Best Hacks to Find TikTok Influencers For Your Brand

TikTok has become one of the top social media platforms recently. With its 800 million active users worldwide, the app itself has been downloaded over 1.5 billion times and these statistics keep increasing. The audience of TikTok is 41% GenZers, and 66% of all its users are under 30. Millennials are even beginning to take it seriously!

So what are they all there for? The videos!

People share creative content on TikTok, and all these short, funny and engaging posts quickly turn into viral videos.

The platform itself wasn’t meant for promotional stuff in the beginning for obvious reasons: the creators didn’t want to freak out users with ads and paid postings. They wanted to increase their user base keeping the platform free from annoying and pushy things.

However, a lot has changed recently. Creators can now have external links in their bios and tag brand pages just like on Instagram. You can even run ads!

That means it’s time for influencer marketing to take over TikTok.

In this article, I am gonna show you different ways of finding TikTok influencers and how to start collaborating with them

How to find TikTok influencers

A good collaboration with an influencer needs proper research. In the ocean of millions of profiles, you need to find the right influencers who will be able to present your brand in a better light,  add value to your brand, generate conversions (whether it’s sales, traffic to your website, app downloads, or something else) and raise brand awareness. 

Bad research can lead to ineffective partnerships and as a result loss of time and money.

Let’s run through a few different ways of finding TikTok influencers. Because though it may sound strange, sometimes you run out of search results, especially when doing extensive research. 

There might be thousands of influencers in your niche, but you always need to change your research tactics, not to get stuck. The same is true for keywords you use, always try to keep them wide, change them from time to time, search for different variations, synonyms, and associations. 

Let’s start exploring.

Searching for influencers inside TikTok

TikTok hashtags are an inseparable part of the platform because of challenges that are highly popular by the TikTok community. TikTokers create trends and challenge each other, mostly by dancing the same dance, repeating the same tricks, using the same music, 

However, every TikTok user aims to make it even more creative and fun, because that can help them appear on the recommendations page and gain millions of followers overnight.

To find influencers covering specific topics, start searching relevant TikTok hashtags for your niche, for example, #travel

Go to Users or Videos section to discover profiles with a big amount of followers or Videos with the most impressions.

Finding TikTokers through Instagram

Another way to find TikTok influencers is through Instagram influencers. 

Discovering TikTok influencers through Searchmy.bio

Searchmybio is a free tool that allows you to search Instagram influencers’ bio information. 

To find TikTok influencers simply use the keyword “TikTok” in the search bar of the tool. Instagram influencers who want to also grow their TikTok usually mention their TikTok username or include the link in their Instagram bio. And that’s how the tool is gonna detect them. 

You can later find TikTok influencers via their Instagram accounts.

Searching on TikTok’s official Instagram account

A good hack to find TikTok influencers is to keep an eye on TikTok’s official Instagram account, which periodically reposts the most popular videos and challenges from TikTok. The best part is that videos have the usernames of TikTokers on the upper right corner, so you can easily find them.

If you’re hunting for bigger fish, go through the list of profiles TikTok’s Official Instagram page is following.

Tools to find TikTok influencers

The TikTok creator marketplace is one good tool to find TikTok influencers. 

You should apply as a brand and within 1-2 days you’ll be able to view the TikTokers who are open to collaboration.

After your request is approved, you can start your research by choosing different criteria, such as the influencer’s age, average views, audience country, etc.

After you find TikTok influencers, check their profiles. You can reach out to them directly through the tool, filling all the necessary information in the form provided. You can upload files, mention what you expect from the collaboration (gain brand exposure, increase product sales, encourage downloads, etc), and even suggest an initial fee.

Hypetrace is another great tool helping you find TikTok influencers and not only. The advantage of this tool over the previous ones is that it can also be used for Instagram research and can provide you with your contacts’ emails. 

All you need to do is mention the topics, location, or other criteria. Don’t forget to put a tick on “Has an email” to get the emails instantly. 

The free plan has lots of limitations, however, the starter plan costs $49 a month, which is quite affordable.  

Finding TikTokers’ emails

There are several ways of finding TikTokers’ contact information:

1. TikTok bio: Lots of TikTokers include their emails in their bio sections making it easier for brands to reach out to them. It’s also a positive sign that they are open to collaborations.
2. TikToker’s Instagram: TikTok allows you to link your other social media pages to your TikTok, such as Instagram, YouTube, etc. Whenever you don’t find their email in their TikTok bio, jump to Instagram. And if it’s a business profile, you can find their email simply by clicking on Email button (this works only on Instagram’s mobile app)
3. From YouTube: If a TikToker has linked his TikTok to his YouTube channel, go to their channel’s About section. You’ll most likely find a contact email there.

How to outreach TikTok influencers

Outreach is not less important than the first two phases. TikTokers, especially the most popular ones receive tons of messages a day, so you need to stand out from the crowd somehow. 

Think of a good subject line

Best practice shows that short and to the point subject lines work the best. I usually use these types of combinations

“[Influencer’s first name] x [brand name]: Collaboration offer”

This subject line always works just great, because influencers, just like you, seek for partnerships, and in this subject line you clearly show why you’re reaching out to them.
I got more than 90% open rate the last time I sent emails with this subject line

Another good working subject line is: 

“Trying to reach [influencer’s first name]: Collaboration offer”

It might sound ridiculous, but one good hack to stand out in an inbox full of emails, is to intentionally forget to put a subject line. Yes, no subject line at all! That worked for me several times, but leave it as the last shot.

Create the perfect pitch

A pitch to an influencer shouldn’t be very long. Influencers are very busy. They don’t want to read touching stories of how you came up with the idea and how much you love them.

Better talk about what you have in mind, how you see the collaboration, what’s your offer, and what will they get. Let them know exactly what to expect from the collaboration.

Read our comprehensive article about Influencer Outreach Best Practices.

Partnering with TikTok influencers might be relatively new and challenging, but good things don’t grow in comfort zones. One thing that is for sure is that every new platform should be tested and used as soon as possible, because early adopters get the biggest slice of cake. 

Though big brands have started actively using TikTok influencer marketing as one of the most important directions of their marketing strategies, smaller brands are mostly hesitant to try TikTok over their traditional Instagram marketing. 

However, taking into consideration that TikTok influencer rates are also relatively low, my advice is to give it a try. Start with smaller influencers and see how TikTokers engage with your brand. And don’t forget to generate as many out of the box ideas as you can, as one thing TikTok doesn’t stand for is boring and usual content.