How To Find Brands Looking For Influencers

As a micro-influencer or content creator, it can feel like everyone BUT you has landed a brand deal. But as an influencer manager, I have good news: The process for finding brands to collab is simpler than you think! I’ll show you how to find brands looking for influencers, including six methods I have personally used to land over $500,000 in brand deals for clients. And once you find them, you can work on honing your pitch to brands and making your media kit!

1. How To Find Brands Aligned With Your Niche: Make A List!

Before you take steps to find brands that work with influencers, you need some direction. Make a detailed list of brands you would like to work with that align with your niche and audience.

If you’re a micro-influencer, you may come up with some huge names on this list – that’s okay. The point is to get an idea of the types of brands you want to work with. In your searches, you’ll likely find other related brands that will still fit in your niche and want to work with smaller influencers.

For example, say I’m a small mom blogger who would love to work with Gerber. That’s a well-known brand, so I might not be ready to work with them yet. But, that doesn’t mean I won’t find other small baby brands that my audience would still love and that I would feel comfortable recommending to them.

Nobody does this step – that’s a mistake. It will be the primary resource for the kinds of brands you want to target.

And don’t limit yourself to just a few brands. Think about ALL the problems your target audience has, what products and services solve those problems, and then the brands you identify with that create those solutions.

2. How To Find Brands Looking For Influencers On Instagram & Social Media

After you have your list, pay close attention to brands that already collaborate with influencers. It’s easiest on Instagram because you can scan photos faster, but you can find brands looking for influencers on any platform.

This way, instead of assuming every brand has a sponsorship budget (spoiler: they don’t!), you can target ones that already prioritize influencer marketing and would be more willing to make influencer brand deals with you.

You probably come into contact with sponsored content every day on your social platforms – so pay attention! You can easily find brands to work with on Instagram and other platforms simply by scrolling through your home feed with accounts you already follow.

Look for sponsored hashtags, disclosures (such as “sponsored by” or “partnered with”), or just any content where an influencer is clearly advertising a product or service for a brand.

You’ll be in the best position to send a pitch to brands if you can find one that works with micro-influencers in your niche with a similar audience size. That means that the brand would likely be a fit for you, too!

3. Look At Other Influencer Accounts

You found companies looking for influencers on your home feeds – now branch out to accounts you don’t follow and do some reverse engineering.

Find bloggers and influencers in your niche with a similar audience size that you don’t already follow, and take a long look at their accounts. Do the long scroll and see if they have done any recent brand work.

If they have a website, this is the time where I like to search for keywords like “sponsored” in their search bar, but looking through their social feeds is an equally easy way if they don’t have a site.

Priorities (and budgets) change all the time among brands looking for micro influencers, so ideally you’ll find brands with recent partnerships (the last 6 months to a year). But, even brands with older partnerships are worth considering if they make an excellent fit with your niche and audience.

4. How To Find Brands Using Hashtags

This is my least favorite method, but you can also learn how to find brands on Instagram and other platforms using hashtags.

Since the FTC requires influencers to disclose their partnerships, you’ll often see hashtags like #spon, #ad, or #sponsored on their posts. Simply follow the hashtags or search them periodically to see if you can spot any fitting brands.

As you look on your own feed and other influencer accounts for sponsored content, you may also find specialty hashtags that brands ask influencers to use on their sponsored campaigns. For example, influencers working with the ingredient brand Knorr used to use #KnorrPartner on their posts.

This isn’t the most effective method because the general hashtags come up with all kinds of generic or irrelevant content that may not even qualify as brand collaborations, but once in a while you’ll find a potential lead.

5. Find Networking Opportunities

Whether in-person or online, connecting with other micro-influencers can be a goldmine for uncovering potential brand collabs.

You can attend blogger and influencer events if you really want to invest in making brand relationships, but simple Facebook groups work too (even if it’s not your main platform as an influencer).

These groups naturally attract micro-influencers and small brands, so they’re a great way to connect with others and communicate about potential collabs.

Connecting with others is one of the best ways to raise everyone up – so it’s worth a try!

6. Use Influencer Marketplaces To Find Brands

Influencer marketing platforms are the most plug-and-play way to find paid influencer programs and collab with brands.

These platforms are free for you to use. Aspire, TapInfluence, Izea, Mvrck, and Impact are popular ones I have used, but there are dozens more and you can apply to as many as you like.

The main drawback to these platforms is that they do not pay as highly as finding brands yourself and setting your own sponsored post rates, but they are a good way to get started if you have only done gifted collabs or affiliate marketing up to this point.

Based on your engagement rates and other details you add to your application, some of these platforms even suggest brands that fit well with you! If you’re totally new to the game, it’s an easy way to jump in and try working with brands.

Can You Learn How To Find Brands Looking For Influencers?

It’s easy to learn how to find brands looking for influencers – you just need a solid strategy! To increase your chances for sponsorship opportunities, aim for brands that are already working with influencers that fit well with your niche and audience.