Since you are here searching for an Instagram influencer, that would mean you have clearly defined your goal, target audience, and the platform they are on. If not, then we would suggest you start there. 

With a proper understanding of what your end goal is, who your target audiences are, and which platforms they use, you can make the most out of your campaign. 

Now, if you want to find the right Instagram influencer, there are factors you should consider and tools you should use. And that’s exactly what we are going to do in this blog. 

Let’s begin by understanding the key factors in choosing Instagram influencers. 

9 Key Factors to Consider While Choosing Instagram Influencers

The success of your Ig influencer marketing campaign heavily depends on the influencers you choose to collaborate with. Hence, it's critical to ensure that they align with your brand values and resonate with your target audience.   

Here are some crucial factors you should consider. 

• Target Audience: 

Define your campaign's target audience clearly. Know who you want to reach, including demographics, interests, and behaviors. Look for influencers whose followers closely match your target audience. Their content should resonate with the people you aim to reach.  

• Relevance: 

Ensure that the influencers you consider are relevant to your industry and niche. Their content should align with your brand and what you offer. Review their past posts and collaborations to see if they have worked with similar brands or products.  

• Engagement: 

Prioritize engagement over follower count. A high engagement rate indicates that the influencer's audience actively interacts with their content. A good engagement rate on Instagram depends on the type of influencers you seek. 

For example, for macro-influencers with over 100k followers, a good engagement rate is between 1-3%. At the same time, the ideal engagement rate for micro-influencers with fewer than 10k followers falls between 5-8%.  

Suggested Read: How to Calculate Instagram Engagement Rate? 

• Authenticity: 

Assess whether the influencers come across as genuine and authentic in their content. Their audience should trust their recommendations. Read comments and interactions on their posts to gauge the authenticity of their engagement.  

Learn how you can spot fake influencers and avoid potential risks during your campaign. 

• Values: 

Ensure that the influencers' values align with your brand's values. Partnerships with influencers who share your beliefs and principles can be more effective and credible.  

• Content Quality: 

Evaluate the quality of the influencer's content. It should be visually appealing and consistent with your brand's image and aesthetics. Look for influencers who maintain a high standard of content production.  

• Frequency: 

Consider how often the influencer posts new content. You'll want to partner with influencers who are active and consistently engage with their audience. Regular posting helps maintain audience interest and visibility.  

• Reliability: 

Check the influencer's track record of working with brands and meeting deadlines. Reliability is essential to ensure your campaign runs smoothly. Seek recommendations or references from other brands they've collaborated with.  

• Audience Quality: 

Verify the authenticity of the influencer's followers. Avoid influencers who have bought followers or have a high number of fake accounts. Tools and platforms can help you analyze the authenticity of an influencer's following.  

By focusing on these factors, you can narrow down your search for Instagram influencers who are a strong fit for your campaign. Careful consideration of these criteria will increase the likelihood of a successful influencer partnership and a more effective campaign.

How to Find Instagram Influencers Manually? 

There are ways you can manually search for Instagram influencers within your niche. Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Search for Relevant Hashtags:  

One of the simplest ways to discover influencers in your niche is by searching for relevant hashtags. Instagram allows you to explore content associated with specific hashtags. Start by identifying the hashtags that are relevant to your industry, products, or services. 

For example, if you sell fitness equipment, you might search for hashtags like #FitnessTips or #WorkoutInspiration.  

Review the top posts and accounts associated with these hashtags. Pay attention to the influencers who consistently appear in these searches, as they are likely active in your niche.  

Suggested Read: How To Use The Best Instagram Hashtags

2. Look at Your Brand's Followers:  

Take a close look at the users who are following your brand on Instagram. Among your followers, you may find individuals who are influencers in your niche.  

Explore the profiles of your followers, identify those who have a significant following, and post content related to your industry or products. These users may be potential influencers to collaborate with.  

3. Monitor Brand Mentions:  

Utilize social listening tools to track mentions of your brand on Instagram. These tools can help you identify influencers who are already talking about and engaging with your brand.  

Look for influencers who have mentioned your brand positively or have created content related to your products or services. They may be interested in formal collaborations.  

4. Check Out the Explore Page:  

Instagram's Explore page is a valuable resource for discovering new influencers. It curates content from accounts that align with your interests and the content you engage with.  

Regularly visit your Explore page to discover content creators and influencers whose posts resonate with your brand's values and target audience. You might come across influencers who are a perfect fit for your campaign.  

5. Engage and Build Relationships:  

Once you've identified potential influencers using these methods, take the time to engage with their content and build relationships. Like, comment on, and share their posts to establish a connection.  

Send direct messages (DMs) to express your interest in collaborating or to inquire about their partnership guidelines. Building a rapport can make your collaboration outreach more successful.  

The aforementioned strategies are good but time-consuming and complex. So, what's the alternative? Influencer marketing tools.  

Invest in robust influencer marketing tools like impulze.ai to find, vet, and manage influencers. Let’s see how easy it is to find an Instagram influencer with the help of an influencer marketing tool. 

How to Find Instagram Influencers with impulze.ai

To start with impulze.ai is a highly intuitive influencer marketing tool with over 250 million influencer databases. Apart from helping find the right influencers, the tool helps you manage them, track the progress of your campaign, and even measure its success [ROI]. 

So, how can you use impulze.ai to find the right Instagram influencer? Let’s see. 

But before we jump into finding influencers, sign up on impulze.ai for free if you don’t have an account yet. Those who already have an account log in and start going through each step to find the right Instagram influencers. 

Step 1 - Curate the Influencer List

As discussed, impulze.ai has over 250 million influencers on their tool, so filtering them based on your requirements is the first step.

Filter #1 - General

Here, as shown in the figure, you need to first ensure that the list of influencers showing is from Instagram [the arrow top right corner]. 

Now, to the left side, you will see the filter option where you can filter the influencers with respect to their location, engagement rate, followers, and niche. 

We would advise you to restrict from adding engagement rate and followers for the time being. Yes, we know adding those would give you a more focused list. But it’s best to understand the type of influencers in a specific niche first.  

And now, finally, click to select these three metrics.

This is to ensure that the curated list has influencers who are verified, offer contact information, and have a history of collaborations with brands.  

Click “Search” 

Filter #2 - Creator

Here, you can curate influencers based on the niche they focus on, gender, the number of content they have created, and more. Utilize the options to your needs and hit search.

Filter #3 - Audience

This option lets you find the Instagram influencers who have your target audience as their followers. Add in all the necessary details and hit search for the last time. 

Now that you have the list of Instagram influencers, it’s time to choose the right one. 

Step 2 - Influencer Analysis

Examine the follower count and engagement rate of each influencer. Look through their description and their followers and engagement rate, and save them. 

Keep this in mind: just because an influencer has a high follower count or engagement rate, it doesn't guarantee suitability. Take the time to thoroughly review their profile descriptions to understand their focus.

If you look at the below screenshot, you may find a black sheep in the list of influencers. Originally, what we added as the focused niche was “Coffee and Beverages”. But as you can see, one influencer who happens to have followers who are interested in this niche doesn’t create content in that particular niche.

Once you have saved the influencer, navigate to the "Home" section and access their profile. You may find some missing details but don't worry, it's supposed to be like. The missing data are first-party data that no one else offers. 

You can retrieve all the necessary information by utilizing our Chrome extension, SocialiQ. 

Not finished yet, to get a comprehensive view of an influencer, generate a report [the screenshot shows “View Report” because we already generated one]. 

Within the generated report, you'll gain insights into the authenticity of the influencer's followers, notable followers, gender and age distribution among their audience, sponsored content they've previously created, and more.

To give you a sneak peak into the report, go through the following.

Follower types - 

Sponsored Content by the influencer -

By analyzing all these data you can spot the right Instagram influencer for your marketing campaign. 

And that’s it. Pretty simple, right? 

Now if you are looking for new strategies to try out, we have that too. Here are some new Instagram influencer marketing strategies to try out for campaign success. Not only that you can try out our influencer marketing strategy checklist to build an effective one as well.