How to find Instagram influencers for your brand

Write two lines first: who your customer is and what sends them looking, such as "new parents furnishing a small nursery". Then search four ways. Instagram's search takes plain keywords, not only hashtags, and each route turns up different accounts.

Keywords

Type what your customer would: "small nursery ideas", "sourdough starter", "capsule wardrobe". Look at who made the posts and Reels that come up, not only at accounts with the word in their name.

Hashtags

Broad tags are dominated by large accounts and brands. Specific ones find enthusiasts. Note the tags good fits use in their own captions and search those next.

Places

For a business tied to a city, search the place or tap a location tag to see posts tagged there. Local creators tag the neighbourhoods, cafés and shops they cover.

Explore, Reels and suggestions

Instagram suggests content from what you engage with. Follow 5 to 10 good fits from your brand's account and watch their Reels, and Explore and the Reels feed tend to lean towards similar creators. Tapping Follow on a profile also usually shows a row of suggested similar accounts.

• [niche] tips
• [niche] for beginners
• how I style [product]
• [product] review
• [activity] routine
• [city] [niche]
• [product] before and after
• [niche] on a budget

Every profile has a Tagged tab showing posts other accounts tagged it in. On a competitor's or a similar brand's profile, that's a list of people already posting about products like yours: customers, creators who were sent products, and paid partners. Accounts can remove tags, so treat it as a sample.

Posts made for a brand should carry a "Paid partnership with [brand]" label above them, added with Instagram's paid partnership tool. Search competitors' names and look for that label, #ad in captions, and Collab posts that appear on both the creator's and the brand's profile. Those creators take deals in your category; ask about exclusivity. Our guide to disclosure on Instagram and TikTok covers what the label means for you.

Instagram accounts are personal or professional, and professional ones come as Business or Creator (Instagram's help page). Switching is free. A professional account often shows a category such as "Digital creator" under the name. The difference matters to you in three ways:

• Contact details. Professional accounts can add contact options, including an email address, to the profile. A creator on a personal account has to put an address in the bio or on a linked page. See how to find an Instagram creator's email.
• Data. Creator and business accounts have Instagram's insights, including where followers are, their age ranges and gender (About Instagram insights). That's the evidence to ask for before a large deal.
• Tools. Meta's Business Discovery API, the official way for other apps to read Instagram profiles, works only for professional accounts. Tools that use it, Nakodo included, can't see personal accounts at all.

A personal account doesn't rule a creator out, but it's worth asking whether they take brand work.

Instagram doesn't show how many people viewed someone else's photo or carousel. So the usual measure is engagement per follower: (likes + comments) / followers for each recent post, then the median. Say an account has 24,000 followers and its last 12 posts have medians of 600 likes and 25 comments: (600 + 25) / 24,000 is 2.6%. Compare that with similar accounts of a similar size in your niche, not with a universal figure. The Instagram engagement rate calculator does the arithmetic.

Reels are the exception. A profile's Reels tab shows a view count on each reel, and anyone can see it unless the creator has hidden it. Instagram used to call these plays. Divide the median views of recent Reels by followers to see whether followers still watch.

1. 01

   Write 10 to 20 searches

   Mix keywords, hashtags and places, in your customer's language.

2. 02

   List accounts, not posts

   For every relevant post, open the profile and note the handle, how you found it, followers and whether it's a professional account.

3. 03

   Scan the grid and the Reels tab

   Check the last 12 posts. One post on your subject among a dozen on something else isn't a fit.

4. 04

   Work out the numbers

   Take the median (likes + comments) / followers over posts at least 3 days old, and the median Reels views divided by followers.

5. 05

   Read the comments on three recent posts

   Questions about the product suggest an audience that acts. Rows of emoji from the same few accounts suggest something else: see spotting fake followers.

6. 06

   Check past brand work, then find the contact

   Look for "Paid partnership" labels, #ad and Collab posts. Then find the business email the creator publishes.

Nakodo reads your website and writes a brief you can edit, with your markets, the kind of creator, a follower range and 3 to 6 groups of search keywords. The same keywords are searched on every platform, with no separate hashtag lists. On Instagram it finds accounts with web searches limited to instagram.com, then reads profiles through Meta's official Business Discovery API. That works only for public professional accounts, so personal accounts are never read.

For each account it reads followers, the bio, the website field and the latest 12 posts: captions, likes (unless hidden), comment counts and dates. Instagram doesn't share other accounts' view counts this way, so engagement is (likes + comments) / followers. Every account gets a score from 0 to 100 with written reasons. Comment quality is left out, and because Instagram doesn't share country or language, those count as neutral.

Nakodo then emails the best fits that publish an email on your behalf, or only the ones you pick. It doesn't use Instagram's Email button and doesn't send DMs. The Free plan searches Instagram and TikTok; see pricing and how Nakodo works.