The Ultimate Guide to Target Twitter Influencers for Your Brand in 2024

Influencers have been making waves in the social media marketing industry over the past couple of years. And Twitter has played a crucial role in many influencer marketing campaigns.

According to a recent study conducted by Twitter Analytics, partnering with the right Twitter influencers can help brands increase the customers’ purchase intent by up to 88%.

Twitter has more than 326 million active users on a monthly basis and sees about 500 million tweets in a single day on the social media platform.

Due to the large user base and high activity levels, Twitter has emerged as an important social media marketing platform. And influencer marketing is a good way to promote your brand on Twitter.

How Can You Target Influencers on Twitter?

Many brands have started collaborating with Twitter influencers for their social media marketing and influencer marketing. And you can too.

But even if you’ve already decided to use it, you still need to make sure your campaign is a success. This requires thorough strategic planning, specifically adapted for a Twitter influencer marketing campaign.

Not sure how to begin?

In this post, you’ll find the ultimate guide to target Twitter influencers to get the best results from your Twitter influencer campaign.

Define Your Ideal Influencer

The first step to target Twitter influencers for your influencer marketing is to be clear about what you need in an influencer.

To get more clarity, ask the following questions:

• How would you define the perfect influencer for your brand?
• How many social media followers should they have and how much engagement should they be able to generate?
• Which niche(s) should they specialize in?
• What kind of personality do they have and how well do they connect with their fans?

All of these questions can help you in filtering out the best influencers to work with for your influencer marketing from a list of hundreds of potential influencers.

There are several effective ways to define your ideal influencers – by audience, topic, or campaign.

1. Defining Ideal Influencers by Audience

Why should you care about their audience?

Your ideal influencer should be able to have some kind of sway over your target audience. So you should start by looking at your target audience to see which influencers they look up to.

Or you can look for influencers whose audience shares the same interests and demographics as your target audience.

2. Defining Ideal Influencers by Topic

The topic you choose is also an important deciding factor.

Why, you ask?

Your ideal influencer should be relevant to your industry. This will ensure that when they talk about your product on social media it will blend perfectly with the content they usually create.

So defining them based on the topic they specialize in is a great idea for your influencer marketing.

Most influencer marketing tools will help you conduct a search for influencers based on relevant keywords or categories, which makes finding Twitter influencers easier.

You just need to think about all the topics that are relevant to your brand and find influencers based on keywords for that niche.

To find relevant keywords for your niche, you can use keyword finder tools. Several such tools are easily available and free to use. Below is an example of a keyword search result using the tool KWFinder.

Image Source: KWFinder

Once you have found relevant keywords for your industry, you can use them to search for Twitter influencers for that industry or topic that you can use in your influencer marketing.

3. Defining Ideal Influencer by Campaign

And of course, your ideal influencer should be able to help you achieve your influencer marketing campaign goals.

That’s a no-brainer, right?

If you want to raise brand awareness, for instance, you’ll need to work with influencers who have significant reach on social media.

But what if you want to boost your brand’s image?

Then, your ideal influencer will be someone who can present your brand in a favorable light.

And if you wish to drive conversation about your brand, your ideal influencer should also have high engagement rates.

For each of these options, you can come up with a list that will help you define what characteristics your ideal influencer should possess. And you can use this list to select only the most ideal influencers from your search results.

Which Are the Best Tools to Find Potential Influencers?

Now that you have defined your ideal influencer, you should start conducting a search for some of the most relevant influencers for your brand and influencer marketing.

So, how can you go about it?

While you can conduct keyword and hashtag searches using the Twitter influencer search option, it might be a better idea to implement tools that will make your job easier and save you some time.

Here are some of the best tools you can use to find potential Twitter influencers for your brand's influencer marketing:

1. HYPR

If you have to look for influencers based on what type of target audience they can engage, HYPR is an excellent option.

Why?

The tool helps you discover the most relevant influencers for your brand. It gives you insights into important stats such as the number of followers and level of engagement.

Wait, there's more.

In addition to this, it also displays the influencer’s audience demographics. This is crucial for determining whether or not the influencer will have sway over your target audience.

You’ll be able to find out details about an influencer’s audience such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.

Image Source: HYPR

2. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is one of the most popular tools for finding Twitter influencers to use for influencer marketing.

Not sure what all the hype is about?

Let’s check out its features.

This is probably because the tool gives you a vast range of options to conduct your search.

You can enter a relevant keyword or topic in the search bar and filter your results by type of influencers – bloggers, influencers, companies, journalists, or regular people.

You can also filter the results by language, country, content type, and more.

And from the search results, you can easily view stats such as page authority, domain authority, follower count, retweet ratio, and more.

This will help you discover the kind of impact each influencer can make for your influencer marketing campaign and on your target audience.

Image Source – BuzzSumo

3. Onalytica

The Onalytica Influencer Discovery Software is also an excellent option because it offers comprehensive results and a wide variety of search options.

First of all, you can use it to conduct different types of searches such as search by category, search by topic, search by demographic, and search by content.

You can then filter the results based on their influence type, their follower county, their location, and more.

What’s more, you ask?

But the best part for those who wish to target Twitter influencers for influencer marketing is that you can filter the results by social media channels.

So you can choose to display an only those influencers who have significant impact on Twitter.

Image Source: Onalytica

4. Mention

Sometimes, the best types of influencers to work with are those who are engaged in conversations highly relevant to your brand and products.

And Mention is an excellent tool to help you discover such influencers.

Want to know why?

You can use the tool to keep track of conversations on Twitter and Instagram as well as across the web.

As a result, the tool will help you discover Twitter influencers who are using your keywords in their tweets. So, it even lets you find Twitter influencers who are already talking about your brand in a positive light.

Isn’t that awesome?

All you need to do is include your brand name among the list of keywords to search. Plus, Mention has an in-built influencer score so you can easily identify the most important influencers for your brand.

Image Source: Mention

5. NeoReach

And of course, there’s NeoReach which is another highly comprehensive influencer discovery tool.

What makes it great?

They offer 40 different filters to help make your search easier and more relevant. You can use keywords such as brand mentions and competitor mentions to find highly relevant influencers for your brand.

What else?

You can also use social media performance such as engagement rate and follower count to filter your search.

Or you can also filter your search using audience demographics such as age, gender, brand affinity, location, language, and more.

This tool is excellent because, in addition to discovering influencers, it also helps you track and manage your campaign through a single dashboard.

Image Source: NeoReach

Which Are the Best Ways to Connect with Twitter Influencers?

After you’ve narrowed down on some of the influencers that you want to work with on Twitter for influencer marketing purposes, it’s time you start connecting with them.

The only problem?

You can’t just begin with a cold email unless you’re absolutely pressed for time. Cold emails don't always work.

So, what should you do?

Instead, make the most of Twitter to interact with them first. The idea is to get them to notice you and eventually warm up to you before you can send them an email.

Here are some of the best practices to help you connect with Twitter influencers:

1. Reply to Their Tweets

The first step to interacting with Twitter influencers is by replying to their tweets.

Why?

Influencers are going to get tons of likes on their tweets so you need to take the bold step of responding to them if you want to be noticed.

But don’t reply to just any tweet from the influencer. Instead, look for relevant opportunities such as when the influencer has achieved something or is asking a question.

For example, see how Kiss the Moon, a brand that deals in beauty and wellness products, is replying to a tweet by skin expert Kristy Mawhinney of Skin Insights.

The influencer tweeted about how their kitchen was featured in a magazine. And Kiss the Moon replied to her tweet, talking about how much they love her kitchen.

2. Write Something Positive About Them

Another way to get the attention of Twitter influencers is by mentioning them in your tweet.

But how can you mention them?

You can talk about their recent achievements or how much you admire them. Maybe you can talk about their latest tweet or share one of their blogs and mention them.

Whatever you do, the tweet should be able to grab their attention and paint them in a positive light.

Sound silly? It’s not.

The idea is to show them that you’re paying attention to them and that you’re rooting for them.

At the same time, avoid doing this too much especially if it’s about only one influencer. They might end up finding you annoying or creepy.

Try to use this influencer marketing tactic every couple of weeks or when certain influencers on your radar have done something laudable.

Here’s an excellent example from As I Am, a brand that sells products to maintain natural curls.

In the following screenshot, you can see that they’re showing their admiration for Alexus Crown, who is a micro-influencer and describes herself as a “naturalista.”

This is an excellent way to get her attention and possibly approach her later for a partnership.

Image Source: Twitter

3. Ask Them a Relevant Question

You can also start a conversation with Twitter influencers by asking them relevant and interesting questions. But only do this if you find that the influencer is very responsive to fan questions.

So, how can you make sure if an influencer is responsive?

Check out their Twitter account.

You can find a list of all the tweets they’ve replied to under the Tweets & Replies section.

A highly responsive influencer is more likely to engage with your brand and answer your questions if they are relevant to them.

For example, British chef and restaurateur Jamie Oliver is a mega influencer in the food industry. He has more than 6.8 million Twitter followers as of writing this post.

And if you go through his Tweets & Replies section, you’ll see that he’s very responsive to tweets from his fans. So, it would be an excellent idea to ask him a relevant question if he fits the definition of the ideal influencer for your brand.

Image Source: Twitter

4. Retweet Them

In case you’ve found influencers who are already talking about your brand, show them your appreciation by retweeting their post in which they’ve mentioned you.

How will that help you?

You will be able to form a connection with the influencer. And you’ll also win over your audience by showing them that influential figures are choosing your brand.

Otherwise, you can also use Twitter to share posts created by influencers about your brand on other social media platforms.

Take for example how Glossier shares an Instagram story by Kate Bosworth in which she’s using their product. They’ve tagged her in the caption to make sure she notices.

Image Source: Twitter

5. Publish a Blog Post Featuring Multiple Influencers

This is an effective way to target multiple Twitter influencers in one go. Feature influencers in a blog post that lists top content by influencers on a particular topic or top influencers in a field.

Then tag influencers on Twitter, applaud them for making it to your top influencers list, and share a link for your blog.

This has two purposes—to increase the popularity of your blogs and to get you noticed by influencers.

Sounds impressive, right?

Try this method to target Twitter influencers and effectively get noticed by them.

To find the top influencers for your blog post, you can use any of the tools mentioned above and search for influencers by topic.

Below is an example of one such blog post, mentioning multiple Twitter influencers. The blog post lists top Twitter influencers for different industries and topics.

Image Source: Izea

While this blog post covered top influencers for multiple topics, you can create a separate post for each topic. To target Twitter influencers, you can keep your blogs specific and cover only Twitter influencers.

Ready to Target Twitter Influencers?

You now have a clear idea of what you should do before you can start working with target Twitter influencers. You understand how to find them and make a shortlist of the ideal Twitter influencers for your brand.

And you also have a clear idea of how you can start approaching them before you begin your campaign.

Now all you have to do is define your goals and start with the tips provided in this guide to find the best-suited Twitter influencers for your Twitter marketing campaign.

The campaigns you execute will all depend on what you need out of the campaign. You can decide on what type of campaign to execute once target Twitter influencers have started warming up to you.

You can choose from a range of campaign options from brand mentions to full-fledged partnerships where you create ads featuring Twitter influencers.

So what are you waiting for?

It’s time to get tweeting!

Got any questions about targeting Twitter influencers? Please leave a comment below.