As one of the oldest social media still in existence, Twitter has built a large user base. In fact, Twitter reached 436 million monthly users in 2022. This means brands have great potential to reach their target customers on the platform. One of the ways is by using Influencer Marketing and collaborating with Influencers.

So, how do you find influencers that fit your brand perfectly? Here are 5 tips and tools to help you find Twitter Influencers.

Find the Right Twitter Influencers and Consider Your Brand

Before you decide to seek out influencers, you need to consider your brand first. Some industries might find influencers easier to identify with than others. Fashion and beauty brands are two industries that already use influencer marketing the most. Other brands that work well with influencer marketing include food and beverage, travel and lifestyle, technology, and health and wellness.

With that in mind, the next step is the hardest part of Twitter influencer marketing. Most marketers believe finding and choosing the best and most relevant influencers is the most challenging part of influence marketing. There are different types of influencers, and not all of them will give value to your brand. Once you’ve entrusted someone to share your products, that person becomes an extension of your brand.

So, do your research thoroughly. Investigate an influencer’s previous contents to decide if they will be a good reflection of your brand’s value. It is okay to work with influencers that don’t have large followings, but with fake ones, you may never recover from it. 

Use Twitter Search

The easiest way to start looking for Twitter influencers is simply using the Twitter search bar. Compile a list of relevant keywords and hashtags for your industry and enter them into the search bar. If you don’t know what hashtags or keywords are currently the most relevant in your brand industry, you can use All Hashtag to help. All Hashtag is a hashtag analytics tool that can help to find the top relevant hashtags in the industry for you.

You can choose to focus on the Top or People tab. On the Top tab, look for the tweets with the hashtag and have a lot of retweets to find the most popular influencers. The profiles with more followers will likely be the ones worth focusing on. As for the People tab, find profiles that regularly use the hashtag and prioritize ones with a blue tick. A blue tick means they are a verified user and a good indicator of their credibility and reputation in the industry.

Yet, this approach will take a lot of time as you’ll have to search for each term manually. You can’t filter the results, so you need to analyze each profile individually to ensure they’re a great match and meet your criteria.

Find Influencers List on Twitter

You can expand your search for Twitter influencers from the search bar to Twitter lists. These are curated lists of Twitter users around a certain theme. Once you find some influencers in your industry, check their Twitter profile, and click on “Lists.”

Here you will see all the lists they follow and the lists they belong to, which are added by other people. Going through the Twitter lists on influencer profiles is one of the faster ways to find new influencers to follow and connect with.

Use Twitter Analytics Tools for Twitter Influencer Mapping

Manually looking for Twitter influencers can be too time-consuming, considering the number of Twitter users and the hashtags and keywords you need to filter. Plus, once you find some influencers that potentially fit your brand, you still need to analyze their profiles which is kind of impossible to do manually.

Using an analytic tool that has the ability to identify and find Twitter influencers will help you search with multiple filters to run a faster and more targeted search. In minutes you will already have a list of relevant influencers in your brand industry.

Analytic tools promise both quality and quantity. You can find a huge list of influencers using keywords and hashtags. Then, you can start filtering the results and create a shortlist to categorize each influencer. Engagement rate, follower count, geo-location, content, and audience demographic are some categories that you can focus on.

Some analytics tools you can use are Awario, Upfluence, Buzzsumo, and soon Analisa.io. These tools will do the identification and mapping of Twitter influencers for you. These tools will provide you with detailed performance data of influencers' profiles. You will use these data to decide whether they are a perfect fit.

Aside from offering paid plans, some of the tools provide a free trial or use. Awario offers a 2-week free trial, Buzzsumo offers a limited search for free, and Upfluence only offers paid plans with personalized prices. As for Analisa.io, this tool will launch new features to include Twitter analytics powered by AI soon.

Start Conversations to Connect with Twitter Influencers

Lastly, start a conversation and build a connection with the Twitter influencer that you choose to represent your brand. Don’t forget that working with influencers is a reciprocal relationship. You are borrowing their followers to deliver a commercial message about your brand. That’s why the influencer is valuable.

If the influencer is experienced, they probably already know at this point that you want to start a collaboration with them. However, building a connection will boost your chance rather than just pitching one out of the blue without prior contact. Plus, this will make your collaborations much more genuine and meaningful.

It’s also important to note not to make the influencers feel like you’re “using” them. So, it’s recommended to pitch a paid collaboration once you have built a good relationship with them.