How to Hire Influencers on TikTok

Finding the right creator on TikTok can transform your brand's presence, connecting you with thousands of potential customers through content that feels authentic and native to the platform. Successful influencer marketing on TikTok isn’t just about finding someone with millions of followers, it's about a strategic process of identifying, vetting, and collaborating with partners who genuinely align with your brand. This guide breaks down that process step-by-step, taking you from initial planning to measuring the success of your campaign.

First Things First: Set Your Goals and Budget

Before you even open the TikTok app, you need a clear plan. Without defined goals and a budget, you’re just scrolling. A solid foundation here will guide every other decision you make.

Define Your Campaign Goals

What do you actually want this campaign to achieve? "Going viral" is not a business goal. Get specific and attach a measurable outcome to your objective. Common goals include:

• Brand Awareness: Introducing your brand or a new product to a wider audience. Success is measured through impressions, views, reach, and mentions.
• Website Traffic or App Downloads: Driving users from TikTok to your website, landing page, or app store. This is tracked with unique clicks on a link in the influencer’s bio or a "Learn More" button.
• Direct Sales: Generating revenue with a special offer or discount. Success is measured by tracking sales tied to a unique promo code or affiliate link.
• User-Generated Content (UGC): Encouraging an influencer's audience to create their own content using your product, often paired with a branded hashtag. You can measure this by the volume of content created under the hashtag.

Establish Your Budget

Your budget determines the scale of your campaign and the types of influencers you can work with. Remember to account for more than just the creator's fee. A comprehensive budget includes:

• Influencer Fees: This is the direct payment for their creative work. Rates vary widely based on follower count, engagement rate, and the scope of work.
• Free Product: You'll almost always need to provide the product you want them to feature, so factor in the cost of goods and shipping.
• Ad Spend: You might want to boost the influencer's post using TikTok Spark Ads to extend its reach beyond their organic audience.
• Agency or Platform Fees: If you use an influencer marketing agency or a discovery platform, they will have their own costs.

Generally, influencers are segmented by follower size, and their rates scale accordingly:

• Nano-influencers (1,000 – 10,000 followers): Often work for a free product or a smaller fee ($25 – $250). They typically have highly engaged, niche audiences.
• Micro-influencers (10,000 – 100,000 followers): A sweet spot for many brands, offering a good balance of reach and engagement. Fees can range from $250 – $1,500+.
• Macro-influencers (100,000 – 1M followers): Offer significant reach but may have lower engagement rates. Expect to pay in the thousands of dollars per post.
• Mega-influencers (1M+ followers): Celebrity-level creators with massive reach and prices to match, often commanding five to six figures per campaign.

Phase 2: Finding the Right TikTok Influencers

With your goals and budget in place, it’s time to find creators. This is a discovery phase where you build a long list of potential partners before narrowing it down.

Start with Your Target Audience

The most important factor is audience alignment. It doesn't matter if an influencer has ten million followers if none of them are your potential customers. Ask yourself: Who is my ideal customer, and who do they follow on TikTok? You're not looking for influencers your brand likes, you're looking for influencers your customers trust.

Where to Search for Creators

Search Directly on TikTok

The best place to start is the platform itself. Use the search bar to find creators and content related to your industry.

• Keyword & Hashtag Searches: Look up terms relevant to your brand (e.g., #skincareroutine, #techgadgets, #outfitinspo). Pay attention to the creators who consistently show up in the top results with high engagement.
• Competitor Analysis: See who your competitors are working with. Check their tagged posts and mentions to find influencers who are already active in your space. This also shows you which creators are open to partnerships.
• The "For You" Page (FYP): Casually scroll your FYP. The algorithm is incredibly powerful at surfacing popular content. If you interact with videos in your niche, it will start showing you top creators in that space.

Use an Influencer Marketing Platform

These platforms are designed to streamline the discovery and vetting process. They offer searchable databases of creators, complete with audience demographics, engagement metrics, and contact information.

• TikTok Creator Marketplace (TCM): This is TikTok’s official platform for brand-creator collaborations. You can search for creators based on detailed criteria and see verified first-party data directly from TikTok.
• Third-Party Platforms: Tools like Grin, Aspire, or Upfluence offer extensive databases and campaign management features, though they usually come with a subscription fee.

Good Old-Fashioned Google Search

Don't overlook the power of a simple Google search. Use queries like "[your city] food bloggers on TikTok" or "top sustainability influencers TikTok" to find articles and listicles that have already curated lists of potential partners.

Phase 3: Vet Your Shortlist of Influencers

Once you have a list of 10-20 potential creators, it’s time to do your homework. This vetting stage is what separates successful campaigns from costly mistakes.

Look Past Follower Count to Engagement Rate

A high follower count can be a vanity metric. What matters is how many of those followers are actively engaging with the creator's content. A high engagement rate indicates an active, loyal community that trusts the creator's recommendations.

A simple way to estimate engagement is:

(Total Likes + Total Comments on a recent post) / Follower Count * 100 = Engagement Rate %

Look at their last 10-15 videos to get an average. A good engagement rate on TikTok is generally considered to be 3-8%, but for smaller, hyper-niche creators, it can be even higher.

Analyze Their Content and Audience

Do a deep dive into their profile. Ask these questions:

• Does their brand voice align with yours? If your brand is professional and serious, a creator who exclusively makes prank videos might not be the right fit.
• Is their video quality good? Check for clear audio, good lighting, and sharp video. Low-quality content won't represent your brand well.
• How do they integrate sponsored posts? Do their sponsored videos feel forced and salesy, or are they creatively integrated into their usual content style? You want a partner who can make an ad not feel like an ad.
• What are the comments like? Read the comment sections. Is the audience positive and engaged, or is it filled with spam and negativity? This is a window into the health of their community.

Check for Red Flags

Look out for signs of inauthentic activity. A sudden, massive spike in followers with no corresponding spike in engagement could indicate purchased followers. Similarly, if comments are all generic ("Nice post!"), they might be from bots. Trust your gut - if something feels off, it probably is.

Phase 4: Outreach, Negotiation, and Contracts

You’ve found your ideal creator. Now it's time to build a professional relationship.

Craft a Personalized Outreach Email

Avoid generic copy-and-paste DMs. Find the creator's business email (usually in their bio) and send a personalized message. Your outreach email should include:

• A clear, concise subject line (e.g., "Collaboration with [Your Brand Name]").
• Personalization: Mention a specific video of theirs you enjoyed. This shows you’ve done your research.
• A brief introduction to your brand and why you think they'd be a great fit.
• A clear call to action: What do you want them to do? Let them know you'd like to partner and ask if they are open to discussing a collaboration and if they can share their media kit/rates.

Provide a Clear and Concise Creative Brief

Once they've agreed to work with you, provide a creative brief that gives them direction without stifling their creativity. Include:

• Campaign Goal: Remind them what the main objective is.
• Key Talking Points: 2-3 essential messages about your product. Don't script them, let them integrate these points in their own words.
• Call to Action: What you want viewers to do (e.g., "Use code TIKTOK20" or "Click the link in my bio.").
• Content Do's and Don'ts: Any brand guidelines they must follow (e.g., "Please don't show the product next to our competitor's").
• Hashtags and Disclosures: Required hashtags (like #ad or #sponsored) and any brand-specific hashtags.
• Timeline: Due date for the draft and the proposed posting date.

The key to a great brief is to provide guardrails, not a script. You're hiring them for their creativity and connection with their audience, so let them do what they do best.

Always, Always Use a Contract

Even for smaller campaigns, a formal contract is essential. It protects both you and the creator by setting clear expectations. The contract should cover:

• The Scope of Work: Exactly what they will deliver (e.g., "one 60-second TikTok video").
• Usage Rights: How and where you're allowed to use their content (e.g., Can you repost it on your brand's social channels? Can you use it in paid ads?).
• Timeline: Delivery date for the draft, revision windows, and the final post date.
• Payment Terms: The total fee and the payment schedule (e.g., 50% upfront, 50% upon completion).
• Exclusivity Clause: A period during which they cannot work with direct competitors.

Phase 5: Measure Your Campaign's Success

Once the content goes live, your work isn't done. Now you need to track performance to understand your return on investment (ROI).

Track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Refer back to your initial goals. Monitor the KPIs that directly measure the success of those goals. These might include:

• Views, Likes, Comments, Shares, and Saves: These are the top-level indicators of how well the content resonated with the audience.
• Website Clicks: Use a UTM-tagged URL from a tool like Google's URL Builder so you can track how much traffic came directly from the influencer's link in Google Analytics.
• Conversions: Track sales or sign-ups tied to the influencer’s unique discount code or affiliate link.
• Branded Hashtag Usage: If you ran a UGC campaign, monitor the posts using your hashtag.

Don't just look at the numbers. Read the comments to get qualitative feedback. What does the audience think of your product? This can be a valuable source of customer insight.

Final Thoughts

Hiring influencers on TikTok is a process that blends data-driven strategy with human connection. By setting clear goals, diligently searching for creators who match your brand’s values, and building professional, respectful partnerships, you can launch campaigns that not only reach new audiences but also build lasting brand affinity.

As you scale your marketing efforts, managing influencer partnerships alongside your own content calendar can become a lot to handle. At Postbase, we believe in simplifying social media management. We built a platform to help you plan your content, schedule posts across all your active platforms (especially short-form video), see all your DMs and comments in one inbox, and track analytics from a single, clean dashboard - freeing you up to focus on the big-picture strategy like building great creator relationships.