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Do you need to find influencers to help you boost your brand’s sales? If you don’t know how to find the right influencers for your audience, you’ve come to the right place. Influencers, as one of the creators of user-generated content, will provide authenticity and social proof to your products.
Influencers are the perfect way to make a human connection with your followers and boost your eCommerce conversions. Even if you are in a non-eCommerce industry, influencers can accelerate your brand positioning and build trust with your audience.
In this article, we’ll show you how to find influencers for your brand, how to streamline the collaboration with them, and the tools you would need to get your audience excited and interested in buying your products.
An influencer is a content creator who has built a loyal and engaged audience on digital platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, blogs, or podcasts. Thanks to the trust and credibility they have established with their followers, influencers can shape opinions, spark trends, and affect purchasing decisions.
There are different types of influencers based on the role they have:
The relevance of influencer marketing has increased over the years. The global influencer marketing platform market size was valued at USD 20.24 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow from USD 23.59 billion in 2025 to USD 70.86 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 17.0% during the forecast period.
For this article, we’ve spoken to four influencers from Spain (@cooltourtheblog, @deliciousmartha, @nadinecaldera, @albabortb) to gain insights into the influencer world. They shared with us their backgrounds and experiences, their followers and the various brands they collaborate with.
While influencers and celebrities both shape public opinion, they differ significantly in how they build their audiences and the type of influence they hold.
Influencers grow their following directly on digital platforms by sharing content, expertise, or lifestyle stories. Their popularity comes from their content. Celebrities gain fame through mainstream media such as TV, film, music, or sports. Their audience comes from their public career, not from content creation alone.
“Undoubtedly. Nowadays, famous people have been relegated to a secondary medium: the TV (and its commercials). People spend their days on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, jumping from one profile to another and seeing how this girl or that guy represents what I myself have always wanted to be or what I already am… I too have my own influencers who inspire me and who I follow loyally.”
@cooltourtheblog
Celebrity endorsements are expensive and usually reserved for high-budget branding campaigns. Influencer partnerships are generally more affordable and flexible, making them suitable for brands of all sizes. They often feel more trustworthy and relatable, which can drive higher conversions; while celebrities offer massive visibility but may be seen as less authentic or more “advertising-like.”
At first glance, when comparing a ugc creator vs an influencer, they seem similar. Both UGC creators and influencers create people-focused content that often features real experiences with products or brands. But when you look a little closer, their roles start to diverge.
Influencers create content and build an audience around a topic or niche, while UGC creators produce product-centred content designed for brands to distribute on their channels. They have different roles in the customer journey and charge accordingly; however, their main differences lie in their value propositions and content ownership.
Influencers are their own brand. They have learned to convert their own name or pseudonym into a brand; they know how to position themselves, and their product is the content which they generate.
“First and foremost it is my brand. Possible collaborations with companies will always come second and as a minority activity. I don’t seek to live off brands and my posts about their products are simply an added plus.”
@deliciousmartha
Their profiles don’t simply share information; instead, they themselves are content creators who never stop communicating.
As well as having built a large following, they care about their public and know who they are talking to. For them, and also for the brands interested in working with them, the quality of their followers takes precedence over the quantity.
“Your images need to be friendly and refined. At the same time you need to maintain a conversation with those followers who choose to stop and look at your photos, to get to know you, to find out what you think. They have to be able to see you, to know who they’re talking to. And you also have to get to know them. Creating a bond is very important so that they can trust you.”
@cooltourtheblog
Influencers are the “curators” of their audience; they maintain relationships with their audience, interact with them, and participate in the conversation.
Influencers are people, not companies, machines or corporations. This is what allows them to identify themself with other people and establish relationships. An influencer needs to have a clear field of expertise but also be versatile enough to be able to talk about diverse areas of interest, to find common ground with other influencers and brands.
“I began in the early days of bloggers when, even back then, I was tying together the worlds of fashion and good food. Despite success in this area, my life was turned around when I started managing the Marketing and Communication Department of a 700-metre-squared restaurant at the foot of the W Hotel. For five years, I obviously needed to give up my most cherished hobby because of a lack of spare time. With that period now over, about a year and a half ago I decided to return to my online adventures thanks to my Instagram @cooltourtheblog. This allows me to show my experience in the world of foodie communication, which I gained during those five years of research, and the lessons which I continue to learn from in this sector.”
@cooltourtheblog
Influencers have their own opinions, but they also influence the views of their followers and invite them to share these on social networks. If you’re looking for strategic information on a specific subject, influencers and their followers can be a great source to turn to.
Plus, people trust their opinions. So when you get an influencer interested in and recommending your products, it’s likely their followers will take that opinion to heart and try them out.
There are a few steps you need to take in every influencer marketing strategy before looking for a suitable influencer for your brand: (1) define your campaign goals, (2) understand your audience, and (3) choose the method based on your budget. They would allow you to identify the type of influencer you should look for, their niche or audience, and the platforms to find them.
Make sure to focus on relevance and engagement over sheer follower count. UGC platforms like Flowbox can help track influencer performance and secure content rights once you’ve identified creators, making it easier to scale campaigns across multiple channels.
Finding influencers doesn’t always require expensive platforms, especially if you are managing a small brand or launching the first influencer campaigns. With the right approach, you can identify valuable creators without spending a dime.
Start small with nano and micro-influencers before moving to the big campaigns. These creators are often approachable, authentic, and willing to collaborate in exchange for products, free trials, or shoutouts. Once you’ve proven ROI, you can scale with a UGC platform like Flowbox.
Although UGC creators and customers are not considered ‘influencers’, they can influence other users’ shopping behaviour. Consider incorporating their content into your strategies to develop comprehensive user-generated content campaigns.
Since social media platforms are where most influencers’ content lives, this is one of the places you can use to find influencers. Make sure the social media platform you use to find influencers is the one where you want to launch your campaigns. Learn more about how to market your business on social media.
Recommendations can differ slightly from platform to platform when it comes to sourcing influencers. Here are some specific pointers based on the relevant social media platform.
Finding influencers on Instagram involves searching relevant hashtags, exploring popular posts within your industry, and utilising Instagram’s search feature to discover accounts with high engagement rates and content alignment with your brand. Additionally, consider using influencer marketing platforms that provide comprehensive databases of Instagram influencers.
To find influencers on TikTok, browse through the platform’s “For You” page to discover trending content and creators within your niche. Utilise relevant hashtags, explore TikTok’s Discover page, and engage with popular videos to identify influencers whose content resonates with your brand. Use an influencer marketing platform with tools for discovering TikTok influencers.
To find influencers on YouTube, utilise the platform’s search bar to look for relevant keywords or topics related to your niche. You can also explore trending videos and channels within your industry, or use third-party tools and platforms specifically designed for influencer discovery on YouTube.
Finding influencers on Facebook involves joining relevant groups, following pages in your industry, and engaging with content from users with a significant following and active engagement. You can also use Facebook’s search feature to find influencers based on interests, location, or demographics. Consider using influencer marketing platforms that provide access to Facebook influencer databases and analytics.
To find influencers on Pinterest, use relevant keywords for your niche in the search bar, explore boards, and track hashtags and trends. Look for users whose pins get repins, clicks, and comments. High-engagement signals that influence. An influencer marketing platform can help you filter Pinterest creators by niche, engagement, and audience demographics.
To find Amazon influencers, also known as Amazon affiliates, check the official Amazon Influencer Program to find verified influencers. Many Amazon influencers share affiliate links on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. Search your product category plus “Amazon review” or “Amazon favorites” on social platforms.
Finding LinkedIn influencers is ideal for SaaS, B2B, professional services, and high-consideration products. To find influencers on LinkedIn, use the platform search function to filter by job title, industry, or topic, or even the LinkedIn Sales Navigator for professional searches. LinkedIn also publishes lists like Top Voices for different industries.
There are three types of platforms that could help you find influencers and collaborate with them. Each one has a different level of complexity depending on the tools your brand requires.
When choosing one of the three platform types to scale your influencer campaigns, consider factors such as your brand size, budget, and campaign needs. Let’s explore them to help you make your decision.
An influencer marketplace is a platform where brands and creators can easily find each other and collaborate. You can browse influencer profiles, filter by niche, location, engagement, or platform, and contact them directly for campaigns.
Marketplaces are usually free or low-cost and work like a directory, making them ideal for brands that want quick, easy access to thousands of influencers without complex workflows. They help you scale by giving you instant access to a large pool of creators ready to work with brands.
An influencer marketing platform provides a full suite of tools designed to manage influencer campaigns from start to finish.
These platforms include advanced search filters, influencer discovery, campaign management, automated outreach, tracking, reporting, payment tools, and access to influencer databases with vetted audience insights.
Because everything is centralised (briefing, messaging, contracts, tracking, performance data), brands can run large-scale campaigns with hundreds of creators more efficiently and with far greater accuracy.
A UGC platform helps brands collect, manage, and distribute user-generated content coming from customers, fans, influencers, and creators.
Unlike influencer-specific platforms, UGC platforms focus on sourcing authentic content at scale, whether from organic customers or paid creators, and organising rights management, moderation, and distribution across your website, ads, email, and social channels.
They allow brands to quickly identify top-performing content creators and turn them into long-term partners, while also scaling content production for ads and product pages without relying on large followings, making them more profitable.
If you are exploring tools to manage your influencer marketing collaborations, here is a list of the top 3 platforms to find influencers for your brand or product:
Flowbox’s influencer marketing platform helps brands manage every stage of their influencer collaborations, from discovery and briefing to reporting and payments. Its curated influencer network focuses on verified creators and reliable audience data, helping brands choose partnerships that actually convert.
Upfluence provides an all-in-one influencer marketing platform used by brands and agencies to discover creators, manage collaborations, and track performance. It’s widely adopted by eCommerce teams thanks to native integrations and sales attribution via links and codes.
Collabstr is a self-serve marketplace where brands can hire creators on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms to produce sponsored posts or UGC. It’s designed for simplicity, offering transparent pricing, secure payments, and fast turnaround times.
Collaborating with an influencer is most effective when the process is structured, transparent, and backed by the right tools. Clear expectations and streamlined workflows help both the brand and the creator stay aligned from the first outreach to the final content delivery.
Here are the steps you need to follow when collaborating with an influencer for your brand campaigns:
A smooth influencer collaboration comes down to clarity, consistency, and the right technology. By following a defined process and using Flowbox’s influencer tools to manage briefs, approvals, and reporting, brands can build stronger partnerships and generate content that performs.
Let’s not get sidetracked by how many followers or deals with well-known brands an influencer has: if they don’t share values with your brand, the collaboration will come across as fake, and consumers will notice.
“Usually it’s me who selects the brands because I like their products … I don’t say yes to everything, I accept work from brands whose products I genuinely like. I’m not going to showcase something which I myself wouldn’t wear.”
@albabortb
“Don’t get carried away with the offers you get. They might be well-paid, but not your style at all. Staying loyal to your own tastes is the best option.”
@nadinecaldera
You need to look at an influencer’s career, how they’ve developed over time, the causes they support and their outlook on life. When an influencer doesn’t share the vision of a brand with which they associate themselves, the outcome often involves a loss of credibility for both parties.
Let’s check how the Spanish furniture brand Sklum ensures this. Through the Flowbox platform, Sklum collects content organically generated by both end consumers and other businesses. Additionally, they collaborate with content creators and influencers.
“One of our priorities is to take care of the aesthetics and image of the brand, so when we partner with creators, we make sure their content aligns closely with our brand. This allows us to give them a lot of freedom regarding the type of content they want to create, because by filtering them so well, we know it will be quality content.”
Mar Escrivá, Head of Communication & PR at Sklum
For Sklum, ensuring that all visual elements follow the same branding line and creating visually pleasing aesthetics is fundamental to guarantee a positive user experience. They have guaranteed their brand aesthetics while maintaining the authenticity of user-generated content.
Their results speak for themselves: their CTR of 16.1% shows that many website visitors interact with user-generated content, and of all of them, more than 13.8% click on “View product” to visit the product page.
This shows that careful aesthetics impact the customer journey of an eCommerce site. Read the full case study on how Sklum benefits from UGC to learn more.
More than the number and the frequency of updates (which in themselves are important), what matters more is that the influencer creates quality content and is recognised for it. They need to be relevant, know how to express themselves, take quality photos, research their topics, and have recognised contacts.
An influencer with these traits is someone concerned with the content they publish and not just with getting likes. This type of influencer is an online professional who will work with the same dedication and attention as you invest in your campaign.
“I wanted to present my vision of gastronomy and for people to like what I was showing … it’s something that grows over time: your dedication and more than anything, putting your soul into what you do.”
@deliciuousmartha
Flowbox’s influencer marketing platform provides a vetted list of influencers with verified audiences and high-quality content, so you don’t have to spend time vetting them.
Finding influencers with a quality audience starts with looking beyond follower count and focusing on real engagement, authenticity, and audience relevance. The best way to do this at scale is by using a platform like Flowbox, which gives brands access to verified influencer data, first-party insights, and detailed audience analytics.
“If there’s a brand or a space which I don’t feel comfortable with or don’t identify with, I’d prefer not to work with it. I wouldn’t feel loyal to my followers who are there because they share my tastes and interests.”
@cooltourtheblog
With Flowbox, you can see whether an influencer’s followers are genuine, identify demographics that match your target market, and track engagement patterns that signal real influence, not inflated metrics. This ensures you’re partnering with creators who can actually drive results, not just reach.
You can incentivise an influencer by offering a mix of value that aligns with their motivation. This can include monetary compensation, free products, affiliate commissions, early access to new collections, or long-term partnership opportunities.
However, not only paid incentives are necessary to activate influencers. Inform them through brand channels and inspire them by sharing content from others to motivate them. Learn how to activate your community.
Inform on public and private channels. Tell your community exactly how to participate in your campaigns: which hashtag to use, where to upload their photos, or how to tag your brand.
Show examples of great UGC so people know what kind of content works best. Include calls-to-action in your emails, packaging, and social media posts, so users see the opportunity to participate across touchpoints.
This information would eventually reach nano and micro-influencers in your community who would gladly share content around your brand in exchange for free products or higher visibility. Let’s explore some informative channels to activate a community:
Learn more about how to inform your community through your brand channels.
Information alone isn’t enough; you also need to inspire your influencers. People want to feel like they’re part of something bigger and meaningful.
Share stories from existing UGC contributors to highlight real people behind the content. Create themes or challenges that make participation fun. Highlight the values your brand stands for, whether it’s sustainability, creativity, or lifestyle, so customers feel emotionally connected.
Take the example of the Spanish brand Sophie and Lucie. Being transparent about how content will be used builds trust. Sophie and Lucie take an original approach by using a terms and conditions page to engage customers directly.
They outline what contributors can expect in return for sharing, turning what’s usually fine print into another touchpoint for community building.
Incentives encourage your community to keep engaging, while also showing that you truly value their effort and creativity. Offer small rewards such as discount codes, exclusive previews, or giveaways. Build a sense of progression, where frequent contributors gain more recognition or access. Let’s explore some incentivising strategies:
Redskins have launched a loyalty program that allows them to earn points by creating content with the goal of transforming customers into true brand ambassadors.
Flowbox’s influencer marketing platform allows you to customise the reward system for every campaign. All payments and discounts are handled on the platform, and invoices from different campaigns and influencers are consolidated into a single invoice to facilitate finance and administrative tasks.
A collaboration agreement gives you the chance to define certain items, such as the terms and conditions of the work, what the influencer commits to, and how they will benefit in return. Write it up and get it signed. One of these conditions could be to clarify in each collaborative post that there is a product or service being advertised.
Flowbox provides some level of protection by default. Influencers within the platform’s network agree to license the rights to the content to the brand for 24 months and are obligated to deliver the agreed content. Payments are also secure in Flowbox’s influencer platform.
If you’re simply sending products to micro-influencers to be sampled and hopefully featured, then you likely don’t need to send an agreement. For bigger features, with briefing and payment involved, you should definitely push for a written contract.
We asked our influencers if they generally use this practice:
“Always, especially on YouTube. I signal every collaboration either in the title or in the description. I think it’s a minimum requirement and the fairest thing both for the influencer and the viewer.”
@nadinecaldera
“Not always, although I will from now on. But generally, it’s so obvious that up to now I didn’t think that it was necessary.”
@deliciuosmartha
“Yes, in the majority of posts I do. Those are the conditions set by the brands. On my blog I often add posts which only talk about collaborative work.”
@albabortb
Finally, don’t forget to nurture these relationships with your influencers. Ideally, as you collaborate with them, you can build a team of influencers who already know your guidelines and campaign requirements, and align with your brand aesthetic.
Flowbox’s influencer marketing platform allows you to discover and manage your team of influencers, facilitating communication and saving time on future campaigns.
Finding the right influencer for your brand can be challenging, especially with thousands of creators across different platforms and niches. These FAQs break down the essentials, from identifying the right fit to evaluating audience quality, so you can make confident, data-driven decisions when choosing influencers for your campaigns.
Finding the right influencer is crucial because they act as brand ambassadors, connecting your products or services with their engaged audience. Collaborating with influencers whose values align with your brand ensures authenticity, credibility, and resonance with your target demographic, ultimately leading to more effective marketing campaigns and higher ROI.
You can find influencers for free by utilising social media platforms’ search features, browsing relevant hashtags, joining industry-specific groups, and engaging with content creators who align with your brand. Additionally, consider reaching out to micro-influencers or nano-influencers who may be willing to collaborate in exchange for free products or services.
Social media influencers can be found across various platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and even niche-specific forums or blogs. Utilise each platform’s search functions, explore relevant hashtags, join industry groups, and consider using influencer marketing platforms or marketplaces to discover influencers suitable for your brand.
Use an influencer marketing platform like Flowbox’s to discover, collaborate, and manage your influencer marketing in one dashboard.
You can find micro-influencers by utilising social media platforms’ search features, exploring niche-specific hashtags, and joining relevant communities or forums where smaller content creators may be active. Using influencer marketing platforms allows you to filter influencers based on audience size, engagement rate, and niche to discover nano and micro-influencers suitable for your brand.
To vet influencers, start by analysing their audience demographics, engagement rates, and authenticity of their followers. Evaluate their content quality, brand alignment, and past collaborations. Look for transparency in sponsored posts and assess their reputation within the industry. Consider conducting background checks to ensure alignment with your brand values and goals. An influencer marketing platform does most of this work for you.
You can find influencers in your area by searching location-based hashtags and geotags on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which reveal creators actively posting in your city or region. Check tagged posts from nearby businesses, as local influencers often collaborate with brands in their area. You can also search phrases like “top influencers in [your city]” on Google or TikTok to surface curated lists and creators who are locally active. Don’t forget to look within your own community. Your followers and customers may already include local micro-influencers who are highly engaged and authentic.
According to Metricool and Click Analytic research, influencer pricing varies widely depending on their follower size, engagement rate, content format, and the platform they use. Nano influencers may charge anywhere from free products to €50–€150 per post, while micro influencers typically charge between €150–€1,000. Mid-tier creators often range from €1,000–€5,000, and macro influencers can charge €5,000–€20,000 or more for a single collaboration. At the top end, celebrity or mega influencers may demand €20,000 to several hundred thousand euros per campaign. Costs also increase when brands request usage rights, exclusivity, or high-production content like Reels, TikToks, or long-form video.
Whichever influencer you choose and however you decide to find them, the most important thing is to personalise your message and show them how your product could benefit them. They want to know why you love them and why you think they would be perfect for working with you.
Are you ready to scale your influencer campaigns and find the right influencers for your brand? Request a demo with Flowbox to learn how a UGC and influencer marketing platform can help you streamline your influencer marketing.
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