TikTok Micro Influencers: How They Can Help Grow Your Brand – and How to Find Them

Ready to locate the best micro influencers and kickstart your TikTok marketing campaign?

Here’s how – in just 8 simple steps.

First up? Figuring out who your audience is.

Knowing exactly who you’re catering to – their ideal age, gender, pain points, goals, and likes/dislikes – is a vital first step in choosing the right TikTok micro influencer.

You’ll want the micro influencers you get in touch with to be liked by your target audience, after all. And typically, that means picking content creators that operate in a niche similar to your own.

Do you sell food online? Pick a micro influencer that creates culinary content. Are you a purveyor of plants? Choose a content creator of the green-fingered variety. Is your target audience based in India? Don’t bother – TikTok’s been banned there for two years!

Now you know who your TikTok marketing campaign is targeting, it’s time to figure out the why.

What are your campaign’s goals? They could include:

• Increasing awareness of your brand
• Advertising (and selling!) your products or services
• Starting a conversation about your business
• Building an engaged community around your brand
• Inviting feedback about your products, brand, or business as a whole

You’ll also want to look at specific metrics, such as:

• Total video views
• Total amount of likes
• Reach of a specific hashtag
• Number of plays of a particular song
• Comments and shares
• Uptick in sales or traffic to your website

Got your metrics downpat? Time to start reaching out!

Well… almost time. Because, before you begin contacting new influencers, you’ll want to get in touch with ones you’re already working with first.

Many micro influencers have presences across several social platforms. So if you’re partnering with one on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter – and they’ve been delivering results – chances are they’re also active and successful on TikTok.

Whatever your TikTok goals, nailing the right hashtags is imperative.

Not only will they help you identify potential micro influencers, they’ll also give you a better understanding of your competitors. Hashtags will boost your reach and visibility, too – and, by gleaning inspo from the content rival businesses are producing (and the gaps from what they’re not) you can inform your own TikTok marketing strategy.

To dive deep into hashtags related to your brand and industry, head to TikTok’s “Discover” page. Here, you can get acquainted not only with the hashtags you’ll need to be plumbing in your marketing campaign, but the TikTok creators that are already producing hot content in that space.

If they’re generating regular, compelling video content – and have several thousand followers – chances are they’re the TikTok micro influencer you’ve been looking for.

Now, it’s time for some measured corporate espionage – finding out exactly what your competitors are up to.

Are they using TikTok? Are they working with micro influencers there already, and – if so – who? Fortunately, there’s an easy way to find out.

Simply head to your competitor’s TikTok page. From there, you can see which Creators they’re collaborating with, and – by clicking through to their pages – snoop on the hashtags they’re using to gain traction.

Understanding which hashtags your competition’s micro influencers are relying on is hugely important. These hashtags are relevant to your rival’s audience, which – by extension – means they’re relevant to your audience, too. By using them in your own content and campaigns, you’re tapping into a highly specific, highly commercial group of consumers.

Of course, if you lack the time, energy, or know-how to recruit your own micro influencers, there’s an easier way…

…hiring someone to do it for you!

There’s a wealth of agencies out there that specialize in connecting your brand with TikTok micro influencers. They’ll do the hard work (i.e. steps 1-5 on this list!) for you, patching you through to the TikTok micro influencers best-suited to your brand. For a fee, of course!

Next, draw up a shortlist of the TikTok micro influencers you’ve identified so far.

Then, research them – doing your due diligence into the content they’re creating, the followers they’re cultivating, and the kind of interaction they’re getting from their audience.

In particular, you’ll want to look at their engagement rate. After all, a TikTok micro influencer can have a lot of followers. But that doesn’t always mean they’re consistently interested – or actively involved – in what the Creator is saying.

To calculate a TikTok micro influencer’s engagement rate, analyze their content with the following formula:

[(Number of likes + number of comments + number of shares) / number of views] X 100%

With this, you’ll be able to separate the quality from the mere quantity.

Finally, it’s time to get in touch with your chosen micro influencer to find out exactly how much they charge.

To do this, you can send them a direct message on TikTok. If they have an agent (less likely than macro influencers, but still possible) contact them – those details should be in the Creator’s bio.

From here, it’s time to figure out just how much your TikTok micro influencer charges. So be direct in broaching the topic, and remember – feel free to negotiate!