Instagram and TikTok are often the first choices for brands that want to tap into influencer marketing. In fact, you can expect the highest ROI from Instagram influencers. So, it's safe to say that if you need an influencer for your campaigns, Instagram will be just the place to find one.
Instagram is also a visually driven platform and, hence, lends itself well to influencer collaborations, as influencers can show products or services aesthetically through Reels and carousel posts. More importantly, you can find influencers of all sizes on Instagram.
Nano-influencers (1k to 10k followers) charge anywhere between $10 and $100 per post on Instagram, while mid-tier influencers can charge $500 on average. The platform also has larger influencers that charge in the thousands, some going up to $5,000 or higher per post.
Searching for the right influencer manually can be pretty tedious. Then, you have to create a contract and monitor the campaign yourself.
Influencer marketing platforms for Instagram make all these tasks easier. Let's look at the best options to kickstart your influencer campaigns on Instagram.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing that involves collaborating with individuals who have a significant following and influence over potential buyers. The basic premise is that an influencer has the trust, loyalty, and attention of their audience, and can influence their followers to take action based on their recommendations.
Influencers come in various sizes, from nano influencers with less than 1,000 followers to mega influencers with over a million followers. The type of influencer a brand chooses to work with depends on factors such as budget, target audience, and campaign goals.
Influencer marketing campaigns typically involve the following steps:
- Finding relevant influencers to partner with
- Agreeing on a brief that outlines expectations and deliverables
- Managing the content production process
- Signing off on the final content
- The influencer posting the content to their social platform
- Measuring the campaign's return on investment (ROI)
Brands tap into influencer marketing because it works for them, consumers, and influencers alike. For brands, influencer marketing can drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales. For consumers, they are more likely to trust recommendations from influencers they follow. And for influencers, it provides an opportunity to monetize their audience.
What Are Influencer Marketing Platforms?
Influencer marketing platforms are specialized software solutions designed to assist brands in developing and executing influencer marketing strategies. These platforms serve as intermediaries, connecting brands with social media influencers, streamlining the process of collaboration, and enhancing campaign management.
Key Features of Influencer Marketing Software
- Influencer Discovery: Brands can search for influencers based on various criteria, including audience demographics, interests, and engagement metrics. This feature helps identify influencers who align with the brand's target audience and marketing goals.
- Campaign Management: These platforms facilitate the planning and execution of influencer campaigns. They provide tools for briefing influencers, tracking content creation, and managing communications, ensuring smooth collaboration.
- Performance Analytics: Influencer marketing platforms offer detailed analytics on campaign performance, including reach, engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI). This data allows brands to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns and make informed decisions for future strategies.
- Payment Processing: Many platforms handle payment transactions between brands and influencers, simplifying the financial aspects of collaborations. They may also assist in negotiating influencer fees.
Top Influencer Marketing Platforms for Instagram in 2024:
1. Sprout Social
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn
Towards the end of 2023, Sprout Social acquired Tagger Media, Inc. to expand its social media management offering to influencer marketing. Thanks to this acquisition, Sprout Social users can now also use the tool for end-to-end influencer campaign management.
Tagger Media has been recognized for its excellence in influencer marketing technology, named as a finalist for AiMCO’s Best #InfluencerMarketing Technology Service Award in 2024. In 2023, it achieved notable distinctions across various categories, affirming its status as a top influencer marketing platform.
For more social proof, you just need to look at its client list. It’s trusted by global brands like DKNY, Paramount, and Harley-Davidson.
From finding creators to analytics and reporting and basically everything that happens in between, it has a range of tools to help. That said, analytics aren’t used exclusively towards the end for measuring campaign effectiveness.
From the get-go, the platform leverages analytics to help with influencer search. Tagger by Sprout Social offers engagement rate analysis to vet an influencer’s authenticity. This is done by comparing their follower count to their engagement metrics.
Key Features
The platform offers smart filters to simplify the influencer search process further. There are over 50 unique filters that you can combine.
Alternatively, you can leave it to the Affinity Engine (its proprietary algorithm) to match you with relevant Instagram creators or use Sync. With Sync, you can create a custom landing page to attract potential influencers.
Once you’ve found the right Instagram influencers, you can use its Campaign Management tool to activate your Instagram campaign at scale.
Jake Hay, Head of Business Development at PopShorts, highlights its powerful user interface (UI) as one of the features that helps with campaign management. Key tasks like communication and content approval can be done in one place, helping save time.
Additional Offerings
It also offers other campaign management features like labels and creator and collaborator portals. Labels let you create lists to organize your influencers while portals can be set up to organize feedback and approvals for the selected influencers via an easy-to-use interface.
Another area where it shines is in terms of reporting. It includes a Content Health dashboard where you can find AI-generated insights for your influencers’ historical performance metrics. You can use it to evaluate engagement based on a specific social platform, making it especially useful if you want to zoom in on one platform like Instagram.
It also offers a Campaign Summary that you can use to gather all the social data automatically. You get to define the parameters, making the data relevant to your campaign goals.
In terms of the type of results you can expect, you can refer to the several case studies shared on its website. For example, Madden Media managed to generate an earned media value of more than $64,000.
Working with only six food influencers, they created 162 posts, the bulk which was created for Instagram. Of the 162 posts, there were 131 Instagram Stories, 10 Instagram Reels, 4 Instagram Carousels, and 3 Instagram photos.
Pricing Model
Like many SaaS platforms, Sprout Social also offers multiple levels of subscription as well as extra features that are available as paid add-ons. This is the case with their influencer marketing. Pricing starts at $249 per seat per month when billed monthly, but to use it for influencer marketing you’ll need to reach out to them about the pricing of influencer marketing which is an additional premium solution.
2. Brandwatch Influencer Marketing Software
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter), Twitch, TikTok, Shopify
Brandwatch is an all-in-one marketing platform with features ranging from content marketing to influencer campaigns. The latter is powered by the company’s massive marketplace with over 30 million creators from all over the world.
Thanks to the platform’s filters, it’s easy to pinpoint the right influencers for your Instagram campaigns. You can filter influencers by gender, age, language, location, engagement rate, and similar metrics.
The marketplace has a built-in “Analyze” feature that lets you check the audience of any influencer before reaching out. You can also check which geographical region the influencer’s audience is based in before running your global campaigns.
Key Features
The most notable feature of Brandwatch is that it’s not limited to influencer marketing. Companies can get a holistic view of their brand’s online presence with the platform’s social listening, social content management, and other offerings.
For example, Samsung used Brandwatch to access billions of social conversations happening around its brand and products. The company did not only track social sentiment for its own products but also for that of its competitors.
Prashant Mistry, the social & digital insights lead at Samsung, said
“We’ve evolved the practice from generic social listening into social intelligence, where we look beyond performance and dive into the qualitative of what’s driving conversation related to our ecosystems around our brand, categories, and products.”
Similarly, Pierre Fabre also uses Brandwatch’s social listening features to prepare for product launches. The company gets insights from the platform and then curates its social media campaigns, including influencer marketing, accordingly.
Celine Cassagnes Febvre, the social intelligence manager at Pierre Fabre, said,
Another excellent feature of Brandwatch is that it lets you manage influencer relationships with ease. Let’s say you’re working with 100 influencers.
You want to see which assets they’ve posed and how that content is performing. Brandwatch has a dedicated report builder to display all this data visually for easy sharing and understanding.
Besides influencers, you can also use the platform to identify thought leaders. These are individuals with significant influence within your industry.
On Instagram, thought leaders can be beneficial to your strategy in tech, finance, healthcare, and even beauty (think dermatology and plastic surgery).
Additional Offerings
Brandwatch Academy is a learning hub where you can enroll in foundation or advanced courses related to consumer research, social media marketing, influencer strategies, crisis management, customer care, etc.
The platform also holds webinars where industry experts discuss the latest trends and best practices in social media monitoring and analytics.
Brandwatch API is a powerful tool for developers to integrate social listening into their existing systems.
Lastly, if you want regular data stories and insights to land into your email, you can sign up for The Brandwatch Bulletin. It will keep you updated on whatever’s new in the industry.
Key Features: Global Influencer Payment, Influencer Discovery, Influencer directory management, Creation of private influencer network, Campaign management and reporting, Broad platform coverage, Automated reporting,
Channels: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, Shopify
3. Modash
When it comes to finding and partnering with the right Instagram influencers, Modash stands out as a top-tier platform designed to simplify and enhance your influencer marketing efforts. Whether you’re aiming to collaborate with micro-influencers or target specific demographics, Modash provides a comprehensive toolkit that makes the process seamless and efficient.
The platform boasts a vast database, listing every creator on Earth with more than 1,000 followers on Instagram. In addition, the platform supports both TikTok and YouTube. For Instagram specifically, this translates to access to around 70 million micro-influencers. This extensive reach ensures that you can find influencers who perfectly align with your brand’s values and target audience.
Modash is used by as many as 1,200 B2C brands as their main influencer marketing platform. Their extensive list of customers includes Google, Mont Blanc, Airbnb, Joom, Victoria’s Secret, Surfshark, NordVPN, Chavelle, and more.
Key Features
The platform’s user-friendly dashboard offers a range of advanced search filters that allow you to narrow down your influencer search based on various criteria. You can easily filter Instagram influencers by follower count, engagement rate, location, and audience demographics. This makes it incredibly straightforward to find influencers who not only match your desired follower range but also have a genuine and engaged audience in your target market. Here’s how Modash’s search feature (Discovery) looks like:
In addition, Modash supports audience filters, which allows you to search for Instagram influencers based on location, gender, age, interest, language, and fake followers.
One of Modash’s standout features is its ability to analyze influencer profiles in-depth. By clicking on a profile, you can access detailed metrics for some of the before-mentioned insights, such as engagement rates, the percentage of fake followers, audience demographics, and even the influencer’s most popular content.
In addition to its powerful search capabilities, Modash also allows you to find influencer look-alikes. By entering the username of a known influencer, you can generate a list of similar influencers who fit your criteria. Based on our random search, here’s how the lookalike feature displays results:
As you can see, Modash identified 37k similar Instagram influencers to the one we’ve selected. This feature is particularly useful for expanding your influencer network with creators who have proven success in your niche.
Modash also excels in providing tools for monitoring branded mentions and hashtags. This feature helps you identify potential brand advocates who are already familiar with and enthusiastic about your products. By keeping track of who is mentioning your brand or using your branded hashtags, you can uncover new influencer opportunities with minimal effort.
Additional Offerings
In addition to its core Instagram influencer marketing capabilities, Modash offers a range of valuable resources and tools designed to enhance your overall marketing strategy.
One of these is the Modash Academy. The Modash Influencer Marketing Academy is an excellent resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of influencer marketing. This comprehensive academy covers everything from finding the perfect partners and negotiating deals to managing relationships at scale without the need for a large team.
The curriculum includes modules such as Influencer Marketing 101, Influencer Discovery, and Influencer Campaign Monitoring, making it a one-stop shop for mastering influencer marketing techniques.
Another standout feature is Modash’s versatile Influencer Marketing API. This API provides accurate influencer data that can be used to automate workflows, integrate with your products, and more.
With rich data on influencers across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, including follower growth, engagement rates, fake followers, and audience demographics, the API equips you with everything you need for informed decision-making. You can use the data to build custom solutions, enhance existing datasets, or create detailed visuals and reports.
Speaking on the need to offer API integration to brands, here’s what Avery Schrader, Modash Founder and CEO, had to say:
Key Features: Influencer Discovery, Influencer Analytics, Influencer Campaign Monitoring, Influencer Management,
4. Creator.co
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Giving you access to over 200 million influencers, Creator.co is a top influencer marketing platform that caters to businesses of all sizes. The platform offers two service versions: self-service and managed.
In the managed version, you get a dedicated account manager who helps you throughout the entire campaign process, from influencer selection to campaign tracking and reporting.
You simply have to decide if you want to go with the recommended creators.
The self-service version gives you access to Creator’s search engine, where you can discover influencers based on your niche, budget, audience demographics, and location.
Key Features
Creator.co makes it extremely easy to start a campaign. You start by building a campaign brief. It should highlight the campaign’s theme, goals, and target audience.
Once you’ve built a brief, over 175k influencers from the brand’s creator network will apply for your campaign. You can view their profiles and choose the ones that best match your preferences and requirements.
The functionality is ideal for brands that want to work with a large number of influencers. Hex is one such brand.
The company worked with 95 creators using Creator.co and generated 183k views, 8.2k engagements, and 1.4 million impressions in just a few months.
If you’d rather work with ”advocates,” who are regular customers that promote your brand, Creator.co gives you access to them as well. These individuals are instrumental to your user-generated content (UGC) campaigns.
Creator.co lets you collaborate with influencers in different ways. For one, you can opt for the ”Product for Post” option. In this case, influencers promote your products in exchange for free merchandise.
You can also host contests and giveaways with creators through the platform. For example, you can ask them to create content that includes a giveaway of your product.
Brick-and-mortar stores or brands with physical locations can work with influencers for in-store events. Creator.co helps you find local influencers who can bring in potential customers to your store by showing their audience’s in-store experiences.
Additional Offerings
The best resource from Creator.co is its help center. You can find the answer to pretty much any questions you have about using the tool in there.
There are also helpful tutorials and articles that can guide you through the entire process, from creating a campaign to tracking its success.
If you need an extra hand, Creator.co also offers strategic resources. These are extra guides that teach you how to make your influencer campaigns effective or manage long-term partnerships with your creator suite.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Creator Marketplace,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
5. LTK (formerly rewardStyle)
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, X (Twitter), Blogs, LTK App
LTK or LikeToKnow.it is an influencer marketing and monetization platform that connects brands with creators. Launched in 2011 as rewardStyle, it rebranded to LTK to better represent its expanding presence across multiple social media channels.
The platform gives brands access to over 40 million avid shoppers, who increase the company’s reach by 2x compared to traditional influencer strategies. Most of the shoppers on the platform have a higher education, a household income of over $100k, live in major or mid-metros, and are splurgers.
LTK takes pride in its consumers, who are the “early majority.” By this, the brand means that its consumers are people who share the creator’s posts and help brands reach more shoppers. These consumers are often the first to adopt new products and trends.
Key Features
While many other platforms are still relying on traditional tactics, LTK has branched out to modern advancements. One of them is the brand’s Match AI. Think of it as your AI assistant to find the perfect influencer for your campaigns.
It helps you select the right creators based on their engagement and performance.
Another notable attribute of the platform is its LTK 360 reporting tool. It’s a dashboard that provides real-time analytics and insights on influencer campaigns and collaborations. Brands can track the performance of their sponsored posts, measure ROI, monitor engagement rates, and analyze earned media value (EMV) for all influencer campaigns.
If you want to reach more consumers, you can also run ads in LTK’s app. LTK also integrates with Shopify, giving you the option to sell your products directly through the platform.
LTK also helps brands expand their influencer campaigns to Connected TV. You can find influencers to create and feature your products in TV commercials or streaming services.
The best part about LTK is that you can create “always-on” influencer campaigns. That means you don’t have to rely on a single campaign to reach your target audience. Instead, you can have a continuous presence with influencers, creating a sustained impact.
Oasis, a clothing brand, did just that with LTK. The company wanted to increase its brand affinity and engagement across the Irish and UK markets. Oasis created a network of reliable influencers using LTK’s creators and increased its year-on-year sales by 680%.
That was much higher than the brand’s goal of 50% sale increment. Oasis also enjoyed an ROI of 1.5. In total, the brand managed to reach 6 million people across Instagram and YouTube.
The brand was all praises for the platform. Their affiliate manager said,
“The team at LTK always strived for better, constantly reviewing and refining to ensure the campaign was continually being optimized. Their knowledge of the Creator landscape meant we found the right ambassadors.”
A gaming brand also used LTK to increase brand awareness and recognition. The company worked with lifestyle and gaming influencers to achieve its goals.
Apart from getting more than 4,000 clicks, the brand was able to generate 80 orders just with one creator.
These success stories indicate that LTK’s creators are not merely influencers but also skilled content creators who can make a tangible impact on your brand’s reach.
Additional Offerings
LTK is one of the few influencer marketing platforms for Instagram that lets brands engage with influencers physically. The platform hosts soirees where brands can meet potential influencers and discuss strategies.
The LTKCon is an annual event organized by the platform where brands can network and enjoy face-to-face interactions with creators.
For retail brands, LTK has specific retail meta networks where these companies can collaborate with relevant influencers in the retail space.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Blogs, LTK App
6. Influencity
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Exportable reports, Team/Collaboration Tools.
Influencity offers services to brands wanting to work with influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. This is despite the company beginning in 2014 by connecting brands with some of the most influential people on Twitter. This indicates the massive change in the relative performances of the various social platforms over the last few years. Now Instagram is the primary social channel for brands to be seen, closely followed by the two video platforms, and Influencity is one of the best tools for influencer outreach on Instagram.
Discovery with Influencity relies primarily on Instagram data now. The platform includes an incredible amount of data on each account it indexes. Across the three channels, you can discover the content creators that fit your campaign needs by comparing over 200 million profiles worldwide.
Running through your search filters, you’ll see an abundance of options, from basic demographics like gender, age, and location, to psychographics like interests and brand affinities. There are over 100,000 ways to combine filters. You can also do a lookalike search. Once you can identify one perfect influencer, you can let the platform do the rest for you.
You can also see in-depth data relating to your campaigns. Influencity gives you a clear picture of the kinds of audiences that your influencers reached and how well that audience received the posts your influencers made on your behalf. This helps future-proof your next wave of promotions.
Pricing Model
Like many SaaS platforms, Influencity offers multiple levels of subscription that run the gamut of features. In addition to four fixed plans, customers can put together a personalized plan by selecting features that suit them and creating a Custom Bundle.
Ease of Integration
Influencity incorporates extensive data from influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. It also offers influencer relationship management (IRM), making it easy for you to keep your influencer database centralized and updated at all times, to facilitate your day-to-day management of your influencers. You can connect your personal email (IMAP or Outlook) to Influencity to send one-to-one emails from the IRM and log your emails and replies in the platform. You can download influencer data in XLSX format and work with it in Google Sheets or Excel.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Exportable reports, Team/Collaboration Tools,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch
7. Skeepers
Channels: TikTok, Instagram, Shopify, Retail Sites, Brand Website
Skeepers (previously Octoly) gives brands access to a large community of pre-vetted micro and nano-influencers. Our Influence Marketing Benchmark Report found that more and more businesses are turning to micro-influencers as a way to connect with their target audience.
So, Skeepers is a must-have for any business that wants to build an influential online presence in today’s age. The platform claims that its services have led to 58% increase in brand visibility for its clients.
With access to over 100,000 micro and nano-influencers, Skeepers helps you scale your brand presence and boost seasonal promotions by working with niche creators.
Key Features
Skeepers has a Personal Profile feature that lets you fine-tune your influencer search to find creators that not only target the same audience as you but also share your brand’s ethos.
Benefit Cosmetics used this feature to engage with micro-influencers and launch new campaigns every two months. The company managed 22 successful collaborations through the platform and reached its target audience through influencers that really resonated with the brand’s image.
@ashweemariii Unboxing I received the @Benefit Cosmetics as a gift through @Skeepers for my honest review! I recieved the super absorb overnight diapers from influenster in exchange for my honest review. #unboxwithme #prunboxing #collabunboxing #bubbleambassador #bubbleskincare #benefitcosmetics #skeepersfamily #cupkinkids #influenster #tiktokmomas ♬ IDWT$ – Bad Omens
Romane Decrept, the brand’s communications manager, said that the platform was
“highly intuitive and ergonomic, and information is easy to find: influencer statistics, content and scorings, campaign performance indicators. . . It is also possible to view videos created directly on the platform.”
The platform also manages licensing rights and legal permissions related to user-generated content. All you have to do is analyze the outcomes and strategize for the future.
Skeepers gives you access to a repository of authentic and unique UGC that you can repurpose in your marketing campaigns. With the platform’s licensing rights, you can use this content for up to 10 years.
The Skeepers Shoppable Content feature lets you make all your content assets clickable and shoppable. Then, you can analyze all essential key performance indicators (KPIs) across platforms.
Beauty Blender, the brand that pioneered the makeup sponge, used these features from Skeepers to get at least 100 reviews for each SKU on Sephora.
Arlene D’Antoni, the director of retail marketing at the company, said that the main issue was
“the large number of products I had to ship just to get to that 30%. Even after giving directions from our end, those 70% of influencer products that we could sell to our customers went into an abyss. For us, it was money lost and not gained.”
Skeepers resolved this issue by streamlining the influencer gifting process and increasing the ship-to-post rate from a meager 30% to 98%. The brand managed to get 1,969 genuine reviews on Sephora and Ultra. Of these reviewers, 99% expressed a strong wish to recommend Beauty Blender to their friends and family.
UGC plays a significant role in building trust and credibility among consumers.
Additional Offerings
Skeepers also offers a Consumer Videos solution, which allows brands to use videos created by satisfied customers to show their products. The platform has a video gallery where you can get a glimpse of the kind of content that customers are creating for your brand.
You can then choose which videos you want to use in your marketing campaigns based on their quality and authenticity.
Skeepers also has ebooks for you to learn consumer engagement tactics and gain insights into customer behavior. Some of these ebooks also help you navigate influencer marketing laws in different regions, which can be particularly useful if you are planning to expand your brand globally.
Skeepers also organizes webinars to discuss new influencer marketing and UGC trends. You can use these webinars to stay updated with the latest industry developments.
Key Features: Campaign Management, Influencer Discovery, Social Media Monitoring, Faceted Search / Filtering,
Channels: Tik Tok, Instagram, Shopify, Retail Sites, Brand Website
8. indaHash
Channels: Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok
Key Features: Engagement Rate Analysis, Audience Demographics, Audience Overlap Check, Competitor Check, Crisis Detection, Campaign Reporting, Team and Task Management, Content Autodiscovery, Personalized Creator Onboarding, Comprehensive CRM Solution.
IndaHash emerges as a standout influencer marketing platform, offering a suite of tools tailored to elevate your brand’s social media influence. With IndaHash, you have access to data-driven solutions that are essential for crafting impactful campaigns.
Its Creator Discovery tool is particularly noteworthy, enabling you to pinpoint and collaborate with influencers who truly align with your brand’s ethos. This tool leverages sophisticated AI algorithms and over 20 filters, ensuring that each influencer partnership is a perfect match for your brand’s objectives.
Pricing Model
IndaHash offers a flexible pricing model, including Creator Discovery, Campaigns Management, Agency Pack, Managed Services, and Enterprise packages. This approach allows you to choose a plan that aligns with your influencer marketing budget and goals. For accurate pricing on all packages, request a demo from IndaHash.
Ease of Integration
IndaHash integrates effortlessly with major social media platforms, especially Instagram. Moreover, IndaHash can integrate with any eCommerce platform. This integration streamlines your influencer campaigns with a dashboard that provides real-time data and performance reports for efficient campaign management and analysis.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, White Label Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Visual Discovery,
Channels: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook
Benefits of Using Instagram Influencer Marketing Software
Using Instagram influencer marketing software offers numerous benefits for brands looking to enhance their marketing strategies. Here are some of the key advantages:
Increased Reach and Visibility
Instagram boasts over 1.4 billion active users, with a significant portion of them engaging daily. Collaborating with influencers allows you to tap into these vast audiences, significantly increasing your visibility. Influencers have dedicated followers who trust their recommendations, making it easier for brands to reach targeted demographics, particularly younger audiences, as 61.9% of Instagram users are under 34 years old.
For example, using Brandwatch's influencer discovery tools, brands like Samsung have successfully tracked social sentiment and identified key influencers to boost their global campaigns, reaching broader audiences effectively.
Enhanced Engagement
Instagram influencers typically achieve higher engagement rates compared to traditional advertising channels. The platform's visual nature encourages interaction, with influencers generating content that resonates with their audience. This engagement translates into higher conversion rates, as followers are more likely to act on recommendations from trusted sources.
Madden Media, leveraging Sprout Social's Tagger Media tool, achieved an earned media value of more than $64,000 by collaborating with food influencers who created over 130 Instagram Stories and Reels, driving substantial engagement and conversions.
Cost-Effective Marketing
Influencer marketing often provides a higher return on investment (ROI) compared to traditional advertising methods. Influencers can create authentic content at a lower cost, and their endorsements are generally more effective in driving sales. Research indicates that influencer marketing can yield up to eleven times for every dollar spent. This cost-effectiveness makes it an attractive option for brands of all sizes.
For instance, Creator.co helped Hex, a brand working with 95 creators, generate 1.4 million impressions and significant engagement, demonstrating how efficient and cost-effective influencer marketing can be.
Diverse Content Creation
Instagram supports various content formats, including posts, stories, reels, and IGTV videos. Influencers can leverage these formats to create engaging and visually appealing content that showcases products in innovative ways. This diversity allows brands to reach their audience through multiple channels, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness.
Using Modash, brands can identify and collaborate with micro-influencers who create content across various Instagram formats, ensuring a diverse and targeted content strategy that resonates with different segments of the audience.
Streamlined Campaign Management
Instagram influencer marketing software simplifies the entire process of managing influencer relationships and campaigns. These platforms offer tools for influencer discovery, campaign tracking, and performance analytics, allowing brands to automate many aspects of their marketing efforts. This efficiency saves time and resources, enabling brands to focus on strategy and relationship building rather than manual tasks.
For example, Skeepers offers advanced campaign management tools that helped Benefit Cosmetics manage 22 successful collaborations, streamlining the influencer gifting process and maximizing campaign efficiency.
Real-Time Performance Tracking
With built-in analytics, brands can monitor the effectiveness of their influencer campaigns in real time. This capability allows for immediate adjustments based on performance metrics, helping brands optimize their strategies and maximize ROI. Tracking engagement, clicks, and conversions provides valuable insights into which influencers are driving the most traffic and sales.
LTK's LTK 360 reporting tool offers brands real-time insights into their influencer campaigns, allowing them to track performance and adjust strategies to achieve better outcomes, as seen in Oasis’s campaign, which increased sales by 680%.
Building Long-Term Relationships
Using influencer marketing software fosters stronger partnerships between brands and influencers. These platforms often include CRM features that help brands manage influencer contacts, track interactions, and maintain ongoing relationships. This approach not only enhances collaboration but also encourages influencers to become long-term advocates for the brand.
Viral Nation Secure’s advanced CRM tools enable brands to maintain long-term partnerships by continuously monitoring influencer content and ensuring adherence to brand values, thus fostering trust and loyalty.
Tips for Finding the Best Influencer Marketing Platform for Instagram Marketing
To find the best influencer marketing platform for your Instagram marketing efforts, consider the following key factors that align with your brand's goals and needs:
1. Clarify Your Campaign Objectives
Before choosing a platform, it's essential to define your campaign objectives. Are you aiming to boost brand awareness, increase engagement, or drive sales? Knowing your goals will help you select a platform that provides the tools and features necessary to achieve them.
2. Assess Platform Features
Not all influencer marketing platforms offer the same features, so it's crucial to evaluate which ones align with your needs. Look for the following key functionalities:
- Influencer Discovery Tools: Look for platforms that offer robust databases and search functionalities to find influencers who align with your brand values and target audience. Features such as filtering by niche, engagement rates, and audience demographics are crucial for effective influencer selection.
- Campaign Management: An ideal platform should simplify the process of managing influencer relationships, from outreach to contract management. Automation features for communication, content scheduling, and payment processing can save you time and reduce administrative burdens.
- Analytics and Reporting: Effective measurement tools are essential for assessing campaign performance. Platforms should provide insights into engagement rates, reach, conversions, and ROI. This data helps you refine your strategies and improve future campaigns.
- Content Ownership and Repurposing: Ensure the platform allows you to retain rights to the content created during collaborations. This feature is valuable for maximizing the use of influencer-generated content across various marketing channels.
- Support and Resources: Consider platforms that offer customer support and educational resources. This can be particularly beneficial if you are new to influencer marketing, providing guidance on best practices and campaign strategies.
3. Evaluate Database Size and Quality
The size and quality of a platform’s influencer database are critical factors. A large and diverse database increases your chances of finding influencers who match your target audience and campaign goals.
Modash offers access to over 70 million Instagram influencers, making it an excellent choice for brands looking to connect with micro and nano-influencers. This extensive reach ensures that you can find influencers who align with your brand values and target demographics, leading to more effective campaigns.
4. Consider Ease of Use
A user-friendly interface can significantly impact the efficiency of your campaign management. Platforms that are easy to navigate allow you to focus more on strategy and less on technical issues.
Sprout Social is known for its intuitive design and user-friendly interface. This ease of use makes it simple to manage all aspects of your influencer marketing campaigns, from communication to content approval, without a steep learning curve. It’s particularly beneficial for teams that need to coordinate multiple tasks quickly and efficiently.
5. Check Integration Capabilities
Integration with other tools you use is essential for a seamless workflow. Whether it’s e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, or social media management tools, ensure the influencer marketing platform can integrate smoothly with your existing tech stack.
LTK is a platform that excels in integration, particularly with Shopify. This integration allows you to manage your influencer campaigns directly alongside your online store operations, making it easier to track the impact of influencer marketing on sales and streamline your marketing efforts.
6. Test the Platform
Before committing to a platform, it's wise to take advantage of any free trials or demo versions offered. Testing the platform allows you to experience its features firsthand and determine whether it meets your specific needs.
Many platforms, such as Influencity, offer free trials that let you explore their features without a long-term commitment. This hands-on experience is invaluable in ensuring that the platform’s tools and interface are suited to your brand's unique requirements, allowing you to make an informed decision.
Best Influencer Marketing Platforms Tailored to Your Business Size
When choosing an influencer marketing platform, it's crucial to select one that aligns with the size and needs of your business. Whether you’re a small business looking to make an impact or a large enterprise managing multiple campaigns, the right platform can make all the difference. Here's a guide to help you find the best influencer marketing platform based on your business size:
For Small Businesses and Startups
Small businesses and startups often need a cost-effective platform that’s easy to use and offers access to niche influencers. These platforms should provide essential features like influencer discovery, campaign management, and basic analytics without overwhelming users with complex tools.
Recommended Platform: Creator.co
Creator.co is ideal for small businesses due to its affordable pricing and access to a large network of micro and nano-influencers. With self-service options, small businesses can easily launch and manage campaigns, leveraging niche influencers to build brand awareness and drive engagement.
For Medium-Sized Businesses
Medium-sized businesses require a platform that offers more advanced features, such as detailed analytics, audience insights, and the ability to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously. These platforms should also provide scalability as the business grows.
Recommended Platform: Modash
Modash is well-suited for medium-sized businesses with its robust database and advanced filtering options. It provides detailed audience analytics and performance tracking, helping businesses refine their strategies and scale their influencer marketing efforts effectively.
For Large Enterprises
Large enterprises need comprehensive platforms with enterprise-level features, including advanced campaign management, in-depth analytics, CRM integration, and global reach. These platforms should support large teams and offer the ability to manage multiple, complex campaigns across various markets.
Recommended Platform: Brandwatch
Brandwatch is perfect for large enterprises due to its extensive range of features, including social listening, sentiment analysis, and a vast influencer database. It allows enterprises to manage large-scale campaigns, monitor global brand sentiment, and maintain strong influencer relationships through its integrated CRM tools.
ROI and Other Important Metrics from Top Campaigns
We have previously heard claims that Influencer marketing delivers 11x ROI over all other forms of digital media. Further analysis suggested that this is overstated (it represented a return on one campaign on the former platform Tapfluence – now integrated into IZEA), but it does demonstrate that brands can enjoy considerable success with influencer marketing.
We thought that we’d look at some of the highlights of case studies these Instagram influencer marketing platforms have included on their websites.
It can be challenging to determine an ROI because every business has a different reason for engaging in influencer marketing. Indeed, one of the first steps of any influencer marketing campaign is to determine your goal. This may be monetary, for example, to increase your sales of a product by $20,000 thanks to the campaign, but it may also be non-monetary, for example, to increase Instagram subscribers by 10,000, or to improve your average engagement rate by 20%.
One agency client of the Grin platform is Blue Wheel Media, an omnichannel marketing agency headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan. The agency leverages influencer marketing to complement its clients’ overall marketing strategies. One of the agency’s recent clients was a haircare brand that wanted to drive sales by leveraging a paid influencer program with more than 100 nano, micro, and macro creators on TikTok and Instagram.
As a result of Blue Wheel Media utilizing Grin to create an influencer marketing campaign, its haircare client noticed a 165%+ revenue ROI from 130+ creator activations as shown in the results below.
Another successful campaign, thanks to Grin’s platform, was for Trestique, a sustainable beauty brand offering clean, zero-waste makeup kits and essentials. They used the Instagram influencer marketing platform to find content creators in multiple niche industries passionate about the brand’s mission and products, i.e., they focused on finding influencers who aligned with their values.
Trestique ran a 2-week Black Friday campaign on Instagram to drive awareness and sales. They used GRIN to identify the best creators they had worked with in the past and invited them onto the Black Friday campaign. Thanks to Grin’s integrations, the creators were able to integrate with Trestique’s email provider to simplify communication.
The company used Grin to create affiliate links and had all of the link analytics at its fingertips. Finally, Grin compiled all of Trestique’s campaign data into an intuitive, easy-to-read chart to deliver to the marketing team. Trestique’s 2-week Black Friday campaign generated a 300% increase in influencer link clicks and a 268% increase in revenue from its previous campaign, which you can see below.
In another collaboration, the camera company, Insta360, chose to work with Brandwatch Influencer to improve their influencer management. They used Brandwatch to manage 4,000 partners with ease, speed up their campaign reporting (it is now 90x faster than previously), and achieve costs for campaigns significantly below their industry average at 0.0004 dollar cost per view.
Film production and distribution company, Universal Pictures, used influencers and Upfluence to drive awareness and increase the user base for their new Universal All-Access Rewards Program (UAA). They turned to Upfluence to help them deliver a high-impact marketing campaign that required precise influencer discovery, audience matching, social retargeting, and campaign management.
Upfluence coordinated a two-pronged campaign for Universal that involved partnering with four influencers over six weeks, and a social ads retargeting strategy. The campaign exceeded audience reach expectations by 73%, leading to increased UAA visits and registrations. As shown below, the content the enrolled influencers produced surpassed industry audience reach averages (5%) and achieved a staggering audience reach rate of 33%.
Shelby Jacobs is the Social Media Manager for two brands, 7 For All Mankind and Splendid. She had previously found working with influencers to be time-consuming and tedious across two brands and saw the need to find a tool that would make influencer management more efficient. She also found sourcing influencers through Instagram’s native search tool to be time-consuming, and after connecting with influencers, she struggled with managing multiple email threads. She turned to Aspire to help her.
Their tools allowed Shelby and her team to efficiently partner with more influencers than before without sacrificing resources. She could use real-time data to show the effectiveness of influencer-generated content has helped to justify the need for both brands to continue investing in micro-influencers. Best of all, she found her campaigns have generated 27.9 million impressions and generated an Earned Media Value (EMV) of over $200k, as shown below.
As we have seen, an investment in one of these Instagram marketing tools can greatly help you meet and exceed your influencer marketing goals and generate an excellent return on your investment.
Conclusion
Creating an Instagram influencer marketing strategy is no longer as simple as finding an influencer with a large following and asking them to promote your product. The platform now has shoppable stories, interactive ads, Threads, Reels, and carousel posts.
You have to account for all these features while creating your influencer marketing campaigns. Doing this manually can be overwhelming.
But with influencer marketing platforms, the process doesn't have to be as daunting as it would otherwise be. Select a platform that meets your needs and choose influencers from its marketplace.
All platforms on our list have an extensive influencer database so you won't have trouble finding the right fit. Once you've got the right influencers on board, go ahead and manage your campaigns with the same platform.
Some of these platforms, such as Upfluence, even let you pay influencers directly through the platform. You can also keep an eye on engagement metrics and influencer content performance to determine if your campaigns need any adjustments. Basically, the platform will be a one-stop solution for all your influencer marketing needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is best for influencer marketing?
We have reviewed many Instagram influencer marketing platforms and seen the best tools for influencer outreach on Instagram. Instagram influencer tools regularly update their capabilities, so it would probably be best to try a free demo first before committing to one tool. Some of the best that we have seen include
- Grin
- Creator.co
- Brandwatch Influence
- Upfluence
- LTK
How do you do influencer marketing on Instagram?
To create a successful Instagram influencer marketing campaign:
- Define what success means to you
- Find relevant influencers and micro-influencers in your niche
- Send your pitch to influencers
- Design a campaign with your influencer
- Track the campaign and optimize it
What is the most used influencer platform?
The most used social platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Some of the most used influencer platforms include:
- Influencity
- Kolsquare
- NeoReach
- Post for Rent
- Intellifluence
What platforms are popular for social media influencers?
The best influencer marketing platforms for businesses on social media include:
- Grin
- Creator.co
- Brandwatch Influence
- Upfluence
- LTK
How do I choose the right influencer marketing platform?
When selecting a platform, consider features such as influencer discovery tools, campaign management capabilities, analytics and reporting, content ownership rights, and customer support. Evaluate your specific needs and budget to find a platform that fits your marketing goals.
Comparing Influencer Marketing Platforms and Software
These influencer marketing platforms cater to a wide range of needs, including brand building, campaign management, content creation, and audience engagement, among others. Explore the sections below for an overview of Influencer Marketing Platforms categorized by:
- 28 Best Influencer Marketing Software For 2024
- Top 12 Micro Influencer Marketing Platform Choices
- Top Influencer Marketing Platforms for Creators
- 12 FREE Influencer Marketing Tools to Find Influencers
- Top Influencer Marketing Platforms for Agencies
- 18 Best Influencer Marketplaces
- Top 16 AI-Powered Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2024
- 23 US-Based Influencer Marketing Platforms