As of 2023, YouTube amasses an astonishing 2.68 billion active users each month, and over the next few years, that number is only expected to grow. And, according to Wyzowl, 73 percent of shoppers want to watch a video to learn about a product or service and understand what they’re buying makes YouTube one of the best influencer marketing platforms.
It’s no wonder then, that brands across industries want to partner with YouTube influencers to build awareness and engagement. But with millions of video creators on the platform, the challenge is finding influencers that align with your brand’s style, values, and audience.
Below, we cover how to tap into YouTube’s potential and find the right influencers to partner with to impact brand awareness, loyalty, and sales.
What You Need to Consider Before Reaching Out to Influencers
Let’s start with the basics: a YouTube content creator or YouTube influencer is a user on the platform with a considerably large subscriber base, who showcases products and services to their subscribers to help them discover products they’re interested in and, ahem, influencing them to make a purchase. Micro-influencers are largely the same; the key difference being that they have a generally lower subscriber count, typically within the range of 10,000 and 100,000, but that’s a relative term and varies greatly based on product or category or topic…and so on.
Of course, it’s common knowledge that plenty of influencers, large and small, exist in the YouTube space. So should you just cut right to contacting the most well-known personalities on the platform? Big flashing red light sign: no! Don’t just dive right in with an offer before you’ve done your homework on your campaign and on the influencer. Here are a few steps you’ll need to take before you begin finding influencers for your brand:
- Determine your campaign’s ultimate goal
- Choose key performance indicators that align with that objective
- Lay out the entire campaign’s budget
- Consider the influencer you’ll work with based on your budget
- Determine your ideal influencer and their audience, so you know what you’re looking for
- Have an idea of what you want your YouTube influencer marketing campaigns to look like in terms of tone, style, and key messages
When you take the time to define your goals and understand how you will measure them, both your influencer deals and your campaign results will have a much more solid foundation for a partnership that performs.
6 Tips to Find YouTube Influencers to Work with Your Brand
Even if you’re already sold on YouTube influencer marketing as a business strategy, you may have no idea how to find influencers to work with. Now that you know what to look for in a partnership, though, you’re ready to branch out and learn how to find the right YouTubers.
1. Use Hashtags
As with most social media platforms, hashtags are a great way to search for people discussing a specific topic. One way to think of hashtags is they’re a way to see a list of creators for a particular topic. Write out and discover hashtags related to your brand or product or service, then search for them on YouTube to see who’s talking about what’s happening in your industry. Examples included #minecraft, #foodporn, and #grwm (for Get Ready with Me-style videos, like this one). Be sure to check in on this on an ongoing basis, too.
2. Set Google Alerts
Video content always pops up on Google’s search engine results pages, an intentional aspect on Google’s part. Consequently, setting a Google alert for a topic, product, or news event you want to follow in your niche might be a good idea. It will also help you know when someone is talking about your brand, whether through video or written content, enabling you to seek out potential partnerships.
3. Use Brand Tags
If you want to find YouTube influencers, it’s likely helpful to search for them on other platforms. This can serve as both a discovery tool and a way to vet potential partners and understand what they’re putting out in the world beyond YouTube. Instagram brand tags allow influencers to tag products in their Reels, stories, and feed photos, so if you notice that someone has tagged a product in your niche, investigate further to see if that creator has a YouTube channel centered around it. If so, they may be willing to work with your brand and promote your products.
4. See Who’s Following Your Favorite Influencers
YouTube influencers often follow others in their niche. The next time you visit your favorite influencer’s Instagram or TikTok profile, check out the users commenting on their posts. See if any niche-related handles stand out to you, and search their profiles to see if they run a YouTube channel related to your industry. You don’t necessarily have to have a grasp on handles or users to get a good, if general, feel for their audience engagement.
5. Pay Attention to YouTube Recommendations
If you tend to watch content centered around your brand’s niche, YouTube’s algorithm will latch onto that and suggest similar content each time you log in to the platform. You may scroll past these videos regularly, but it might be helpful to give them a look to see if any were made by influencers you may want to partner with in the future. Remember, it’s all about the YouTube algorithm in your feed, too—meaning, once you start generating intent signals, related content will start appearing in your feed.
6. Explore YouTube Influencer Marketing Platforms
Platforms like MagicLinks exist to connect brands and influencers, and many will vet influencers for you, making it easy to find YouTube influencers based on specific criteria.
Using a Youtube influencer marketing platform will cut out most of the legwork and provide you with data-driven insights about your campaigns. Plus, you’ll connect with creators who are already making impactful content and can add value to your brand.
The Right Influencer Can Make All the Difference
As video continues to be the preferred method for delivering brand content to potential customers, partnering and marketing with YouTube influencers will become a more necessary strategy for brands, but it’s important to remember that who you work with matters.
You believe wholeheartedly in your brand and what you offer to your customers, so you must take the time to think about your campaign goals, strengthen the “muscle” to identify potential partners, and only work with influencers you think will align with your goals and values.
When you find content creators and influencers that reciprocate and want to work with you, do what you can to build a mutually beneficial long-term relationship. Think long-term from the beginning—it’ll most likely be well-received by your partners. You’re not just spending money on their services: you’re investing in the future of your brand and their business.
