for #autonomouscar or #smartcar may help to narrow down that search. Lastly, if you are struggling with this technique, it may be helpful to look at someone you already know in the industry and identify what words and hashtags they use in their posts vs. taking a guess.

3.   Check out your competitors.

I am not suggesting to use the same people your competitors are (if they are doing influencer marketing), but some strategic research in your niche can help find influencers as well as give you some inspiration to discover new ones. Take a look at who they have worked with in the past, search their tagged photos, what hashtags they are using, and look at who is liking the brand and their posts.

4.   Search for individuals already promoting other brands.

Influencers are required to disclose their partnership with a brand. For example, you will find many influencers use #ad, #sponsored, #paid, #promo, etc. To narrow your search even further use, for example, #ad AND #lululemon (keyword of your choice). Take a look at what this quick search in Twitter pulled up below. Chic & Sweaty has just under 5K followers on Twitter and has her own yoga/health blog. BOOM! Potential micro-influencer has been found.

Bonus: Blog Comments are a Goldmine

One of the number one tips for new bloggers and influencers when growing their profile is to comment on and engage with other bloggers and their content. So tap into that by finding a great blogger and check out who has commented on their more recent blog posts.

There are many ways to search for your next micro-influencer, and if manually searching is not doable for you, there are many reputable influencer marketing search tools available to help find, manage, track, and report. Micro-influencers have grown and will continue to grow, especially as more individuals want to be found! Good luck and don’t give up!