Influencer Marketing 101: How To Find Brand Influencers As A Fresh Business

“There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.” -Malcolm Goldwell.

We all want our business to succeed.

However, fresh businesses and brands rarely take off the ground without the much-needed help that they get from advertising. Back in the day, brands and companies relied on traditional media and conventional advertising to get the word out about them. Today, however, that does not just seem to make the cut.

So, how do new brands and companies cope? Well, they adapt to recent trends and evolve along the times, for one. In this time and age, almost everyone is connected to the internet—so much so that businesses see this as an opportunity to reach their audiences. By leveraging the power of social media, businesses have taken it upon themselves to connect with their potential customers on a more personal level. With so many people logging into social media platforms every single day, it would be a waste for businesses and brands not to tap into its potential reach. In a sense, social media is a pool of prospective customers; all you have to do is find a way to reach them and rein them in.

You may have heard of digital marketing before, and by now, you have undoubtedly heard about influencer marketing. While a relatively new buzzword to some, influencer marketing has been making waves online in recent years. It helps new brands acquire larger audiences, increase awareness, and ultimately drive more sales—all of which can determine the ultimate success of fresh businesses and new brands. Moreover, influencer marketing helps you gain an insight as to who your potential audiences are and how to effectively market your brand to them.

FINDING BRAND INFLUENCERS AS A FRESH BUSINESS

Starting out as a new business may make it a little challenging to penetrate the audience base in the industry, but with influencer marketing, you can build brand awareness and spread the word about your brand.

As a new brand, however, you should not make the mistake of arbitrarily choosing a brand influencer on a whim. For your influencer marketing campaigns to be successful, you need to approach this endeavor with discernment. That said, thorough research on the prospective individuals you are looking to partner with is required. Finding influencers may be a little tricky as a new brand because you may find that you are unable to find connections that can help your brand.

This article aims to assist you with that predicament. If you are a fresh business just starting to penetrate the industry, below is a list of tips that will help you find influencers to suit your business needs:

EIGHT WAYS TO FIND INFLUENCERS AS A FRESH BUSINESS

1.) Start with hashtags

One of the simplest ways to find a brand influencer for your brand is to use hashtags. Before your influencers can start posting about your brand on various social media channels, you need to know what the trends, content, and posts are as these may be already available on the platforms you intend to use. To illustrate, you can use your brand’s Instagram page to follow hashtags that are relevant to your business. In this way, you can discover new influencers and content that are relevant to your brand.

Also, you may want to search for hashtags that influencers are posting to. Click through the myriad of posts contained in the influencer’s profile, then send them a message within the social media platform itself. Hashtags are excellent tools for categorizing and unifying posts about the same topic. More importantly, it is one of the broadest and most expansive ways to find influencers you can partner with. As said above, however, be sure to screen each influencer and do thorough research on them before agreeing to work with them.

2.) Be smart about utilizing Google

It is a given that you can find answers to almost any question you have on Google. Needless to say, it is also an excellent tool to use in searching for brand influencers. However, you need to be specific about your search and narrow it down, or else you will be going through all the search results given to you just to find the influencers you need. Narrow down the results by building a list of keywords that capture your brand’s overall vision and use these in your search queries.

One way to do this is to add location or the word blogger in your keywords to narrow your results even further. If you search by location, you will be able to find local influencers within your niche, which is especially helpful if you wish to work with an influencer in person.

3.) Search by keywords on Youtube

YouTube may also be an excellent place to start your influencer marketing—especially if your business is in certain niche industries. If you wish to have longer reviews for your products or services, YouTube can be very helpful. It is also a great place to start if your business or brand focuses on a specific hobby, as influencers tend to share this type of content here.

Like Google, you can use keywords to help you search for the top videos and channels posting about a topic. From there, you need to dig a little deeper into long-tail keywords so that you can narrow your search even further and find influencers that have an excellent number of followers. It is worth noting that influencers on YouTube rarely exist on the channel alone. If you find a good influencer on YouTube, there is a likely chance that they also have a presence on other social media platforms which helps you promote your brand even further.

4.) Scan your competitors’ mentions and tags

There is a chance that your competitors may already be using influencer marketing to grow their brands. However, you need to know who your competitors are first. By knowing who they are, you can find influencers who are already posting the same topics that you want. Check your competitor’s social media profiles, and check the photos that people have tagged them in.

Influencers are likely to tag them in these posts. Click through their profile, check their posts, and take a look at what their feed looks like. Be wary, however, as influencers who are posting exclusively about a specific brand may not want to work with you due to contractual limits.

5.) Use influencer tools or databases

New brands and fresh businesses may also want to utilize the tools and databases influencers use, as these have search features that will reveal the top influencers within particular niches. Through these databases, you can see an influencer’s social profiles, websites, and email addresses which gives you the opportunity to connect with them right away for any partnerships.

6.) Start following blogs and bloggers

If you wish to build back-links to your brand, blogs and bloggers are key. Not only that, but they can also serve as partners for social media promotions. Blogs and bloggers tend to promote their content through social media. As a result, they typically have strong followings through their blog readership and their social media following.

Have a list of related keywords ready, and add the word “blog” to see what the top blogs are for this particular topic. Blogs tend to have social links either in the header or footer. In this way, you will be able to see what kind of audience they have simply by clicking through these links.

7.) Recruit through your brand’s website

Another thing you may want to try if you wish to find brand influencers as a new brand is to recruit through your brand’s website. However, your website should have resources available to influencers—just in case they find themselves on your website. Make sure that they can easily reach you should they wish to offer you a working partnership.

By adding a link in the footer to the influencer landing page, you can share how you would like to collaborate with influencers and leave your contact information so that any potential collaborators can easily reach out. In this way, influencers who already know you and love your brand can pitch their ideas and propose collaborations easily and save you the process of having to search for them.

8.) Set a large net of alerts

If you have tried the strategies above, it is now time to automate your process a bit. Do this by setting an alert about specific topics that you wish to be informed about whenever fresh content is being posted. Another thing to do is to follow a handful of hashtags to see if there are any new influencers within your niche. Also, set a Google alert for your brand so that you can easily see who is posting about you on their blogs or social media.

BOTTOMLINE

Now that you have an idea of how to find influencers as a fresh business, all you need to do is put all of this to work. If you wish to create a buzz about your brand and business, influencer marketing can help you. More importantly, it is one of the surefire ways to build your brand.

Look for influencers, reach out to them, and see if they would be interested in working with you. With each completed campaign, you will be able to learn more about influencer marketing, refine your strategy, and get even better results the next time you utilize it.