5 Tips to Find Instagram Influencers in Your Niche

Did you realize that influencer marketing has become a crucial part of the marketing mix over the past few years? The industry is all set to grow to $13.8 billion this year and you can make a fortune out of it.

But for influencer marketing to work, you have to find the right Instagram influencers in your niche and do meaningful collaborations with them.

Wondering why finding the right influencers is such a big deal?

Because the success of your campaigns depends on the relevance, authenticity, engagement value, and influential power of the influencers you partner with.

I’ve run many successful influencer campaigns in the past, which helped my clients get over 3.5X ROI and generate sales worth $1.6 billion.

In this post, I’m going to guide you through the process of finding the right Instagram influencers in your niche. Read on to discover the best influencer search tips, channels, and tools that can help.

Let’s get started.

How to Find Instagram Influencers in Your Niche

Let’s take a look at proven ways/strategies that have helped me find the right Instagram influencers for my clients from different niches.

I’ll also tell you about the influencer marketing platforms and tools I trust such as Upfluence. These tools are likely to be a valuable addition to your influencer marketing arsenal too.

1. Understand Who the Right Instagram Influencer for Your Brand Is

First things first, you need to brainstorm and identify the top characteristics of an ideal Instagram influencer for your brand.

For example, if you run an everyday clothing brand, you’ll probably want to partner with social media influencers who:

• Have an interest in fashion, clothing styles
• Have followers aged 18-35
• Regularly promote content related to fashion
• Have posts ranking on top fashion hashtags such as “#OOTD,” “#style,” “#fashionista,” “#streetstyle,” etc.

In addition to your business niche, your choice of the right Instagram influencers will also depend on your influencer campaign goals.

For example, if you want to build brand awareness, the best choice is to find the top Instagram influencers in your niche with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Have them promote your brand by publishing sponsored posts and Stories. You can also ask them to host giveaways to get more impressions.

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What if you want to increase sales of a particular product?

Then, finding Instagram influencers in your niche who have highly engaged followers would make more sense.

I recommend that you partner with micro-influencers or nano-influencers in your niche who:

• Have a good audience quality score (real followers)
• Have an audience demographics similar to your target audience
• Create engaging content that receives lots of likes, comments, and shares

Though they have fewer followers, their engagement rate and influential power are higher than mega influencers. That’s because they usually have stronger emotional connections with their followers.

Here’s a post by Instagram influencer, Joy Green, promoting snacks options from H-E-B, an American grocery company:

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2. Find Instagram Influencers From Your Customer Database

Your own customers are one of the best advocates for your brand.

When finding Instagram influencers in your niche, you should consider looking at your customer database to find influential people among existing customers.

An easy way to do this is to encourage your followers and customers to use a branded hashtag while talking about your products on Instagram. This way, you’ll be able to track conversations about your brand and find influential people who are already your customers.

For example, social media users leverage the hashtag, “#burtsbeesbeauty,” while talking about products from Burt's Bees. This makes it easy for the brand to track who is talking about them on social media.

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When you closely analyze the top posts for this hashtag, you’ll realize that not all posts are from ordinary people/customers. Some of them are from nano- or micro-influencers with a few thousand followers.

For example, one of the posts was by Courtney, a digital content creator in the beauty niche with 6,000+ followers.

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On taking a look at her Instagram profile, you will realize that she could be a great influencer for the beauty brand, Burt’s Bees, to partner with.

And the greatest thing about this?

She already likes their products. This means she’ll likely be interested in a paid partnership.

You can find social media influencers in your niche by looking through your customer base in a similar way. However, doing this manually can be quite tedious and time consuming.

But I’ve got a pretty easy solution for you – Upfluence.

It is a trusted influencer marketing platform that allows ecommerce brands to identify influencers from their customer bases. Its Live Capture feature will help you find and activate influencers who already love your brand.

Wondering how?

You can connect your online store with Upfluence to discover influencers who are visiting your store. All thanks to its integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Klaviyo!

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The platform will launch a pop-up on your site and collect the social handles of visitors. You can also use it to add a social media field to your Shopify checkout process.

Gather your network data to find potential influencers, who can be anyone from your visitors, customers, or followers.

This influencer platform will give you insights into multiple parameters about the Instagram accounts of people in your network, including their:

• Engaged audience demographics
• Engagement rate
• Likes and comments
• Publishing frequency and schedule

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What I love the most about this influencer platform is that it enables you to combine social data with purchase history to find the most influential contacts in your niche.

Activating influencers from your customer base is a good decision for your social media marketing strategy. Being loyal customers, these people can be great ambassadors for your brand.

Is that all?

No way! That’s just the beginning.

3. Leverage Influencer Marketing Platforms to Find Instagram Influencers

You can also conduct influencer research via top influencer platforms like:

• Upfluence
• Heepsy
• trendHERO
• Tribe Dynamics
• And many more…

While the process of running influencer marketing campaigns can’t be automated completely, these platforms can make it easier to find the right influencers in your niche.

You can easily get access to top engagement metrics, and compare and evaluate potential influencers based on the value they’ll offer.

And the best part?

Platforms like Upfluence also enable you to collaborate seamlessly with the niche influencers you like and run your campaigns. You can:

• Directly share campaign briefs through the software.
• Send in-app emails.
• Manage negotiations.
• Moderate and approve influencer content by reviewing post drafts.
• Monitor campaign progress.
• Manage influencer invoice requests and payments.

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Finding Instagram influencers in your niche and working with them to grow your brand awareness and sales has never been easier. Just try any of the reputable influencer platforms to get started.

What if I don’t want to invest money on an influencer platform, you may ask?

Here is another reliable manual way to find relevant influencers in your niche:

4. Track and Monitor Relevant Hashtags

As mentioned earlier, you can create and track a branded hashtag to see who is talking about your brand on Instagram.

For example:

The “#bekapten” hashtag by travel accessories brand, Kapten & Son, is a huge success. There are over 66K posts using this hashtag.

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Many of them are from travel influencers and photographers with thousands of engaged followers on Instagram.

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Other than branded hashtags, you can also find Instagram influencers in your niche by monitoring posts with industry-relevant hashtags.

For example: When you search for “#streetstyle,” here are the top posts that Instagram shows you:

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If you browse through these posts and then the creators’ profiles one-on-one, you’ll likely be able to spot Instagram influencers in the fashion and clothing niches.

However, the one-on-one manual research and evaluation will be a tedious process.

So, what should I do, you may ask?

I recommend that you invest in the right tools to save time (as time is money, my pal!)

One such platform is Upfluence. Its Social Listening feature allows you to track social media posts that mention specific hashtags related to your business.

You can use this feature to find Instagram influencers you aren't collaborating with yet but with whom you can form mutually beneficial partnerships.

For example:

When you track hashtags related to the makeup and beauty industry, you’ll be able to find influencers like Jenna and Camille.

These influencers are already posting sponsored content for brands and generating significant engagement (as shown above) and can do the same for your brand.

5. Get Inspired From Your Competitors

Another way to find influencers in your niche is to see who is talking about your competitor brands. See which Instagram influencers they are partnering with and who is delivering maximum engagement.

For example:

If you have a watch brand, you can find influencers who tag famous watch brands like “#danielwellington” or “#rolex.”

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Don’t get me wrong – I’d never recommend copying someone else’s influencer marketing strategy.

All I mean to say is – keeping an eye on your competition is always a good practice. It can help you understand what type of influencers and influencer content your target audience is resonating with.

With the Social Listening feature of Upfluence, you can easily track what your competition is up to and which influencers are talking about them.

It will also show you the number of conversions and the revenue growth those influencers are generating for your competitors.

Getting these insights will make it easier for you to find similar Instagram influencers in your niche and partner with them for your future campaigns.

At the same time, you’ll also be able to find opportunities to engage consumers and influencers who are interested in similar products. There’s a strong chance they may like your products too.

And, not every influencer who talks about your competitor brands will be working as an influencer for them. This means you’ll have the chance to make them fall in love with your products and become your brand advocate.

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You can also look for worthy influencers in your competitors’ followers.

Also read: How to Find Your Competitors on Instagram

FAQs

1. How do you quickly find Instagram influencers?

The easiest way to quickly find Instagram influencers in your niche is to search for relevant terms and hashtags on the platform itself. Then, go through the creators’ profiles of top posts to see if they’re influential.
Then, there are platforms that can help you find and contact Instagram influencers for your campaigns. Some of the ones I trust are Upfluence, and Heepsy.
If you don’t want to find influencers and vet their profiles for authentic engagement yourself, you can always hire professionals like me to take care of it all.

2. How do I find influencers for my product?

Finding influencers for your brand and products is easy. All you need to do is to:

• Understand who your target audience is.
• Analyze which influencers your target consumers trust and resonate with.
• Find influencers from your customer base.
• Use social listening tools to find influencers who are already talking about your product.
• Leverage top influencer marketing platforms to find the ideal influencer for your product promotions.
• Track and monitor relevant hashtags to find the best influencers in your niche.
• Find influencers in your competitors’ followers.

3. How do I find influencers in my area?

You can find influencers in your area by conducting location-specific hashtag searches on Instagram and other social networks.
Or, filter results by location tags while using influencer discovery tools.

4. How much should I pay influencers per post?

Different influencers charge different amounts per post, depending on:

• The number of followers they have
• Their social media reach and engagement rate
• Their relevance to your niche
• The type of content you want them to create
• Whether or not you need the right to repurpose influencer content

Most nano- and micro-influencers charge between $50-$500 per post. Whereas, mid-tier and macro-influencers charge $500-$10,000 per post.
If you want to work with mega-influencers or celebrity influencers, you’ll have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per post. Most celebrity influencers ask for $1 million+ per post.

5. Where do you find influencers in your niche on Instagram?

To find influencers in your niche on Instagram, look for:

• Popular posts for niche-relevant hashtags
• Followers of other brands in your niche
• List of top influencers in your niche on Instagram via Google Search
• Instagram influencers database via influencer platforms

Ready to Find Instagram Influencers for Your Next Campaign?

With these tips on how to find Instagram influencers in your niche, you’ll be able to find influencers who have the potential to become lasting brand ambassadors.

A pro tip here:

Always vet the Instagram profiles of your potential influencers carefully to ensure:

• Their followers are real people, not bots.
• The engagement they drive is genuine with meaningful comments and interactions.
• They are niche influencers who regularly talk about things related to your industry and products.

Do you have other questions about finding Instagram influencers in your niche? Share them in the comments below. I’ll be happy to help!

You can also hire me for end-to-end influencer marketing services.