Jul 15, 2025
5 MIN READ
Discovery
Discovery
How to See Which Influencers Your Competitors Are Using (in Seconds)
How to See Which Influencers Your Competitors Are Using (in Seconds)
How to See Which Influencers Your Competitors Are Using (in Seconds)
Rashmi Singh
Rashmi Singh
Rashmi Singh
Rashmi Singh
Content Marketer @impulze.ai
Sections
Blog in Short ⏱️
Blog in Short ⏱️
A quick glance at the highlights—perfect for when you're short on time.
A quick glance at the highlights—perfect for when you're short on time.
Curious which influencers your competitors are using? You’re not alone and you don’t need to guess.
Instead of starting influencer campaigns from scratch, smart brands now reverse-engineer competitor strategies using public data. They analyze tagged posts, sponsored content, and ambassador programs to uncover what’s working. But doing this manually takes hours, and often misses key info.
That’s why we built Collab Finder — a free tool that instantly shows you the creators a brand has collaborated with on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
Just drop in a username and:
See influencer names, follower count, and engagement
Discover what kind of content works
Identify platform trends and lookalike creators
✅ Try it free →trace.impulze.ai
Let’s be honest. You’ve probably peeked at a competitor’s Instagram just to see who they’re working with. Maybe you spotted a familiar face, or maybe you thought, “Wait—they’re working with her too?”
That curiosity? It’s not just normal, it’s smart. Because, behind every great influencer campaign is a lot of testing, budget, and guesswork that you don’t have to repeat.
Instead of starting from scratch, why not learn from what your competitors are already doing, ethically and efficiently?
Let me show you how.
Why It’s Smart to Study Your Competitor’s Influencers
Let’s say you’re planning a new influencer campaign. You could start from zero, spend weeks researching creators, testing content formats, figuring out which platforms actually convert, and hoping your budget is well spent.
Or… you could take a shortcut.
Your competitors have already done a lot of that heavy lifting. They’ve paid influencers, tracked performance, and learned (sometimes the hard way) what works and what doesn’t. So instead of flying blind, you can learn directly from their experiments and avoid making the same costly mistakes.
In fact, 60% of brands increased their influencer marketing spend in 2024 based on past campaign performance, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub Benchmark Report.
And a significant portion of those learnings came not just from internal tests, but from closely watching what others in the space were doing, especially those with similar audiences or product categories.
By studying your competitors’ influencer strategy, you can gain valuable insights like:
Which creators are actually driving conversions instead of just likes?
Which platforms they’re betting on (Are they still going strong on Instagram or shifting more budget to TikTok or YouTube Shorts?)
What kind of content formats are performing well? Is it short-form videos, carousels, stories, or long captions with storytelling?
What level of collaboration they’re pursuing? Do they stick to one-time paid posts, or are they investing in long-term ambassador programs?
What makes this even more useful is that almost all of this information is publicly visible. It’s hidden in plain sight, inside tagged posts, campaign hashtags, influencer feeds, and story mentions. You just need the right approach (or tool) to gather and make sense of it.
The Manual Route (If You Like Doing Things the Hard Way)
Yes, it’s totally possible to figure out which influencers your competitors are working with without using any tools. But fair warning, it’s a long, often frustrating process.
Here’s how most marketers find their competitors' influencer marketing strategy manually:
Scroll through the brand’s tagged posts.
Look for creators who’ve recently mentioned or tagged the brand in a post.Check Instagram Stories and Highlights.
Some collaborations only appear here for 24 hours, so you’ll need to catch them in time or hope they’re saved.Search hashtags like #ad, #sponsored, or #partner.
This can surface influencer content that mentions the brand without direct tagging.Visit individual influencer profiles.
Manually browse their content to see if they’ve collaborated with your competitor.Read through the post comments.
Look for clues like “Loved working with [Brand]!” or other subtle collab hints.
But here’s the problem with doing it this way:
You’ll only uncover a fraction of the partnerships.
Not all influencers tag the brand directly or disclose partnerships clearly.You won’t know how the content actually performed.
There’s no easy way to tell if a post flopped or drove real engagement.It’s extremely time-consuming.
Even tracking one brand manually can take hours, and that’s before you analyze or organize the data.
Bottom line?
You’ll spend a lot of time doing digital detective work… and still walk away with incomplete insights.
We Built the Shortcut We Wish We Had
Let’s face it: doing all of that manually is painful.
So… we built a fix – Collab Finder tool which tells you who has collaborated with your competitors on Instagram and TikTok.
Here’s how:
Drop in any Instagram brand handle
Instantly get a list of influencers they’ve worked with
See their follower count, post links, and real engagement data
✅ Try it here → trace.impulze.ai
Brands like Beis Travel, Parade, and Glossier have worked with hundreds of creators. Our tool uncovers those connections in seconds.
What to Do With This Influencer List?
So you’ve got the goods. A list of influencers your competitor has worked with, backed by real data, engagement stats, and post links.
Now what?
Here’s how to actually use that information to make your next campaign smarter, faster, and more effective:
Add top performers to a “watch” list
Start by bookmarking or saving creators in SocialiQ who had strong engagement, relevant audiences, or multiple posts with the brand. These are your high-signal names.
You don’t have to reach out immediately, but keeping them on your radar gives you an edge when planning future launches.
Reach out to those with high engagement and non-exclusivity
If an influencer’s content popped off and they aren’t locked into an exclusivity deal, it’s worth starting a conversation. Personalize your pitch. Mention their past collab and explain why your brand is a good fit. This tiny bit of context can double your reply rate.
Pro Tip: Again, SocialiQ can give you access to influencer contact, so you can reach out easily.
Check similar creators using lookalike tools
Free influencer marketing tools like SocialiQ make this easy. Plug in a top-performing creator and find dozens of others with similar content, audience, and vibe, but who haven’t worked with your competitors yet. These are your untapped goldmines.
Note platform focus
Are your competitors focusing on TikTok over Instagram?
Are they testing Threads or diving into YouTube Shorts?
This tells you where their marketing bets are going and whether you should double down, zig where they zag, or test new waters yourself.
Feed all of this into your campaign planning
Use what you’ve learned to shape your content calendar. Maybe you realize you need more user-generated travel reels. Or that carousel posts are winning more engagement than polished studio shots.
Let these insights shape your creator briefs, timelines, and budget splits.
Save Time, Outsmart the Competition
You can spend hours going down Instagram rabbit holes, squinting at tagged posts, and manually piecing together who worked with whom.
Or… you can drop a username into Collab Finder and get the full picture in seconds.
It’s fast.
It’s free.
And it gives you the kind of intel that turns guessing games into strategy.
✅ Try the tool now → trace.impulze.ai
🎁 Bonus: Want to take things further? If you’re planning full influencer campaigns, head over to impulze.ai — where influencer discovery, outreach, content calendar, and performance tracking all come built in.
You’ll save time, avoid rookie mistakes, and launch campaigns that actually convert.
Let’s be honest. You’ve probably peeked at a competitor’s Instagram just to see who they’re working with. Maybe you spotted a familiar face, or maybe you thought, “Wait—they’re working with her too?”
That curiosity? It’s not just normal, it’s smart. Because, behind every great influencer campaign is a lot of testing, budget, and guesswork that you don’t have to repeat.
Instead of starting from scratch, why not learn from what your competitors are already doing, ethically and efficiently?
Let me show you how.
Why It’s Smart to Study Your Competitor’s Influencers
Let’s say you’re planning a new influencer campaign. You could start from zero, spend weeks researching creators, testing content formats, figuring out which platforms actually convert, and hoping your budget is well spent.
Or… you could take a shortcut.
Your competitors have already done a lot of that heavy lifting. They’ve paid influencers, tracked performance, and learned (sometimes the hard way) what works and what doesn’t. So instead of flying blind, you can learn directly from their experiments and avoid making the same costly mistakes.
In fact, 60% of brands increased their influencer marketing spend in 2024 based on past campaign performance, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub Benchmark Report.
And a significant portion of those learnings came not just from internal tests, but from closely watching what others in the space were doing, especially those with similar audiences or product categories.
By studying your competitors’ influencer strategy, you can gain valuable insights like:
Which creators are actually driving conversions instead of just likes?
Which platforms they’re betting on (Are they still going strong on Instagram or shifting more budget to TikTok or YouTube Shorts?)
What kind of content formats are performing well? Is it short-form videos, carousels, stories, or long captions with storytelling?
What level of collaboration they’re pursuing? Do they stick to one-time paid posts, or are they investing in long-term ambassador programs?
What makes this even more useful is that almost all of this information is publicly visible. It’s hidden in plain sight, inside tagged posts, campaign hashtags, influencer feeds, and story mentions. You just need the right approach (or tool) to gather and make sense of it.
The Manual Route (If You Like Doing Things the Hard Way)
Yes, it’s totally possible to figure out which influencers your competitors are working with without using any tools. But fair warning, it’s a long, often frustrating process.
Here’s how most marketers find their competitors' influencer marketing strategy manually:
Scroll through the brand’s tagged posts.
Look for creators who’ve recently mentioned or tagged the brand in a post.Check Instagram Stories and Highlights.
Some collaborations only appear here for 24 hours, so you’ll need to catch them in time or hope they’re saved.Search hashtags like #ad, #sponsored, or #partner.
This can surface influencer content that mentions the brand without direct tagging.Visit individual influencer profiles.
Manually browse their content to see if they’ve collaborated with your competitor.Read through the post comments.
Look for clues like “Loved working with [Brand]!” or other subtle collab hints.
But here’s the problem with doing it this way:
You’ll only uncover a fraction of the partnerships.
Not all influencers tag the brand directly or disclose partnerships clearly.You won’t know how the content actually performed.
There’s no easy way to tell if a post flopped or drove real engagement.It’s extremely time-consuming.
Even tracking one brand manually can take hours, and that’s before you analyze or organize the data.
Bottom line?
You’ll spend a lot of time doing digital detective work… and still walk away with incomplete insights.
We Built the Shortcut We Wish We Had
Let’s face it: doing all of that manually is painful.
So… we built a fix – Collab Finder tool which tells you who has collaborated with your competitors on Instagram and TikTok.
Here’s how:
Drop in any Instagram brand handle
Instantly get a list of influencers they’ve worked with
See their follower count, post links, and real engagement data
✅ Try it here → trace.impulze.ai
Brands like Beis Travel, Parade, and Glossier have worked with hundreds of creators. Our tool uncovers those connections in seconds.
What to Do With This Influencer List?
So you’ve got the goods. A list of influencers your competitor has worked with, backed by real data, engagement stats, and post links.
Now what?
Here’s how to actually use that information to make your next campaign smarter, faster, and more effective:
Add top performers to a “watch” list
Start by bookmarking or saving creators in SocialiQ who had strong engagement, relevant audiences, or multiple posts with the brand. These are your high-signal names.
You don’t have to reach out immediately, but keeping them on your radar gives you an edge when planning future launches.
Reach out to those with high engagement and non-exclusivity
If an influencer’s content popped off and they aren’t locked into an exclusivity deal, it’s worth starting a conversation. Personalize your pitch. Mention their past collab and explain why your brand is a good fit. This tiny bit of context can double your reply rate.
Pro Tip: Again, SocialiQ can give you access to influencer contact, so you can reach out easily.
Check similar creators using lookalike tools
Free influencer marketing tools like SocialiQ make this easy. Plug in a top-performing creator and find dozens of others with similar content, audience, and vibe, but who haven’t worked with your competitors yet. These are your untapped goldmines.
Note platform focus
Are your competitors focusing on TikTok over Instagram?
Are they testing Threads or diving into YouTube Shorts?
This tells you where their marketing bets are going and whether you should double down, zig where they zag, or test new waters yourself.
Feed all of this into your campaign planning
Use what you’ve learned to shape your content calendar. Maybe you realize you need more user-generated travel reels. Or that carousel posts are winning more engagement than polished studio shots.
Let these insights shape your creator briefs, timelines, and budget splits.
Save Time, Outsmart the Competition
You can spend hours going down Instagram rabbit holes, squinting at tagged posts, and manually piecing together who worked with whom.
Or… you can drop a username into Collab Finder and get the full picture in seconds.
It’s fast.
It’s free.
And it gives you the kind of intel that turns guessing games into strategy.
✅ Try the tool now → trace.impulze.ai
🎁 Bonus: Want to take things further? If you’re planning full influencer campaigns, head over to impulze.ai — where influencer discovery, outreach, content calendar, and performance tracking all come built in.
You’ll save time, avoid rookie mistakes, and launch campaigns that actually convert.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it ethical to look at competitor influencer collaborations?
Is it ethical to look at competitor influencer collaborations?
Is it ethical to look at competitor influencer collaborations?
Can I work with the same influencers as my competitors?
Can I work with the same influencers as my competitors?
Can I work with the same influencers as my competitors?
How accurate is the data from Collab Finder?
How accurate is the data from Collab Finder?
How accurate is the data from Collab Finder?
What if I want to find influencers my competitors haven’t used?
What if I want to find influencers my competitors haven’t used?
What if I want to find influencers my competitors haven’t used?
How much do these creators typically charge?
How much do these creators typically charge?
How much do these creators typically charge?
Is this better than searching manually?
Is this better than searching manually?
Is this better than searching manually?
Do I need to sign up for using Collab Finder?
Do I need to sign up for using Collab Finder?
Do I need to sign up for using Collab Finder?
Author Bio
Author Bio
Rashmi Singh
Rashmi Singh
Rashmi Singh is a writer and strategist with more than 7 years of experience. When not writing, she is either spending time with her friends or planning her next trip. You can learn more about her here.
Rashmi Singh is a writer and strategist with more than 7 years of experience. When not writing, she is either spending time with her friends or planning her next trip. You can learn more about her here.
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Find, analyze, and contact influencers from a database of over 250 million profiles.
Find, analyze, and contact influencers from a database of over 250 million profiles.
Find, analyze, and contact influencers from a database of over 250 million profiles.
Join over 30,000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
30K+ Active Users
May be Later
Join over 30,000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
30K+ Active Users
May be Later
Join over 30,000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
30K+ Active Users
May be Later