Need to come up with a list of potential TikTok influencers for an upcoming marketing campaign, but don’t know where to start? As a marketer new to the TikTok game, the first and most important thing to focus on is pick the right TikTok influencers for your brand.
Once you’ve identified the type of influencer your brand should work with, try these 3 easy ways to find creators who match your requirements.
Option 1) Source TikTok influencers yourself
The most basic way to start your TikTok influencer search is to use the tools that are available to you. Google, TikTok, and Instagram are all good places to begin with.
Google search engine
If you’re a marketer who isn’t yet familiar with TikTok, Google is your best friend.
You can just type up the following sample searches, depending on the type of influencer, target market and niche your brand is after:
- “Top Makeup TikTok Influencers”.
- “List of Top USA TikTok Influencers 2022”.
- “Top TikTok Dancers 2022”.
These simple searches will bring up top articles and resources that can help you find TikTok influencers for your marketing campaign. Scan a few well-ranked articles to quickly get a gist for who’s crushing it on TikTok and what the hot trends of the moment are.
Quick tip: include the year in your search phrase so the most up-to-date resources come up. The platform is evolving so fast, you’ll need the very latest information!
TikTok itself
Of course, if your task is to shortlist the most relevant TikTok influencers for your brand, you could start the process from the app itself. Use TikTok’s search bar to look up hashtags relevant to your brand, and check out the top creator profiles that come up. Another way is to research what your competitors are doing, and narrow down your search from there.
Searching by hashtags
Hashtags are very helpful research tools, especially if your brand operates within a well-defined niche. Type in most relevant hashtags to see popular videos containing those keywords. The TikTok algorithm organizes the content from most to least popular, based on view count and engagement metrics, so it’s a great place to start.
Searching for creators by hashtags can really speed up your search – focus on the top 10 to 20 results against your specified hashtags.
Researching your competition
You could also check your competitors’ accounts or hashtags to see which creators they’ve collaborated with. This can give you an idea of the type of profile that could also work for your brand, but of course, you might not want to partner up with the exact same creators due to conflicts of interest or potential exclusivity clauses they may have signed with other brands.
A general rule of thumb is that brand collaborations last from 3 to 6 months, so if you see any promotional post older than 6 months, that creator may no longer be under contract with the competitor and you could approach them directly.
It might be worth contacting influencers you think fit your brand, even if they’ve recently posted a collaboration with a competitor and are still under contract. This could be a way to start building relationships – eventually some of those creators might get back to you once their current contract finishes, and you could snatch them up then.
Use TikTok’s Creative Center
To make this process slightly less manual, check out TikTok’s Creative Center: the site ranks hashtags, songs, creators and videos by popularity all in one place.
Instagram is still considered the main social media platform for influencers – it’s where many big names have risen from. Its user base is different than TikTok’s, as it includes a larger share of older segments of the population.
On Instagram, you can also look up hashtags and check out the “top posts” section to identify creators who have a platform on TikTok too. You might have to filter through more noise than by going directly on TikTok, since Instagram is a lot more mature having been around for longer, and is therefore more saturated with sometimes irrelevant content.
If your brand has worked with Instagram creators in the past, do check whether they have a TikTok channel. They could efficiently promote your brand across channels, and you wont’ need to establish a working relationship from scratch with them.
Pros and cons of this option
Pros:
- You’ll get to be on top of the trends and quickly build your expertise.
Cons:
- Time-consuming and overwhelming, especially as the volume of creators on TikTok keeps growing.
- Inefficient and not scalable when your brand needs to run multiple campaigns concurrently.
- Not suitable when working under pressure with tight deadlines to meet, resulting in half-baked research.
- Manually analysing and vetting each influencer profile is prone to human error.
Option 2) Use Influencer analytics tools
If you have strict timelines to meet, using influencer analytics tools will make finding TikTok influencers much more efficient. We’ve previously outlined 18 top platforms for influencer search, but here’s a summary:
HypeAuditor
HypeAuditor is a social media analytics tool for transparent and data-based influencer marketing. Use the free plan to get a feel for what unlimited access to engagement data and analytics can offer.
If you find this is the right tool for you, fill out a request form and explore pricing options the company offers.
Heepsy
Heepsy specializes in both influencer search and influencer data analytics.
This social media analytics tool offers 3 paid plans depending on your needs, either on a monthly or yearly basis: Starter ($49 pcm), Paid ($169 pcm), and Gold ($269 pcm). The yearly option gives you 20% off the monthly price.
Analisa
Analisa is tool that covers Instagram and TikTok creators, so it makes more sense if your brand operates across both channels.
It offers a free plan, and you can choose among 3 paid options also via monthly or yearly payments: Premium ($69 pcm), Plus ($149 pcm), and Pro ($239 pcm). The yearly options is 30% off the monthly cost.
Pros and cons of this option
Pros:
- Cuts down your research time significantly as engagement rates and all other relevant metrics are accessible in a few clicks.
Cons:
- Some tools limit access to data and features unless you upgrade to more premium plans.
- Others do not provide exact information as to how their data is calculated, hence data accuracy could be questioned.
Option 3) Turn to a specialized agency to find TikTok influencers
The most efficient and safest way to source influencers for your campaigns is to work with an influencer marketing agency. Marketing agencies go way beyond influencer selection, and can manage your campaign budget, deploying tools and processes to reach brand goals as efficiently as possible.
Plus, working with a reliable and credible agency frees up your team’s time and capacity for other value-add activities. You can trust that professionals are handling your marketing efforts with the right expertise to help your brand succeed on TikTok.
Pros and cons of this option
Pros:
- An influencer marketing agency will ensure a perfect fit between the selected creators and your brand values and goals. They will vet each and every creator, assess them against the right criteria, and guarantee the quality of the content.
- The agency will handle the full process, from influencer sourcing to insights and analytics and reporting on campaign outcomes, so you don’t have to.
Cons:
- A marketing agency will charge fees for their services, which need to be budgeted for as part of your marketing spend on TikTok.
Conclusion
So there you have it. To find the best suited influencers for your TikTok campaign, you have a few options.
You can go it alone, use search engines and social media to sift through tons of potential matches, manually vet each of them, and eventually come up with a shortlist.
Or, you can use influencer marketing platforms to do this more efficiently but still manage the process directly – which takes time, effort, and requires deep expertise to get it right.
Finally, you can rely on an expert influencer marketing agency like TIKTAL to match your brand with the right creators, help you reach campaign goals, and track effectiveness whilst optimizing branded content as needed.
So why go through all the hassle when you could leave it up to us? At TIKTAL, we work with leading brands to achieve campaign goals. Reach out today to get started!