How to Find and Work with Influencers (and Get Results)

by Laura Hinchelwood

Hate it or love it, influencer engagement has become a vital component of a modern PR strategy. Why? Well, in an age of brand saturation, advertising skepticism and media fatigue, influencers are seen to offer a more authentic and trustworthy voice on the world.

And while it may come as no surprise that Gen Z are the most tuned in culture to Influencer content, Millennials are also heavily influenced by peer-to-peer recommendations and regularly tune into digital trend-setters for product recommendations. There’s also the rise of "granfluencers" who create content on topics like retirement, travel, and lifestyle, which has shown that the influencer model can be effective for Gen X as well.

When done right, influencer marketing can help expose your brand and products to a whole new audience of engaged digital advocates. And yet, how many times have you seen or heard about an influencer campaign going wrong? It’s very easy to contact an influencer, pay them some money and get them to post for you, but you’ll seldom see the results you crave by throwing cash at it alone. In the same way that a good traditional media relations strategy requires research and due diligence, so does successful influencer marketing engagement. It’s about finding the right mix of influencers with the right kind of following that’s going to maximise results for your business.

Here at Visible, we’ve got decades of experience managing both earned and paid influencer campaigns for our clients and have picked up a good few tips along the way for those just starting out.

This guide will walk you through our essential steps to successfully find, analyse and collaborate with influencers as part of your PR and marketing strategy.

Step 1: Work Backwards – define your end goal, then work out how to get there

Before you even start searching for influencers, you need to define exactly what you want to achieve from the campaign. Perhaps you’re looking to increase brand awareness, or drive traffic to your website? Or maybe it’s a specific sales goal you want to achieve?

Then consider who you want to engage. It helps if you already have a good idea of your target audience profiles in terms of age, gender, socio-economic status and general interests.

Once you have these fundamentals nailed you can start to build a profile of the type of influencer(s) you will want to engage with and the type of content you’d like them to create on your behalf.

Step 2: Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand

For years influencers were pretty much defined by their follower count. Everyone was lusting after the big boys in the hope of getting as many eyeballs on the content as possible, giving little thought to whether that influencer – and their followers- were the right fit for them.

The trouble with going for pure reach is that all those millions of eyeballs won’t necessarily be ones that are receptive to you or your brand. Many of them may even be fake profiles – so it’s really important to consider a mix of reach and engagement when selecting influencers. It’s about finding influencers who are the right fit for your brand's values, products, and audience. If you’re a brand that’s rooted in style, even aesthetics should play a role in the type of people you work with.

Here's how you can start your search:

• Start with an old-fashioned manual search: Use social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to search for relevant hashtags and keywords related to your industry, then see what the top accounts are using those hashtags. So if you’re a tofu brand for example, look for things like #veganlife #veganrecipes etc. You can also search Google and LLMs for lists of the top influencers in your field – but make sure you research their profiles thoroughly before confirming them to your list

• Use an influencer platform: Tools like Modash, Upfluence and Grin can streamline the process of finding influencers and connecting with them. You can search for creators based on specific criteria like location, niche, engagement rate, and audience demographics. They can be expensive to run, but many will offer free trials so they’re worth looking into if you can.

• Look at who your competitors are working with: There’s not a huge amount of merit in working with the exact same creators as your competitors – after all, you wouldn’t want someone recommending you straight after recommending your closest rival. But it can help you identify relevant influencers in your space. You can then see who those influencers are connected with and branch out your search from there

• Speak to agents: Many influencers will have an agent managing their inbound enquiries and often, they’ll will look after multiple creators. If you have an idea of an influencer you’d like to work with, they will sometimes recommend others who they think may also be a good fit for you

Step 3: Assess Influencers for Authenticity and Fit

Once you have a list of potential influencers, it's crucial to review them thoroughly if you haven’t done so already. As we’ve talked about, a large following can be tempting, but a high engagement rate can often deliver better results as its more indicative of a loyal audience.

Look for these key indicators:

• Engagement Rate: This is the percentage of an influencer's followers who interact with their content (likes, comments, shares). A healthy engagement rate is often more valuable than a massive, but inactive, following.

• Audience Demographics: Do their followers match your target audience? Most influencers can provide an audience breakdown showing location, age, and gender.

• Content Quality and Consistency: If image and how you show up visually is important to you, look at whether the content looks professional and aligns with your brand's look and feel

• Authenticity: Check their comments. They can be a really good indicator as to whether the engagement is from real people or from bots or purchased followers.

Step 4: Always Personalise your Pitch

Similar to our guidance around media pitching, you want to make sure that your influencer pitches are professional but also very personal. Creators will want to know that you have researched them and understand who they are, what they do and what they may be interested in. They’ll spot a generic pitch from a mile off.

Make sure you outline what you’re proposing and why you think they would be a great fit.

If you are paying for a content partnership, then you can be specific in asking for the type of content you’d like them to post (e.g an Instagram Reel + 2 stories or x1 TikTok video). However, be mindful that if you are only working with influencers on a gifted basis, its usually not appropriate to ask for specifics. For earned influence, you need to assume that if they post at all, that’s a good outcome. For many influencers, content creation is their job and you’re effectively asking them to ‘go to work for free’. In gifted cases, you must make even more certain that you have a compelling offer they are going to love.

Step 5: For Paid Collaborations, Always Deliver a Brief and a Contract

While this may not apply to gifted collaborations, if you are working with creators on any sort of paid for basis with defined outcomes, then you will want to prepare both a contract outlining the agreement and payment terms, as well as a clear brief that stipulates any brand messages and style cues you want them to deliver in their content.

Your contract should specify:

• Deliverables: Exactly what the influencer needs to create (e.g., one Instagram post, three Instagram Stories).

• Timeline: When the content needs to be posted and when drafts should be submitted for approval

• Payment: The agreed-upon compensation and payment schedule.

• Usage Rights: Whether you have the right to repurpose the content on your own channels. You should also disclose if you plan to put any paid media spend against the content, or plan to use it for any other digital comms or PR as this can affect the terms and final cost

• Disclosure: A clear requirement that the influencer must disclose the sponsored nature of the post, as mandated by regulatory bodies like the FTC.

Your brief should contain:

• Brand Intro: Give them a brief snapshot of your brand and any relevant product information.

• Content brief: If you’re looking for the influencer to do something specific as part of their post you should outline it here. (e.g We’d like you to create a 60 second reel capturing you making a cocktail of your choice using X product).

• Any specific styling or shoot cues: This should include anything they must show in the content, or any overlays or logos you want them to use (e.g must include a clear front view of the product).

• Key Messages: Given that most social media content is short form, we’d recommend no more than 3-5 key messages to be delivered. Bullet point these for the influencer in order of priority.

• Outline any links or codes you want them to use: If you are looking to boost sales or web traffic, then you’ll probably want to consider issuing your influencers with a unique tracking link or discount code so you can accurately measure their impact at the end of the campaign

• Detailed timeline and key contacts: Just as you did in the contract, outline your key timings again for content approvals, sign off and posting – particularly if it’s a time sensitive campaign. Also make a note of who they should be sending the content to and include their contact details.

Step 6: Measure and Analyze Your Results

Finally, once your campaign has ended, you’ll want to review its performance to understand if the influencers you chose were right for you and whether you adopted the right content approach. You’ll want to review this based on your original objectives.

If your objective was around brand awareness, you may want to use sentiment tools to see how your score has shifted. You can also look at whether you have gained more followers on your brand socials, as well as whether online brand mentions have shot up during and after the campaign.

If your goal was to boost sales or traffic through an influencer, look at the number of site visits generated from your influencer’s unique tracking link, or sales redeemed using their code.

You’ll also want to understand what the engagement rates were like compared to the influencer’s usual content. Look at reach, impressions, shares, likes and comments.

Still need help connecting with the right creators for your brand? Then don’t hesitate to drop us an email and we can give you some advice – lara.leventhall@visiblepr.co.uk