How to find brands looking for influencers. An ultimate guide for creators and influencers

Are you a content creator looking to collaborate with brands? Whether you’re a YouTuber, podcaster, blogger, or social media influencer, working with brands can be an excellent way to grow your audience, increase your reach, and monetize your content.

However, finding the right brands to partner with can be a daunting task, especially if you’re just starting out.

In this advanced guide, we’ll focus on practical tips on how to search and identify potential brand partners.

Why do you need to search for brands looking for influencers

There are a lot of ways for influencers to monetize Instagram accounts. One of the most commonly used – sponsored posts.

Followers are used to seeing unboxing or product reviews in their feed. So, if you use some brand product, know its quality, advantages and disadvantages, why should you avoid promoting it? It’s fair for all fashion influencers and makeup artists with a certain expertise in cosmetic and clothes brands. And it’s also fair for the rest of influencers who can provide a fair review for the goods or services they love.

Now, let’s get one thing straight, we don’t endorse the ‘Give me a free product I am an influencer’ attitude. But, we do understand the desire to work with brands.

The main problem is finding the right brand that fits your niche.

Sure, if you’re a fan of the little bakery near your office and they’re willing to pay you for a promo, then that’s a perfect fit! Or, you can focus on creating content in your niche and become so popular that brands will reach out to you first! However, if you’re looking to work with well-known brands or want to get useful contacts, you need to know how to find and reach out to them.

However, if you want to work with well-known brands or get useful contact, you need to know how to find and outreach brands.

Common ways to find brands looking for influencers

So, you decided to make sponsored posts, where can you find brands?

Look at your followers. Maybe some brands follow you already. They know your content and may want to collaborate. But don’t expect that there will be brands like Adidas or Apple:)
Articles. We do have one of them on this blog: 25 Brands that Work with Influencers. This method’s main disadvantage is outdated info. Some brands had successful and interesting campaigns in the past, but do they find influencers right now?
Google. Search for something like ‘influencer partnership programs’. There are a lot of affiliate networks willing to work with influencers. Their main advantage and disadvantage is the same – it’s just a way to get commission for sharing a link. Low efforts, low income.

Advanced way to find brands looking for influencers

We suggest using our Ad posts feature.

In fact it’s a large database of posts with mentions. So if someone with 5k followers or more mentioned someone, you’ll see it.

This feature can be used to:

Find brands looking for influencers
Check influencer collaboration history and its results
Monitor competitors’ collaborations
Find insights and examples for creatives

But in this guide we’ll show only the first use case.

Search by keywords

Go to Ad posts and type 1-2 hashtags. Like this:

The platform gives me a lot of posts with mentions, but I’m looking for the post like this:

It looks like a brand (logo and brand name) and only one account is mentioned.

So now I need to check – I’ve searched for post with this brand mentioned on February:

And here are 99 mentions:

They are definitely working with influencers right now.

Search by influencer

If you know someone in your niche who makes sponsored posts, you can explore brands who worked with this influencer. Like this:

Here are results:

Let’s check the third one – Lake Pijamas:

So we get:

110 mentions in February. Could it be a coincidence?:)

We may check and see that there is even a special link in captions:

It’s definitely a sponsored post.

Using these two methods you can easily find brands with active influencer marketing campaigns and can pitch them.

Try it now

Tips to find brands looking for influencers

These advices can be helpful for influencers and influencer managers:

Define your niche and audience: Start by defining your niche and the audience you cater to. Knowing your niche will help you identify the brands that align with your interests and values. It will also help you target your audience more effectively.
Identify potential brands: Once you have a clear understanding of your niche and audience, start identifying potential brands that you would like to collaborate with. Look for brands that align with your niche and target audience. You can start by researching brands in your niche on social media, search engines, and online marketplaces.
Reach out to brands: Once you have identified potential brands, reach out to them and introduce yourself. Let them know who you are, what you do, and why you think a collaboration would be beneficial for both parties. Provide some examples of your previous work, including your engagement rates and audience demographics.
Attend events: Attend industry events and conferences related to your niche. These events are an excellent opportunity to network with other influencers and brands. You can also learn about the latest trends and best practices in your industry.
Join influencer networks: Join influencer networks or online marketplaces that connect influencers with brands. These platforms make it easy for brands to find and collaborate with influencers.
Keep track of your collaborations: Once you start collaborating with brands, keep track of your collaborations and the results. This information will help you pitch to other brands and showcase your value as an influencer.

In a conclusion

Overall, finding brands to collaborate with requires research, networking, and persistence. By defining your niche, identifying and finding potential brands, reaching out, attending events, and joining influencer networks, you can find the right brands to collaborate with and grow your influencer business.