How to find TikTok influencers for your brand

Write two lines first: who your customer is, and the problem that sends them looking. "Renters with a dark flat who want plants" suggests searches. "Plant lovers aged 18 to 35" suggests nothing. Then search three ways, because TikTok groups videos by keyword, by hashtag and by sound, and each route turns up different creators.

Keyword search

Type what your customer would, problem first: "plants for dark rooms", "sour espresso fix". Switch to the video results and use the date filter, so you see accounts posting now rather than one old hit.

Hashtag pages

Broad tags are crowded with the largest accounts. Community tags, many ending in "tok" like BookTok or CleanTok, are where enthusiasts post for each other, and where smaller creators with engaged viewers sit.

Sounds

Every sound has a page listing the videos that use it. When a good fit's original sound catches on, its page shows who copied the format: often smaller creators in the same niche.

• [problem] hack
• [product] honest review
• is [product] worth it
• what I use for [task]
• [activity] routine
• day in the life [job or hobby]
• [product] haul
• [niche]tok

TikTok's For You feed shows videos to people who don't follow the creator. TikTok has said that "neither follower count nor whether the account has had previous high-performing videos are direct factors" in what it recommends (How TikTok recommends videos). A follower count records past hits. It doesn't say who will see the next video.

So count plays. Say account A has 90,000 followers and a median of 6,000 plays over its last 12 videos: about 7% of its followers. Account B has 8,000 followers and a median of 9,000 plays, more than its whole following. For a paid video, B is likely to deliver more. The TikTok engagement rate calculator works out the medians for you.

• Skip the pinned videos. They sit first in the grid with a "Pinned" label, and are often the creator's biggest hits from months or years ago.
• Ignore the profile's total likes. It adds up every video ever posted, viral ones included.
• Read the plays on recent videos. Each thumbnail shows its play count. Leave out anything under 3 days old, because it's still collecting plays.
• Check the rhythm. Open a few videos to see their dates. You need steady posting over recent months to plan a video around.
• Look for past branded content. TikTok labels a post "Paid partnership" when the creator switches on its disclosure setting for a brand (TikTok's guide to branded content). That, or #ad in a caption, shows they take deals.

1. 01

   Write 10 to 20 searches

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

2. 02

   Note accounts, not videos

   For every relevant video, open the profile and add it to a spreadsheet: handle, link, the search that found it, followers.

3. 03

   Check the topic across the grid

   Scan the captions of the last 15 to 20 videos. One video on your subject among twenty on something else is luck, not a fit.

4. 04

   Work out median plays

   Skip pinned videos and anything under 3 days old, write down the plays of the next 10 to 15, and take the middle value. Divide by followers for plays per follower.

5. 05

   Open three recent videos

   Note likes and comments for engagement per view, read the comments for language and real questions, and look for a "Paid partnership" label.

6. 06

   Shortlist, then find the contact they publish

   Creators who take brand work often put a business email in their bio or on a linked page: see how to find a TikToker's email.

If plays sit far below accounts of the same size, or the comments could sit under any video, our guide to spotting fake followers covers what to check next.

• Comments under similar creators. Smaller creators comment on bigger accounts in their niche, and their handles link to their profiles.
• Duets and stitches. Each links back to the video it responds to. Follow those links both ways: to the creators a good fit replies to, and to the creators replying to popular videos in your niche.
• Competitors' paid partnerships. Search a competitor's name for the "Paid partnership" label or #ad, and see which creators its own account reposts or stitches. A Spark Ad runs from the creator's own post, so it shows their handle: see our guide to Spark Ads. Ask about exclusivity.
• Your own customers. People who already post about your product are often the easiest fits.
• Your For You feed. TikTok treats finishing a longer video as a strong sign of interest, so watching good fits to the end, on your brand's account, brings similar creators into the feed.

TikTok runs its own directory for brands inside TikTok One. Its help page on finding creators describes a search by username or keyword, with filters for creator details (country or region, follower count, language), audience details (country, age range, gender ratio) and performance (median video views, engagement rate). Profiles show performance trends, audience demographics, recent organic and sponsored videos, and a collaboration score. You can shortlist creators and invite them to a project, and TikTok sends the invitation.

You need a TikTok One account, and the directory covers creators who have joined, which requires them to be 18 or over and in a country or region where TikTok One has launched. Its audience figures come from TikTok itself, which makes it worth using alongside search where it's available.

Nakodo reads your website and writes a brief you can edit: what you sell, your markets, the kind of creator and a follower range, and 3 to 6 groups of search keywords. The same keywords are searched on every platform, so there's no separate hashtag list to keep. On TikTok it finds accounts with web searches limited to tiktok.com, then reads each public profile while logged out: followers, bio, bio link, region and language. Private accounts are skipped.

It reads recent videos with captions and plays, plus exact plays, likes and comments for 3 recent videos at least 3 days old. Engagement is (likes + comments) / views. Each account gets a score from 0 to 100 with written reasons, on fixed thresholds against its own numbers; region and language count towards audience fit. Comment quality is left out, because comments aren't read on TikTok.

Nakodo then emails the best fits that publish an email on your behalf, or only the ones you pick. It never sends DMs. The Free plan searches Instagram and TikTok; see pricing, and the full method on how Nakodo works.