Defining your ideal creator

You're not looking for "big" creators — you're looking for creators whose audience looks like your customer and whose content fits your product. This topic turns that into a one-paragraph profile (an ICP — ideal creator profile) you write before you search.

A tight, written profile is what makes the next phase — Discovery — fast. With it, every search has a filter and you can tell a fit from a near-miss in seconds. Without it, you scroll for days and end up judging on follower count, which is the least reliable signal there is.

A good profile captures four things, plus a size band:

• Audience — location, age range, and the interest that overlaps your buyer.
• Content — the format that sells your product (demo, review, lifestyle, education).
• Size band — the follower range you'll consider; nano-to-micro usually wins for SMB budgets.
• Fit signals — past brand work in your category, and comments that read like real buyers.

1. Fill in the four fields for your product and buyer.
2. Pick a size band that matches your budget (nano 1k–10k, micro 10k–100k).
3. Write it as one paragraph you can paste at the top of your tracker.
4. Map each field to a search filter so the profile becomes your query.

Worked example: "We want nano-to-micro creators on Instagram and TikTok whose audience is US women 25–40 into clean skincare, who make honest review and routine content, ideally with past skincare collabs and a comments section full of real questions." Those four fields map straight onto a search platform's filters, so the profile is your query.

• Optimising for follower count over audience fit.
• Leaving the profile vague, so discovery has no filter.
• Skipping fit signals and ending up with off-brand creators.

• Keep the profile to one paragraph — long enough to filter, short enough to remember.
• Revisit it after the first campaign; your best converters teach you what to search for.
• Write a separate mini-profile for UGC creators, where content quality outranks audience.

• Define audience, content, size band, and fit signals.
• Write it as one paragraph before you search.
• Map each field to a filter so the profile becomes your query.

With your profile in hand, you're ready for Discovery.