Influencer marketing is a great way to increase your reach and build awareness, especially when it comes to video campaigns.

But what’s the best way to find those influencers that have a relevant following and can bring in leads and sales? Read on to find out!

Why work with influencers on your video marketing campaign?

Brands may have various goals behind working with influencers on their video marketing. These include:

• To reach a new audience (i.e. each influencer’s following)
• To associate their brand with a trusted and well-known name of each influencer
• To get additional expertise on a topic they may not know as much about
• To benefit from the influencer’s fresh, authentic output as a content creator
• Preferably, a good combination of all of the above

Influencers may have their own different goals in mind. Usually, that’s monetizing their digital media presence, but they also may choose to work with a particular brand because they genuinely like the product, the brand’s culture, or the project itself.

Identifying the right influencers may take some time though, so here’s where you can start:

Step 1: Set up your influencer marketing page

Prior to starting your outreach, ensure you have a good landing page that outlines your campaign goals and the benefits of working with your brand.

• This way you will be able to direct influencers to a dedicated page for them to understand what your brand does and how they can benefit from working with you
• Going forward, this page will attract more influencers who will apply to become your promoters

For example, Wave.video has an ambassadorship page that explains what kind of creators the brand is looking for and how to become part of the platform:

If you want to take this one step further, consider setting up a dedicated website where you’d nurture those relationships and empower your advocates with tools and resources making their job easier promoting your product. Berush is a good example of that done well letting the brand’s affiliates and promoters access their stats and forums. Namify is a great tool for picking a domain and branding for those purposes.

Step 2: Find the right influencers

The most successful ways to begin relationships are through connecting on social media networks, such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, meeting someone at an event, or having a mutual contact make an introduction. 

In each one of these scenarios, building a relationship with the person is critical. It is highly unlikely that someone will say yes to a co-marketing campaign or sponsored collaboration immediately, without knowing anything about you or the value in working on a project together.

The influencers you partner with should be complementary to your business, and offer value to your audience. The campaign you collaborate on should benefit both parties. When we sit down to create a list of partners we want to work with, we think about companies and people who would add value by helping us create content that our audience would be enticed to download.

When looking for partners, keep in mind that they will need to get value out of the relationship as well. It would be awesome to work with someone because of their reach, but would that person get value out of working with your company? And how to approach those influencers to make your offer irresistible. When creating the list of your influencers, make notes on what they may be interested in and how to reach out.

1. Search YouTube

Best for: Finding YouTube creators and relevant channels

Using the native YouTube search is a great idea for many reasons, including:

• You get to see which video content on your target topic seems to attract more interactions (likes and comments)
• You get to meet active channels that may be good candidates for collaboration.
• You get to see what other brands are doing and who they are working with to create video content

You can use search filters to only find relevant channels based on your keyword:

Once you have a good list of channels that seem to produce relevant content, do your research and find those creators across other social media platforms. This way you’ll have more ways to get in touch.

2. Use an influencer collaboration platform

Best for: Finding, connecting, and managing relationships with Instagram and TikTok influencers

There are a few platforms that let brands find niche influencers and reach out to them inviting them to their campaigns. Popular Pays by Lightricks is one of the best examples, as this platform makes it easy to nurture relationships with relevant creators and invite them to participate in further campaigns.

You can use the platform to discover talent using several search parameters, including audience engagement and niche relevance, and then point them to your campaign briefs, to assess fit. Later, once the campaign is up and running, Popular Pays’s reporting tools help you to measure the impact of your collaborations, so you can decide which types of creators and influencers you should emphasize for your subsequent projects.

3. Search LinkedIn

Best for: Finding B2B connections that may want to co-create video content for you on YouTube and LinkedIn

LinkedIn search is a good idea for B2B businesses. It makes it easy to discover creators behind niche publications you’d be interested in working with.

4. Use Sparktoro

Best for: Finding YouTube creators and relevant channels

Sparktoro crawls the web to create an index of brands and influencers and their multiple digital media channels you can use to reach out. Based on your keyword, the tool will find “sources of influencers”, i.e. social media influencers, bloggers and publications your target audience is engaging with:

It is not the best fit if you are looking for TikTok or Instagram influencers but it is a great tool to use to identify popular YouTube channels in your niche.

5. Use Buzzsumo

Best for: Finding YouTube creators, relevant channels, and YouTube ads

Buzzsumo is a content research and monitoring tool that, among other features, allows you to discover popular YouTube videos on your topic. It will also suggest you other related topics to explore:

It is a handy tool because it allows you to filter and sort videos based on multiple criteria. For example, you can look for videos within a certain timeframe, search for ads or organic videos, and limit your search to a certain category.

Going Forward

One of the first things to do is to determine your goals. Depending on your project goals, your project and influencer outreach may differ. 

Goals could include:

• Lead generation
• Direct sales of products and services
• Video views and brand awareness
• Brand awareness and social proof

If your goals are aligned, the next step is to brainstorm projects to work on together that will be mutually beneficial. Set up a brainstorming call to discuss topics and content types. Prepare for that meeting with ideas that would make the most sense for your audience. You don’t want to show up empty-handed.

Set clear expectations around timelines and responsibilities for each part of the campaign. Some questions to cover during the planning phase of your campaign:

• What type of video content are you producing?
• Who is creating, editing, and finalizing the script?
• Which partner is responsible for designing the content?
• Who is uploading the final video?
• How is your brand referenced in the caption?
• How are you all promoting the content?
• How are you divvying up that promotion?
• What happens if someone misses a deadline?
• How will you be communicating during the project? Weekly? Monthly?

An influencer marketing campaign can take a lot of time and effort but it is well worth it, when done right. To sum up:

• Plan well in advance. Your team may be agile and able to create a video campaign from start to finish in three weeks, but adding in people from outside the company can increase the timeline. You need to be understanding of their schedule as well as your own. Giving yourself more time to complete a project will help you avoid rushing in the end, or an uncomfortable situation if deadlines are missed.
• Have a timeline and goals written out. Talking through your plan is great, but having everything written on paper allows you to go back later and point to something in the case that a problem arises. It also ensures everyone is on the same page when it comes to what is agreed upon.
• Consider moving that relationship further. Your relationship with each influencer doesn’t have to stop at one video project. There may be many more things you can do together. You could partner on an event, either an online event such as a webinar, or a larger, in-person event. Or you could have them join your affiliate program and become your long-term brand advocate.