How to find creators for influencer campaigns on Instagram and TikTok

Follower count is the easiest thing to filter on and the least useful on its own. Write a short brief for the creator before you search:

• Niche: what they post about, in plain words. "Home workouts for busy parents", not "fitness".
• Audience: who follows them, where those people live and what language they speak.
• Format: Reels, Stories, TikTok videos, lives, carousels. Match the format to what your campaign needs.
• Engagement quality: real comments and conversations, not only likes.
• Fit with your brand: tone, values, and what they would never post.
• Conflicts: recent deals with your direct competitors.
• Size band: nano, micro or larger, chosen for the job, not for vanity.

With that brief written, every later step gets easier. You know who to skip, and your first message can say exactly why you picked them.

Creators follow, watch and comment in their own niche. The followers of a niche brand or a bigger creator include smaller creators in that space, and their commenters include the ones who are active and visible. You're borrowing someone else's audience research.

Commenters are often better than followers. A comment is recent, public and visible to the creator's own audience. Someone who comments well on other people's posts usually knows how to talk to an audience.

On TikTok, the same logic applies to the commenters on niche videos and the followers of creators in your space. More on that in TikTok commenters to booked calls.

Every collected profile is a candidate, not a creator you want yet. Read before you write:

• Open their last few posts. Do they fit the niche in your brief, or did they drift?
• Read the comments. Real questions and replies are a good sign; strings of emojis and generic praise are not.
• Look at consistency. Do they post regularly, or did the account go quiet months ago?
• Check the bio for a business email, a management contact or a note on partnerships.
• Look for recent sponsored posts, both to see how they handle brands and to spot conflicts.
• Note one specific thing for your message: a post, a series, a phrase they use.

Skip private profiles. A creator with a private account isn't looking for brand deals, and you can't check their content anyway.

Creators get a lot of brand messages, and most of them are copy-paste. The ones that get answered show the brand actually watched their content and get to the point.

On Instagram, a first message from an account they don't follow arrives as a message request. They see your name and the first line before they decide to accept, so that first line has to be personal and clear. Our guide on hidden Instagram message requests explains how that folder works.

On TikTok, messaging depends on the creator's settings and TikTok's filtering, so warm up first: follow, watch, leave a real comment on a recent video, then message on a later day. TikTok DM rules covers what's allowed.

If the bio lists a business email or a manager, use that as the second route, with the same personal opening. For more openers, see our Instagram cold DM templates.

The first reply is where most influencer outreach stalls. Creators ask good questions, and if the answer takes two days, they've moved on to the next brand. Prepare the answers before you send the first message:

• Pay: your rate or range, or how you decide it, and whether product is part of it.
• Deliverables: how many posts, which formats, by when.
• Usage rights: whether you'll use their content in ads, and for how long.
• Creative freedom: what's fixed (the product, a key message) and what's theirs.
• Logistics: shipping, timelines, who they'll work with.
• Exclusivity: what they can't promote during and after the campaign.

Put these in one place your whole team works from, so every creator gets the same accurate answer fast. Follow up when they go quiet, with something new each time: the timeline, the product, an example of what other creators made for you. And hand the conversation to a person when it turns into negotiation or anything unusual.

A yes is the start of the work. Book a short call or send a brief right away, while the creator is still keen. Confirm deliverables and dates in writing, send reminders before content is due, and keep every conversation in one place so anyone on your team can pick it up.

Track which sources the creators who said yes came from. If the commenters of one bigger creator keep producing good partners, go back to that account first next time.

Agencies running influencer campaigns for several brands can run the same process per client. See how it works for marketing, media and creators.