Finding Creators by Hand
Overview
Introduction
Finding creators is where most influencer programs stall. You open Instagram with good intentions, fall down a three-hour rabbit hole of profiles, save a few to a notes app, and have no real way to tell whether their audience is even in your country. Do that for a week and you have a messy list and no confidence in it.
This page fixes that. First, how to find influencers manually, right on the platforms — useful when you're starting out or sourcing a few specific names. Then, why a discovery platform becomes worth it the moment you're serious, and the exact step-by-step workflow we use to build a vetted shortlist fast. By the end you'll have a repeatable process you can run for every campaign, not a one-off scramble.
This step assumes you've already done the work in "Defining your ideal creator profile" — that profile is what turns "find some creators" into a concrete search.
Manual search is free, and it teaches you what "good" actually looks like in your niche. It's the right starting point when you're new to this or just sourcing a few specific names — and even after you adopt a tool, you'll keep using these moves.
When to Search by Hand
Search by hand when you only need a handful of names, or when you're still learning what a strong creator looks like in your category.
It's slow but instructive: every profile you open trains your eye.
The moment finding and vetting creators becomes a recurring job, you'll want an influencer search tool — but start here.
The Manual Moves That Actually Work
- Hashtag and keyword search
Search the hashtags your customers and creators already use (#sensitiveskin, #homeworkout, #cleanbeauty) plus the platform's keyword search. Sort by recent to surface active creators, not dormant ones.
- The Explore / For You / Reels feed.
Once you engage with your niche, the algorithm starts surfacing similar creators. Spend ten minutes liking and saving on-target content and your feed quietly becomes a discovery tool.
- Who your competitors tag (and who tags them)
Open a competitor's profile and check their tagged posts and the accounts they follow. Creators already posting about a rival are the warmest leads you'll find — they like the category and they take brand work.
- "Suggested for you" / similar accounts
When you land on a creator who fits, the platform's suggested-accounts panel points you to lookalikes. Follow the trail.
- Mine your own audience
Check who already follows, tags, and mentions you. A customer with 8k engaged followers is a near-perfect first creator — they already use the product.
- Roundups and Google
Searches like best [niche] micro influencers and blog roundups give you named starting points to branch out from.
Example: You sell a natural skincare line. Google best clean beauty micro influencers and open the top two or three roundups, each of which names 10–20 micro influencers. Look each one up, keep the ones that match your ideal creator profile, and drop the rest.
Then take your two or three favourites and run them through the "suggested accounts" move above to branch out to lookalikes that the roundup missed. One pass like this usually turns up 5–10 solid leads in under half an hour.
The Catch With Manual Search
Manual search gives you handles, not answers. You can see a follower count, but not whether the audience is real, where they live, or what the creator actually charges. That's fine for finding ten names. It breaks down the moment you need fifty vetted ones — and that's exactly where a discovery platform earns its keep.
Next up: why a discovery platform beats doing this by hand once the search becomes a recurring job.