How brands can find the right influencers

Start from the buyer, not the creator

Write down who you are trying to reach: city, age band, language, and what they are already searching for. Every filter afterwards derives from that description.

Brands that start with 'we want someone with 100k followers' end up with reach that does not overlap their buyer at all.

The five filters that do the work

Applied in this order, these five cut a directory of thousands to a workable shortlist.

• Category — does this creator already make content about your space?
• City or state — critical for local businesses, useful for everyone else
• Language — the language of publication, not just of conversation
• Platform — where the buying decision gets researched
• Engagement rate — the sanity check on everything above

How to read a profile in 90 seconds

Open the creator's actual channel alongside their profile. Read the last ten posts. You are looking for consistency of subject, comment quality and whether promoted posts feel continuous with organic ones.

• Comments that are generic emoji strings suggest low-quality engagement
• A follower spike with flat engagement deserves a question
• Recent promotion of a direct competitor is usually a dealbreaker
• Audience geography must overlap with where you actually sell

Shortlist size and outreach

Shortlist eight to twelve creators per campaign slot. Expect roughly half to reply, and fewer to be available and within budget.

Put the deliverables, timeline and budget in the first message. Reply rates on specific briefs are dramatically higher than on 'are you open to collabs?'.

Do this before you pay

Agree scope, publication date, usage rights, revision rounds and exclusivity in writing. Ten minutes of clarity prevents almost every dispute that happens later.