Social media is altering every aspect of consumer behaviour; Instagram influencers are changing the way the average consumer shops.
Why Instagram over any other social media platform?
Instagram is currently one of the fastest-growing social media platforms available. More than 42% of American social media users check their Instagram several times per day!
Instagram influencer marketing is progressing so effectively that with every dollar spent on Instagram influencer marketing, businesses receive $5.20 in earned media value.
This can only mean one thing for you lucky e-commerce website owners. You need to collaborate with Instagram influencers if you want your brand to get noticed.
Here’s a list of 5 tips that will help you find Instagram influencers for your brand.
Tip 1: Define your Goals
The primary goal for any business is to sell a product or service, but make sure to write down specific goals that will fit the needs of your brand. Write down the top-5 user specific goals. For example, building an engaging-follower base, improving brand awareness, increasing the number of returning customers etc.
Before finding and reaching out to influencers, narrow down what goals you’re trying to achieve by collaborating with them.
Tip 2: Check Instagram Influencers’ Engagement Rate and their Number of Followers.
Engagement rate is an influencer’s ability to stimulate conversation in their comment section and share content that their followers care about. To calculate Instagram influencer’s engagement rate, you divide the average number of likes and comments per post by the total number of followers, then multiply it by 100.
When it comes to your potential Instagram influencer’s engagement rate, the higher the number, the better. That is, the higher the engagement rate, the higher the influencer’s potential to drive new customers to your brand and encourage users to purchase your products or services.
One important step from this guide is to think about particular numbers and to do some calculations. Should you reach out to influencers that have a large following (over 200K), or should you choose the ones that have less (around 20K)?
For a budget-friendly option, we recommend starting small. Select nano-influencers (up to 10K followers) or micro-influencers (ones that have up to 50K followers). In most cases, nano and micro-influencers have a higher engagement rate. When compared to influencers who have over 200K followers.
Often, brands pay an influencer per post (and they’re very generous, depending on the number of followers an influencer has). That being said, since micro-influencers have less followers, there’s a chance you won’t have to pay anything at all. Sending a free product can suffice. As a micro or nano-influencer, they are more likely to have a higher engagement rate.
Useful Tools:
You don’t have to calculate each influencer’s engagement rate on your own, tools like Instagram Engagement Calculator can do the job for you.
Tip 3: Define Your “Perfect Influencer”
If you are selling high-fashion clothing and you reach out to an influencer who’s passionate about food, you are most likely not going to reach the right audience. Therefore, make sure to choose influencers that are related to your niche. Start by writing down some basic information like: location, age, aesthetics, and overall “vibe”.
Tip 4: Start Finding Influencers
WOOHOO! Finally, let’s move on to finding Instagram influencers!
Here are some ways you can do so:
- Use hashtags that are related to your niche to find the right influencers. All you need to do is type the hashtag in the Instagram Search bar and click on the Tags tab to get long-tail hashtags that are related to the one you searched.
- Scroll down the Explore page. Instagram’s algorithm displays all relevant posts that have more engagement that average ones. The majority of those posts are going to be related to your industry.
- Once you follow an influencer, a “Suggested for You” feature will appear. Use this feature to browse for some other influencers.
- You can also use google search to find influencers related to your niche.
Tip 5: Make a Spreadsheet
Now that you have found all the influencers that fit your brand’s needs, it’s time for you to write down all the necessary information and organize the data into one spreadsheet. We suggest you use Google spreadsheets since it’s very easy to use. You can then quickly share the spreadsheet with your team on Google Drive or download it as a .pdf or .xlsx sheet.
What information should you include in the spreadsheet? It’s totally up to you, but we suggest you create 7 columns containing the following:
- Links to Instagram profile
- Influencer’s first and last name
- Influencer’s Engagement rate
- Influencer’s Number of followers
- Location of influencer’s audience
- Influencer’s contact information
- Price per post
Conclusion
Seems like, you have all the steps necessary to find the perfect Instagram influencers!
So, if you have any questions or if you’re interested in growing your brand’s online presence, email us. We’re experienced in social media marketing strategy and analytics, and can adjust your brand to Instagram’s algorithm through our extensive influencer base.