How to Find Micro-Influencers in 14 Simple Ways

Do not index

Consider you’ve just finished an exhausting day of creating content for your brand's social media pages. You're doing everything right to grow your audience, but the numbers won’t budge. You want to inject some life into your accounts and build a community of authentic followers who care about your niche.

If this sounds familiar, micro-influencer marketing might be your solution. Also known as creator marketing, this strategy focuses on partnering with everyday content creators instead of relying solely on big-name celebrities or industry experts.

The goal is to find micro-influencers whose audience aligns with your target market and engage them to promote your brand to their followers. This guide will explore how to find micro-influencers to help you grow your LinkedIn and X accounts with organic engagement.

One valuable tool to help you achieve your goals is Megaphone's viral on-demand platform, which streamlines the process of finding the right micro-influencers for your business. With this platform, you can quickly identify engaging content creators already interested in your niche, which will help you reach your targets faster.

What are Micro-Influencers?

Let's break down the definition of a micro-influencer. Micro-influencers are content creators with 10,000 to 100,000 followers. They are one of four categories of influencers based on their follower count:

Nano influencers: 1,000 to 10,000 followers

Micro-influencers: 10,000 to 100,000 followers

Macro influencers: 100,000 to 1 million followers

Mega or celebrity influencers: Over 1 million followers

Micro-influencers often have a niche focus and create content on specific topics, such as beauty, fitness, travel, or food. This allows brands to find creators with audiences that align closely with their target market. As a result, partnering with micro-influencers can help companies reach particular groups of potential customers.

Benefits of Working With Micro-Influencers

1. Impressive Returns on Investment

Micro-influencers provide affordable marketing solutions that yield high rates of return. Their followers trust them, which allows businesses to expand their reach and improve their reputations massively. Working with multiple micro-influencers will enable brands to widen and deepen their audience reach effectively.

2. Authentic Content

In early 2020, I will launch two major micro-influencer programs. These programs will offer commission benefits to influencers and allow them to earn products to gift to friends, family, or followers. I prefer to partner with current fans of my brands instead of searching for random influencers. This approach results in more authentic content that improves sales.

3. Cult-Like Loyalty

Micro-influencers have dedicated followers who are already interested in businesses, products, and services similar to yours. These loyal followers hang on to every word and recommendation made by micro-influencers, making them a powerful marketing tool. To get them onboard, spark a conversation via social media and let them know how much you enjoy their content.

4. Genuine Audience Connections

Working with micro-influencers often yields better results than macro-influencers or celebrities because of their smaller, more engaged audiences. Today, consumers want personal recommendations, and micro-influencers help establish that authentic connection with their audience.

5. Valuable Audience Insights

Align your goals with the micro-influencers you partner with. Ask them what gets the best response from their audience, and work with them to make the posts authentic. Aligning incentives with an affiliate program can help, in addition to paid placements and promo codes. While you need to maintain brand consistency, allow the influencer a seat at the strategic table to maximize results.

6. Enhanced Trustworthiness

Micro-influencers can improve your brand’s trustworthiness and help you reach target audiences. Encourage your micro-influencers to become the fresh faces of your brand. Ask them to share their honest thoughts on your products and business, and constructively use that feedback. You can also have them create product tutorials and relevant livestream videos.

7. Increased Traffic and Sales

While celebrity influencers have fallen from grace, micro-influencers have proven effective for businesses of all sizes. Their value is in authentic and original content, driving primarily top-of-funnel traffic and sales. This can be measured through performance-based models like CPA. Treat micro-influencers like true partners and watch your revenue grow.

Micro-influencers have highly targeted audiences, making them an excellent fit for sharing in-depth content and materials aimed at specific verticals. Start developing relationships with micro-influencers early, but don’t expect them to share your content "just because." Like broader influencers, micro-influencers look for something in return for helping your business.

Working with micro-influencers allows brands to participate in social conversations at a more intimate level with communities that typically demonstrate higher levels of trust and engagement. Sponsorships for micro-influencers are inherently a more personal experience, so it’s even more important that brands find influencers and audiences who personally align with their brand values.

10. Product Reviews

Micro-influencers are a great marketing asset for reviews of your product on their social media and retailer sites. They should disclose that they were part of a seeding campaign, but the opinions provided are truthful and their own. As a brand, you should also re-gram their content or have them take over your Instagram Stories daily to engage and excite your audience.

11. Connection with Passionate Niche Markets

Micro-influencers reach more minor, more passionate audiences that broader campaigns may miss. Think about messaging and offers that can be tailored to the micro-influencer audience. Your offer should feel organic for their brand so they can embrace it fully.

12. Collaborative Partnerships

What micro-influencers may lack in scale, they make up for in impact! They’re cost-effective and, more often than not, a collaborative and creative partner. Ensure they’re an organic fit and your brand voices complement each other. Then, invite them into your extended family and approach the relationship less as a promotional transaction and more as a long-term, advocate-building opportunity.

13. New Ideas From The Comments

Often, we consider social media comments to be "noise." Unless the noise comes from a significant influencer, we tune it out. However, our most substantial ideas and innovation can be found in "the noise!" Listen to what is being said to you and about you. Review the hashtags for your business and the misspelled usage for comments and ideas.

14. Targeted Demographic and Geolocation

Micro-influencer marketing can be a solid bridge between traditional paid media and social media. Using an agency with a network of influencers makes it efficient for you to manage influencer marketing and will generally offer more choices in the audience and geolocation you can target. Sharing your brand's story will help micro-influencers carry your message as they share with their audience.

15. Brand Advocacy

Today, online influencers and reviews generate as much trust as a review from a friend. Studies show that micro-influencers generate the highest engagement rates. Save money by using their niche market to hit your target audience and testing what works or doesn't without spending more. Product/service reviews and social media sharing are a great start, and then we move to personal content promotion ideas.

Megaphone is a viral on-demand platform designed to boost your online presence authentically and organically. Our software connects you with influential creators in your niche, helping you grow impressions, followers, and leads without relying on paid ads. Using Megaphone, you can increase impressions, followers, and leads without relying on paid ads. Key features include:

A sophisticated engagement network,

A private engagement pod service (coming soon),

Diverse creator partnerships for sponsored posts, X spaces, and newsletter ads (coming soon).

Megaphone caters to startup founders, marketers, emerging creators, and ghostwriting agencies seeking to amplify their digital footprint and social proof. Our complex matching algorithm ensures you partner with your field's most suitable and valuable creators. Go viral today with our viral on-demand platform.

Collaborative Marketing

How to Get More Views on Tiktok

Content Creator vs Influencer

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

How to Increase Brand Awareness on Social Media

Why Storytelling is Important in Marketing

What Makes a Video Go Viral

Social Media Content Creators

Creator Partnerships

Instagram Collaboration

How to Find Micro-Influencers in 14 Simple Ways

1. Use Megaphone to Find Micro-Influencers Fast

A sophisticated engagement network,

A private engagement pod service (coming soon),

Diverse creator partnerships for sponsored posts, X spaces, and newsletter ads (coming soon).

Creators rely on hashtags to improve their content distribution. Many users follow hashtags or search for them to discover more content around a topic.

As a brand, you can use hashtags to find niche micro-influencers who align with your brand. Focus on three kinds of hashtags:

Size

Directly search for # micro-influencers to see the creators who meet this criterion.

Location

Search for the ideal location of your influencer, like #nyccreator or #parisinfluencer.

Which hashtags you should focus on depends on your brand and what you’re looking for from your micro-influencers. If you’re a lifestyle brand, searching for generic #micro-influencers might be helpful to find the best-performing small creators. Local brands would benefit from using location hashtags to find local influencers. When selling niche products, category hashtags are your best bet.

Overall, your hashtag strategy will be essentially trial and error. Search for all related hashtags you can think of and spend some time vetting each influencer profile. Look for the most views on Instagram Reels and TikTok videos for the hashtag to find well-performing micro-influencers.

Use the search functionality for YouTube to find influencers using your desired keywords. Think

what would my audience search for?

For example, if you’re a fashion brand selling sustainable clothing in the UK, search for “sustainable fashion brands UK” and see the creators whose videos pop up top in the search.

3. Find Micro-Influencers Who Are Creating UGC for Your Brand or Following You Already

Micro-influencers are proactive in hunting for new products that might be helpful for their audience and creating user-generated content for brands they’d like to partner with. Keep an eye out for small creators already posting reviews about your products or tagging you in their relevant posts — they might already find your brand engaging and your helpful merchandise.

For example, beauty and wellness micro-influencer Lily posted casual photos about everyday things and included BlendJet (along with some other brands) in her post without being asked or paid. She has over 26K followers and would make an excellent micro-influencer for BlendJet as she already uses their product and has a decent audience size.

Along with tracking your user-generated content, regularly run your eye through your followers’ list. You might hit a pot of gold by discovering that a perfect-fit micro-influencer follows your brand. The influencer collaborations from these scenarios are likely to be organic and authentic since the micro-creator is already aware of your brand and finds it useful. Influencer outreach to these micro-influencers is also easier because you already have an “in” with them.

4. Search Your Local Area for Micro-Influencers

If your brand retails products or services locally, try Instagram’s location feature to find potential micro-influencers in your area. That’s an efficient strategy because it means those content creators can come and try your goods on the spot.

Consider this: You own a coffee shop chain, and Instagram shows you a few popular micro-influencers in your area: an EMT, a teacher, and a busy parent. Like everyone, these people want to feel full of energy throughout their days. It’s easy to send them a message inviting them for complimentary coffee and a face-to-face friendly conversation.

5. Find Micro-Influencers Who Are Adjacent to Your Niche

Partnering with niche creators is a good way to scale your influencer marketing efforts. For example, if you’re delivering healthy, nutrient-rich meals to people’s doorstep, fitness influencers are your natural go-to choice for micro-influencers. But so are busy moms who might not have the time to whip up something healthy and delicious for their kids. Metabolic Meals realized this and started partnering with micro-influencers of both kinds — from athletes like Allison to moms like Sharon.

Instead of limiting yourself to one type of niche creator, see if you can widen your horizons and find micro-influencers in adjacent categories.

6. Use Recommended Influencers to Find Micro-Influencers

Let’s say you find an influencer you like, but they have too many or too few followers. Alternatively, they’re working with another brand or aren’t too keen on a collaboration right now.

Building a loyal brand community can help bridge this gap, as it fosters direct engagement with your audience and creates opportunities for organic advocacy, reducing reliance on external influencers.

Enter Instagram’s recommendation tool.

Once you click “follow” on someone’s account, Instagram will show a list of other suggested accounts you can browse. Use this tool to find another micro-influencer profile that fits your current goals better.

7. Find Doppelgangers of Micro-Influencers You Like

Found a micro-influencer you like? Find similar ones using the “down” arrow on Instagram and TikTok. These creators will likely have the same audience and create the same type of content.

Other ways to find micro-influencer doppelgangers:

If you scroll Instagram and TikTok long enough, the algorithm will show these influencers in your Explore or For You page.

Micro-influencers often collaborate to grow their audience. If you’ve found a micro-influencer, Iike, scroll through their posts and check if they’ve collaborated with another micro-influencer. YouTube doesn’t have the same kind of arrow, but look for “related” videos on the right-hand side to find similar creators creating videos on the same topic.

8. Use YouTube BrandConnect to Find Micro-Influencers

YouTube BrandConnect allows you to find influencers according to campaign type, budget, and other goals.

You have concrete search terms, so BrandConnect enables you to shortlist relevant content creators for your audience.

Besides, BrandConnect boasts remarketing lists and the ability to create new videos from your old content.

Thus, this tool guarantees you can repurpose your content to save money.

Add the Shopping Shelf and App Promo features to ensure you monetize your ads correctly. If you want to track the results of your influencer marketing campaigns, Google offers plenty of valuable tools.

9. Work with an Influencer Marketing Agency

The influencer marketing industry is an entire agency that can help you find the perfect micro-influencers for your brand. The pros of working with a full-fledged influencer marketing agency are they’re experts in their field, so you aren’t gambling your hard-earned money.

Another advantage is agencies do the heavy lifting for you — from influencer hunting, managing influencer payments, drafting influencer contracts, and maintaining influencer relationships.

The downside is working with an agency can be heavy on the pocket, and there’s no guarantee an influencer marketing agency will have a large enough database of micro-influencers for you.

If you have the budget, you can ease some of these cons by thoroughly examining influencer marketing agencies before committing to one.

Some questions you should ask are:

What does this influencer marketing agency specialize in? They might be known for a particular industry, like fitness brands, or perhaps their expertise is in one platform, like Instagram.

Who are the faces behind the influencer marketing agency? If the agency is run by well-known experts who have run successful influencer marketing campaigns, you know you’re in good hands.

How many influencers does the agency have access to? Some agencies strictly use their network of influencers, while others have a more detail-oriented approach to using tools and manual vetting. You want the latter to access a large pool of micro-influencers.

Go to the left of your screen, under the “Explore” section, and you’ll see the Trending tab, which currently shows you the most popular videos.

Next, add keywords based on your industry, topics, or location to see which micro-influencers pop up.

This strategy works well because you can narrow down content creators with higher engagement rates.

For instance, type “US car reviews” to get many video reviews.

However, this only improves: YouTube offers useful filters for the Trending section, such as upload date, content type, duration, and location.

11. Search on Google and ChatGPT for Micro-Influencers

It can be cumbersome, but you can find listicles of excellent micro-influencers on Google. Enter “your industry + micro-influencer,” and you’ll get a list of articles (like this) detailing the specifics of each influencer.

If you search on Google, remember to read only recent articles. Why? The influencer marketing industry evolves by the minute. When you read the article, a fast-growing influencer might climb the ranks from a nano to a micro to a macro-influencer.

The solution is simple: go to “tools” below the search bar and select the timeline to “past year” or “past month” to only get a list of the articles published in the time frame you selected.

Don’t read only a couple of articles. Scour as many as possible to find unique and unheard-of micro-influencers to evaluate.

You can also ask ChatGPT. Go for the simple, “tell me 10 micro-influencers in the {industry}” or go for a more detailed script like this:

If you prefer the detailed version, here’s the script you can tweak:

“You're an influencer manager for {your company}. The brand sells {product you sell}. Your job is to find micro-influencers for the brand with a following of 10,000 to 100,000 on Instagram. The influencer should create {the kind of content your ideal micro-influencer would create}. Give me a list of three micro-influencers who meet this criteria.”

But keep in mind: ChatGPT is notorious for suggesting micro-influencers who…don’t exist.

12. Create a Brand Ambassador Program to Have the Right Micro-Influencers Come to You

Building a brand ambassador program is one of the best ways to have influencers come to you rather than the other way around. It attracts micro-influencers who genuinely love your products and are interested in partnering with you in the long term.

How do you put the spotlight on your ambassador program?

Ask your existing influencers, employees, and network to share your micro-influencer callout on their social media or newsletter. Share details about your ambassador program on order confirmation emails, newsletters, and all other forms of customer communication. Create a landing page for your ambassador marketing to get inbound traffic from Google.

Promote the exclusivity and benefits of your ambassador program on social media. Take Bolt — it has over 500 ambassadors across 18 countries. Its ambassador program, which has month-over-month Instagram campaigns with many brand ambassadors, is one of the primary reasons for becoming the third-fastest-growing European company.

All creators today are diversifying their revenue stream by being present on multiple social media platforms. A macro-influencer on TikTok might have just begun repurposing their content on Instagram. Or a YouTuber might’ve decided to create short-form video content for Instagram and TikTok.

The key is to catch these influencers at the right time when they’re expanding their business and starting to develop a presence on other platforms.

For example, productivity influencer Mariana Vieira has over 765K subscribers on YouTube but 40.7K followers on Instagram. A brand whose target customers align with Mariana’s followers must find Mariana now and approach her for sponsored Instagram content. She’s a micro-influencer on Instagram right now, so she’d be less expensive, but her following will catch up to YouTube soon enough if she keeps posting consistently.

The best perk of this method is you’re partnering with micro-influencers with a macro-influencer level of professionalism. They already know how to hook the audience, create valuable content, and have admin stuff like video editing taken care of.

The con is that it isn’t scalable and only possible when you’re very “online” and keeping track of your industry's small and big influencers.

14. Ask Your Customers for Recommendations

Your customers are the best research group for finding trusted micro-influencers. Who do they turn to for product recommendations in your industry? There’s a high chance there’s a similar untapped market in that micro-influencers the following list.

How do you ask your customers for micro-influencer recommendations?

Include a “How did you hear about us?” question for every post-purchase survey. You might be surprised to discover a micro-influencer name who recommended your brand. Run a fine-toothed comb through some of your customers’ following lists on social media and spot micro-influencers they’re following. Do a customer survey to ask your buyers who they follow on social media and which micro-influencers they trust.

4 Tips to Collaborate Successfully with Micro-Influencers

1. Understand Micro-Influencer Collaborations to Boost Your Marketing Strategy

Micro-influencers have a smaller following than traditional influencers, but their audiences are often more engaged and targeted. This means your brand can connect with a niche group of consumers likely to be interested in your business. Collaborating with micro-influencers can help your company tap into their loyal follower base, build trust, and increase awareness of your products and services.

When planning an influencer strategy, it’s important to note that sponsored posts aren’t the only collaboration strategy you should follow with a micro-influencer. There are other types, which include:

Hosting events

You can host virtual events (webinars) or physical events and invite micro-influencers to turn up for these events while broadcasting details of the event to their followers.

Giveaways

You can send products to your influencers and encourage them to start a giveaway campaign on their pages. You employ this type of collaboration when you want a large-scale consumer action.

Influencer gifting

This is effective when you don’t intend to spend so much on an influencer campaign. You can send gifts to influencers, and in exchange, you get a free product review.

Brand ambassador programs

This involves the endorsement of specific micro-influencers who are friends and lovers of your brand as your brand ambassadors. If you wanna know more about finding the best brand ambassadors, head over to our guide.

These are some of the most common types of collaborations. You can choose the type that best fits your goals and budget.

2. Offer Fair Compensation for Micro-Influencer Collaborations

Earlier, we listed the average micro-influencer cost on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. These pricing rates depend on various factors, including the partnership's exclusivity, the influencer's number of followers, the platform used, and the type of content you plan to publish.

Although some influencers accept gifts as compensation or commissions from affiliate marketing, not all of them will, and it’s always important to negotiate a fair price. It shows mutual respect and that you understand the influencer's work and appreciate their efforts.

3. Identify Relevant Micro-Influencers

Never depend on numbers alone when trying to find the right influencers. Instead, focus on key metrics such as engagement, conversion, click-through, post frequency, quality score, etc. Also, consider the relevance of the influencer’s audience to your brand. The key is finding someone with whom your style, tone, theme, and voice resonate.

One of the easiest ways to do this is by using influencer marketing tools.

4. Foster Genuine and Long-Term Collabs with Micro-Influencers

Long-term collaborations are essential because they can create a sense of community around your brand. You can encourage this type of collaboration by:

Sending a personalized outreach message

Explain why you wish to work with the micro-influencer, what your appreciation of their content is, and what you offer in return. Remember to be clear about your expectations, goals, budgets, and other vital information.

Providing creative freedom

Imposing strict guidelines and rules on the influencers you work with is never ideal. Instead, allow them to release their creativity. Encourage flexibility and opinions while providing them with the necessary resources and information.

How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Brand

Tiktok Collaboration

Sponsored Posts

Social Media Collaboration

Content Creator Collaboration

Youtube Collaboration

Brand Collaborations

How to Find Influencers

How to Find Twitter Influencers

How to Find Influencers on TikTok

Go Viral Today with Our Viral on Demand Platform

Micro-influencers boast followers ranging from 1,000 to 100,000. They don’t have to be niche-specific, but their audience should align with your target market. For example, if you’re a startup selling eco-friendly products, a micro-influencer who creates content around sustainable living would be a great candidate for your next marketing campaign.

While micro-influencers may not have the largest audience, their engagement rates are significantly higher than those of macro or mega-influencers. Some studies have found that micro-influencers boast up to 7 times more engagement than their larger counterparts.

This means they can help you reach your target market more effectively and authentically. Micro-influencers also have a more niche and dedicated following. Their audience is often highly loyal and trusts their opinions. Partnering with a micro-influencer can help you reach your target market and boost your credibility.

Building Your Team: Why You Should Work With Micro-Influencers

Before you start looking for a micro-influencer to partner with, it’s essential to understand why they can benefit your business. As mentioned, building relationships with micro-influencers can help you reach your target market more effectively and authentically. But that’s not all. Here are a few more benefits of working with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers are more affordable.

If you’re on a tight budget, micro-influencers can be a great way to execute an influencer marketing campaign without breaking the bank. Many micro-influencers will work to start for complimentary products or services. Others may have low rates that won’t stretch your budget too thin.

They can help you generate more sales.

Studies show that 61 percent of consumers trust recommendations from influencers. The number is even higher for micro-influencers with a more niche audience. Partnering with a micro-influencer can help you reach your target market and boost your credibility.

Micro-influencers create authentic content.

Unlike more prominent influencers, often perceived as celebrities, micro-influencers are seen as everyday people. Their followers view them as relatable and trustworthy. When you partner with a micro-influencer, you can craft a personalized marketing message that resonates with your target audience.

As a result, their audience will be more likely to engage with the content and follow through on any calls to action.

Finding Your Match: How to Find Micro-Influencers

Ready to find a micro-influencer to partner with? Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Determine your goals

Before you start your search, outline what you hope to achieve by working with a micro-influencer. This could include increasing brand awareness, generating more sales, or reaching a new target audience. Having clear goals will help you find the right influencer to achieve them.

Look for relevant micro-influencers

Next, search for micro-influencers who create content in your niche. You can find them by searching relevant hashtags on social media. Also, look for accounts with many recently posted impressions about your target keywords.

Analyze their engagement rate.

Once you’ve found a few relevant micro-influencers, closely examine their engagement rates. This will give you a better idea of how receptive their audience will be to your marketing message.

Reach out.

After narrowing your search to a suitable micro-influencer, it’s time to reach out and initiate contact. Many influencers have clear instructions on how to get in touch for business inquiries. Follow their guidelines to get the conversation started on the right foot.

Using Megaphone to Find Micro-Influencers

While manually searching for micro-influencers can work, there’s a better way to find the right creators for your next campaign. Using a platform like Megaphone can save you time and help you make the best choice for your business. Megaphone connects brands with relevant creators to boost online visibility. Our sophisticated engagement network can help you find micro-influencers to improve your next marketing campaign’s effectiveness.