01-29-2019, 07:38 PM
Here’s a method I’ve been using for a little while: it isn’t perfect but I hope it helps some people on the forum.
The core idea is that Instagram has some very active users with lots of engaged followers – these users are the so-called influencers, and many of them are not averse to taking your money (but not much) and promoting your product or service to their loyal followers.
So, wouldn’t it be great if we could find influential Instagrammers, preferably undiscovered (and therefore likely to be more affordable), then reach out them, pay them a few bucks and get them to promote our stuff? This is the idea behind a recent post in the freebie section of BBHF, and I recommend you read that because it’s helpful although not all of it (especially the points about pricing), are way too optimistic in my opinion:
Finding good influencers is not so easy though. I have looked at several techniques, combining Google searches with Instagram searches, but at the end of all that, what seems to work best is the simple hashtag search:
• Choose a hashtag that is related to the product or service you want to sell
• Search Instagram for that hashtag and look at only the top nine results. These are the top posts with that hashtag, and so they usually have many likes, which is influencer territory.
• Check out the posters of these top posts, and then check their user engagement and follower count. A large number of followers with high engagement means they’re ripe targets as influencers.
• Contact them and ask for a test post- and take it from there.
That’s the method outlined in the post linked to above, and it has merit as a method. BUT, it is time consuming and you need access to a service that measures engagement, and as far as I know there they all require payment of some kind.
That’s why I built a bot to do all this for me (and now you).
You can download my home-made Influencer Search Tool from HERE:
It’s basically a Ubot program that takes a list of hashtags, goes looking for the top nine posts with each hashtag, and then checks the follower and engagement, using my own API. So you end up with a list of Instagram users which you can sort by follower and engagement.
DISCLAIMER (Please read): Here’s the bit you need to read. There are two problems – one is really a non-problem and the other is a limitation. The non-problem is that compiled Ubot files generate false virus warnings in Windows, and also by Virustotal (see report in the link). The file does not have viruses, but both Windows and some of the checkers on Virustotal think it does. It’s a well-known issue among the Ubot community – you can read about it here:
BUT IF THIS WORRIES YOU, do not download the file.
Virustotal
The second problem is the limitation that with this API the bot can only return 20 checked users per run. I am sorry about that, but it’s because the API is free and if it gets overloaded it will stop working. The bot also gets upset if the internet connection is slow.
With that all out of the way, please feel free to download the program (Windows only) and run it.
It asks for a .csv file, so create a list of hashtags you want to search (without the # symbol), and save it as a .csv file.
Then point the bot to the file. Hit run and sit back. It takes a while to gather the users and then check them against the database using the API.
When finished open up the file it created in the same folder as the hashtag list, and you should have a list of Instagram users, and the first twenty have the number of followers and engagement.
I usually sort by followers, and then check the engagement numbers. If you multiply the followers by the engagement in a spreadsheet you end up with a figure of merit that I use to judge whether it’s worth considering that influencer.
The parameters I use are as follows:
• Followers should be more than 10k and less than 100k. (Why? Because influencers with more than 100k followers tend to charge silly money for sponsored posts. And those with less than 10k followers are not influential enough.)
• Anything less than 1000 figure of merit (followers x engagement) is a no-no. Ideally I prefer 4k upwards, because that indicates a hot influencer but they are fairly few and far between.
Finally check their account and make sure that the sort of stuff they post is relevant to your offer. It’s easy to get too enthusiastic at this point, but if you’re selling watches and the influencer has an account full of mobile phone photos, then that audience may not be quite so interested in what you have to sell. Take your time and be picky. You can always run the software again later and get different names to check.
Once you’ve selected some influencers, ping them a message on Instagram (you’ll need to use the IG app for this) and tell them you like their account and ask what their shoutout rates are. I’ve found this is the best way to contact people: emails, in my experience get a poor response rate.
You will probably get a response rate of around 1 in 5, and then you have to decide whether you want to give them a try. Typically you’ll end up being asked to pay between $10 and $50 for a shoutout with a link in the bio. I generally don’t like going over $20 for a first test, but it depends what you’re selling, and what the influencer is offering. Shoutouts don’t generally last for more than 24 hours, but always make sure your clickable link is accessible – there’s no point otherwise (unless you just want to drive traffic to your own IG account, which I think could work, but I haven’t tried it.)
You’ll need to provide the influencer with some imagery and hashtags. I think it’s best to make the images look like their own images, rather than making them obviously look ads. Also, encourage the influencer to add their own words, but find out what they think will work best. If this works well you will want to repeat it, so both of you need to be aware this could be a long-term relationship and therefore worth investing a bit of time to get right.
So that’s the process – it can work, but not always – just keep testing and try to avoid burning cash with marginal influencers.
Please feel free to ask questions and share results – I’m not on BBHF every day so may not be able to give you an instant answer but will do what I can.
The core idea is that Instagram has some very active users with lots of engaged followers – these users are the so-called influencers, and many of them are not averse to taking your money (but not much) and promoting your product or service to their loyal followers.
So, wouldn’t it be great if we could find influential Instagrammers, preferably undiscovered (and therefore likely to be more affordable), then reach out them, pay them a few bucks and get them to promote our stuff? This is the idea behind a recent post in the freebie section of BBHF, and I recommend you read that because it’s helpful although not all of it (especially the points about pricing), are way too optimistic in my opinion:
Magic Button :
Finding good influencers is not so easy though. I have looked at several techniques, combining Google searches with Instagram searches, but at the end of all that, what seems to work best is the simple hashtag search:
• Choose a hashtag that is related to the product or service you want to sell
• Search Instagram for that hashtag and look at only the top nine results. These are the top posts with that hashtag, and so they usually have many likes, which is influencer territory.
• Check out the posters of these top posts, and then check their user engagement and follower count. A large number of followers with high engagement means they’re ripe targets as influencers.
• Contact them and ask for a test post- and take it from there.
That’s the method outlined in the post linked to above, and it has merit as a method. BUT, it is time consuming and you need access to a service that measures engagement, and as far as I know there they all require payment of some kind.
That’s why I built a bot to do all this for me (and now you).
You can download my home-made Influencer Search Tool from HERE:
Magic Button :
It’s basically a Ubot program that takes a list of hashtags, goes looking for the top nine posts with each hashtag, and then checks the follower and engagement, using my own API. So you end up with a list of Instagram users which you can sort by follower and engagement.
DISCLAIMER (Please read): Here’s the bit you need to read. There are two problems – one is really a non-problem and the other is a limitation. The non-problem is that compiled Ubot files generate false virus warnings in Windows, and also by Virustotal (see report in the link). The file does not have viruses, but both Windows and some of the checkers on Virustotal think it does. It’s a well-known issue among the Ubot community – you can read about it here:
Magic Button :
BUT IF THIS WORRIES YOU, do not download the file.
Virustotal
Magic Button :
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/720216.../detection
Hash: 72021633accb5ddff1643d9da2e1195eca2257464f79c3abab44aa3b696fa51e
Hash: 72021633accb5ddff1643d9da2e1195eca2257464f79c3abab44aa3b696fa51e
The second problem is the limitation that with this API the bot can only return 20 checked users per run. I am sorry about that, but it’s because the API is free and if it gets overloaded it will stop working. The bot also gets upset if the internet connection is slow.
With that all out of the way, please feel free to download the program (Windows only) and run it.
It asks for a .csv file, so create a list of hashtags you want to search (without the # symbol), and save it as a .csv file.
Then point the bot to the file. Hit run and sit back. It takes a while to gather the users and then check them against the database using the API.
When finished open up the file it created in the same folder as the hashtag list, and you should have a list of Instagram users, and the first twenty have the number of followers and engagement.
I usually sort by followers, and then check the engagement numbers. If you multiply the followers by the engagement in a spreadsheet you end up with a figure of merit that I use to judge whether it’s worth considering that influencer.
The parameters I use are as follows:
• Followers should be more than 10k and less than 100k. (Why? Because influencers with more than 100k followers tend to charge silly money for sponsored posts. And those with less than 10k followers are not influential enough.)
• Anything less than 1000 figure of merit (followers x engagement) is a no-no. Ideally I prefer 4k upwards, because that indicates a hot influencer but they are fairly few and far between.
Finally check their account and make sure that the sort of stuff they post is relevant to your offer. It’s easy to get too enthusiastic at this point, but if you’re selling watches and the influencer has an account full of mobile phone photos, then that audience may not be quite so interested in what you have to sell. Take your time and be picky. You can always run the software again later and get different names to check.
Once you’ve selected some influencers, ping them a message on Instagram (you’ll need to use the IG app for this) and tell them you like their account and ask what their shoutout rates are. I’ve found this is the best way to contact people: emails, in my experience get a poor response rate.
You will probably get a response rate of around 1 in 5, and then you have to decide whether you want to give them a try. Typically you’ll end up being asked to pay between $10 and $50 for a shoutout with a link in the bio. I generally don’t like going over $20 for a first test, but it depends what you’re selling, and what the influencer is offering. Shoutouts don’t generally last for more than 24 hours, but always make sure your clickable link is accessible – there’s no point otherwise (unless you just want to drive traffic to your own IG account, which I think could work, but I haven’t tried it.)
You’ll need to provide the influencer with some imagery and hashtags. I think it’s best to make the images look like their own images, rather than making them obviously look ads. Also, encourage the influencer to add their own words, but find out what they think will work best. If this works well you will want to repeat it, so both of you need to be aware this could be a long-term relationship and therefore worth investing a bit of time to get right.
So that’s the process – it can work, but not always – just keep testing and try to avoid burning cash with marginal influencers.
Please feel free to ask questions and share results – I’m not on BBHF every day so may not be able to give you an instant answer but will do what I can.
