Guide to finding and engaging local influencers
How many influencer posts did you see the last time you scrolled through Instagram or TikTok? Probably more than you think! Celebrity influencers are still popular, but the rise of smaller influencers is here.
Local influencers relate to your target audience in ways that macro and mega influencers simply can’t. They’re perceived as more trustworthy and therefore inspire their audience to take action. More specifically, they inspire action where they live with their local network.
If your goal is to move products off shelves, create repeat buying habits, and drive more in-store sales, incorporating local influencers into your marketing strategy is your ticket to success.
Local Vs. Nano Vs. Micro-Influencers
Did you know that the influencer industry has increased by nearly $20 billion in the past 7 years? A big reason for this is the creation and increased popularity of smaller influencers, specifically micro, nano and local.
There are six types of influencers that are widely recognized, and each has its place in the influencer marketing funnel. Understanding the different types is crucial so you can determine which type of influencer your brand should work with to help reach your business goals.
Without this understanding, your influencer marketing campaigns will likely fall flat and only drive some awareness. There are key differences between each influencer group that you must understand before moving forward with influencer outreach.
Micro influencers
Micro influencers have between 10,000 to 50,000 social media followers that are from all over the country or world. Their content focuses on a specific niche such as skincare, weightlifting, and healthy food for kids. Most micro influencers regularly participate in brand collaborations and some do it full-time.
Nano influencers
This popular group has between 1,000 to 10,000 followers. Like micro influencers, nano influencers focus on a specific niche with followers from around the country or world. Many micro influencers only post content for fun, while others get paid small amounts or accept perks in exchange for a post.
Local influencers
The newest influencer type typically has between 500 to 5,000 followers. Their audience is made up of friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and other people in their community that trust their recommendations. Rather than posting about a specific subject, local influencers use their platform to promote their city and the businesses found in it.
4 ways to find local influencers
Finding and working with local instagram influencers isn’t a one size fits all approach. There are multiple factors involved including budget, time, and confidence with influencer negotiations.
Here are four ways to find local influences that will work for any brand.
1. The DIY approach
The first approach to influencer discovery saves money, but sacrifices quite a bit of time.
Locating social media influencers alone can take hours and hours out of your day. Add on reaching out, negotiating, and running the campaigns and you could be looking at a full week of work. Many small businesses start with DIY influencer campaigns because they value keeping their budget tight over saving time.
Determine influencer goals
Before searching, you need to know who you’re looking for. What are your goals for this campaign? Who is your target audience? Your influencers should reflect that and have followers who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP). Take a luxury clothing boutique, for example. Their ICP is women ages 28-60 who have full-time jobs. Working with an 18 year old influencer or a stay-at-home mom influencer probably is not the best fit.
Find influencers using relevant search terms and hashtags
After your goals are set, identify relevant keywords to search. Social platforms do a great job of crawling post captions so a basic search often does the trick, and customer behavior has followed. These days, 40% of young people are turning to Instagram and TikTok to search instead of Google search!
Hashtags are still an important tool to discover influencers. Local influencers especially love to use local hashtags about their city or state because they’re extremely proud of where they live.
One of the best ways to find instagram influencers is by looking at the tagged posts for other companies in your city. The people already posting about local restaurants, theaters, parks and more are exactly who you're looking for.
Vet influencers
When you find a creator, don’t automatically add them to your outreach list. Go through a checklist to make sure they’re a good fit for your brand goals including:
Location - do they live or play near your storefront or target area?
Content - do they post about businesses like yours? Does their content always paint brands in a positive light?
Style - If you want reels, do they post a lot of reels, or do they primarily post images?
Contact - Do they list a way to contact them for collaborations? If they don’t, it’s not a deal breaker. Many local influencers do not see themselves as ‘influencers’ and only work with brands for fun.
Follower count - Number of followers does not equal engagement. Accounts with 500 followers could have a significantly higher engagement rate than accounts with 5,000 followers.
If you think you identified a good amount of influencers, go find more. Assume that only 1 out of 4 content creators will answer your message and want to partner with your brand.
Contact influencers
Before you reach out to creators, engage with their content for a few days. Like their videos and comment on their posts. They’ll notice and be much more likely to respond to your message.
While engaging with content, draft your outreach message. Keep it concise and friendly. Here’s an email and social media template to get you started!
Always reach out to influencers where they request you to do so. For example, some influencers provide an email address in their Instagram bio for collaborations. When they do this, they do not want you to send them a direct message (DM) because it might get lost among other notifications.
If they don’t list a way to contact them, send them a message on the platform where they’re actively posting. Be patient because many local influencers have full time jobs outside of their social media content and could take longer to respond.
If they respond, gauge their excitement level. Influencers who are really excited to try and share about your brand will create much more engaging content than those who agree out of obligation. Most potential influencers will be jazzed about the opportunity; it’s one of the many reasons why they’re more effective than other types of influencers!
Maintain relationships
Perhaps the biggest benefit of working with local influencers DIY is the ability to form long-term relationships with them. Agencies and platforms are useful and much more efficient, but you rarely get to work directly with the creators and get to know them on a personal level.
When you form relationships throughout the outreach process, keep it alive by engaging with them even after your contract ends. You can send them coupons, new products to try, and personal notes to express your gratitude. Later, when you’re ready to run another campaign, they’re more likely to agree because you stayed top of mind and were grateful partners.
2. Use an influencer search platform
Another way to find local influencers is by using a search platform. They are databases full of influencers that you can search through, usually for a small fee.
Taking this route is much faster and easier than finding creators the DIY route, making it perfect for brands who want to run their influencer marketing campaigns internally.
There are a few limitations to influencer platforms:
Not all relevant influencers are in every database, so you’re not getting a complete library.
Platforms tend to learn towards larger micro, mid-tier, and mega influencers.
Information is often outdated. It’s common for the information to only be updated every year or two, so the perfect influencer you find on the platform might no longer be active.
Platforms are only useful for discovery. They do not assist with negotiating brand deals and managing the partnerships.
Many local influencers don’t consider themselves ‘influencers,’ but rather city advocates and supporters of their community. These unique individuals will never be included in influencer databases because they don’t self-identify themselves as such.
Popular influencer search tools to try
There are dozens of search tools that you can use to find influencers. Here are three of the most popular ones:
Modash
Price: $99/month - $800/month
Channels: Instagram, YouTube & TikTok
Size: 250M creators
Influencity
Price: $198/month - $998/month
Channels: Instagram, YouTube & TikTok
Size: 200+M creators
Collabstr
Price: Free (15% transaction fee when influencers are paid)
Channels: Instagram, YouTube & TikTok
Size: 100,000+ vetter creators
3. Transform loyal customers into influencers
Skip the influencer search and turn your repeat customers into brand advocates. Existing customers are often the most influential people because they already love your brand. Rather than sounding scripted, their posts are authentic and their recommendations are genuine.
In Idaho, Scheels’ opened their Meridian-Boise location and made social sharing their priority. They created a very visually pleasing space packed with activities and photo ops to encourage organic sharing. They even created a guide outlining the things to do to get people excited about showing off what they experienced at the new store.
Not all brands have the ability to create fair-like experiences like Scheels. In that case, turn to your loyal customers. Thank them for being amazing customers, and ask them to take it a step further by sharing about your brand on various social media platforms.
Many brands find great success by giving their brand advocates new products, services, event tickets, etc. to try and then share about with their community.
Brand advocates are powerful marketing tools, but working with them does have a few downsides. First, it can be time-consuming to reach out, deliver complimentary perks, and monitor to make sure they actually post on social media. Second, these customers are likely not full-time influencers, so post quality and content might leave something to be desired
4. Partner with an agency
The final way to work with local influencers is through an agency. There are general marketing agencies that offer influencer partnerships, and agencies that are dedicated to influencer marketing only.
Agencies typically have a network of influencers that they have existing relationships with. They will also find and reach out to other influencers on your behalf, but they cannot guarantee partnerships. Like platforms, most agencies work with micro - mega influencers, but not local influencers.
Brands love agencies because they help develop the entire influencer strategy, find the influencers, manage the campaigns, and monitor engagement. Brands can be as involved in the process as they want. On the other hand, they’re the most expensive way to work with influencers.
Consider using Hummingbirds instead
Hummingbirds is a local influencer marketing platform, not an agency, but their service is so comprehensive that it’s comparable to one. They are the only platform that specializes specifically in local influencers with a goal to help local communities thrive.
Hummingbirds’ brand values shine through their influencers, who join the platform not to make money, but to support the cities that they live in and love. In fact, most wouldn’t even call themselves influencers but rather advocates for their city.
Every customer gets a savvy Support Specialist that helps every step of the way to ensure customers have a successful campaign. Brands like Fareway, MingsBings, and Destination Madison have added Hummingbirds to their marketing stack.
Trade influencers for hummingbirds and watch your business soar
Hummingbirds are the best solution for influencing local markets because they are the local market. They’re local business owners, students, and proud residents of the cities they’re in. When they make a recommendation on social media, it feels natural and organic because it fits in seamlessly with their lives and what they typically post about.
The people who see their posts might also run into them at the gym or local events. They have a level of trust that other types of influencers cannot have with their followers.
Is Hummingbirds the influencer solution you’ve been waiting for? Book a call to learn how Hummingbirds can drive meaningful results for your brand.
