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Best known for its business and employment-related networking, LinkedIn has many hyper-focused influencers on its platform. B2B brands looking to boost their reputation, increase sales, and attract more followers can find niche LinkedIn influencers to promote their products or services. 

If you’re interested in working with LinkedIn influencers, your first question is likely, how do you find them? To help, follow these steps.

Think through the campaign you want

You need a good handle on what you want to promote, who your target market is, and what your unique selling proposition is. Take some time to review your buyer personas so you can find an influencer with a similar audience and consider what type of content (image, video, live stream) will resonate with your audience. 

With this information, you can start searching for influencers

Search for keywords

Start with a list of keywords that are relevant to your industry and brand. Using the search box on LinkedIn, type in your keyword or phrase and then click on “People.” 

Promoting a new cruelty-free line of lipsticks? A search for “vegan makeup,” for example, produces results for 156 potential influencers. But a quick skim of their titles may help you rule out those who own their own vegan makeup companies or work for competitive brands. 

That still leaves a lot of potential: professional makeup artists, aestheticians, boutique owners and managers, models, cruelty-free advocates, and skin-care educators, among others.

Scout LinkedIn groups

Under the People drop-down box on LinkedIn you’ll find Groups. In addition to the group’s name, you’ll see how many members have joined, as well as a brief description of what the group offers. 

Groups can be location-centric, which is valuable for local networking, sales, and services, or industry-specific. They can also serve as resources to share tips, deals, and advice. Others simply serve as a gathering place for like-minded professionals or as private platforms to connect with groups of potential customers. 

The size of the group is less important when searching for influencers, but larger groups can provide access to a big list of possibilities. Your focus should be on finding non-branded group names, such as “Organic & Vegan Cosmetics,” rather than “Sentient Beauty Vegan Cosmetics and Skin Care.” 

Likewise, the description of the group can tell you a lot about its members. Did they join simply to sell their products to other members? Or are they looking for skin-care advice, trends in vegan makeup, beauty hacks, or networking opportunities for their expertise?

Search for creators on a specialized marketplace

Rather than manually search and vet LinkedIn influencers, you could turn to an influencer marketplace like IZEA’s. This platform is full of influencers who are eager to work with brands. Each influencer has a profile that offers examples of their work, links to their social channels, and their average fees per campaign. 

For example, influencer Tuna Beklevic wants to work with tech, finance, and real estate brands and charges $120 for a LinkedIn post. Joi Brown is eager to work with nonprofits and finance brands and asks for $125 in compensation. 

You can use the platform to find influencers, connect with them, and schedule payment.  

Check influencers’ engagement

IZEA’s creator marketplace displays an influencer’s follower size and allows you to search based on both minimum and maximum followers, which is a good baseline to start with. You should investigate an influencer’s engagement as well. 

Whether you create your final list of potential influencers from a manual LinkedIn search or our platform, take a moment to evaluate engagement by reviewing comments, reactions, and shares, along with the number of views on a video.  

Some influencers now list their engagement statistics on a media page or in their media kit for the sole purpose of providing potential brand partnerships with the information. This is often a good sign that the influencer is a professional and has worked with companies or brands in the past. 

Reach out with persuasive messaging

Once you narrow your search, you’ll need to craft a compelling message to persuade an influencer to collaborate. 

On our marketplace platform, you can easily chat with influencers. When you reach out, provide general campaign ideas. You can save some of the details for later, but your initial message should cover what you’re looking for, benefits — such as payment, free products, brand association, marketing, and new followers — to the influencer, and why you chose them.

If a content creator is interested, you’ll negotiate a deal, review the influencer’s content, and watch your metrics as the campaign goes live.   

Searching for LinkedIn influencers to represent your product or service can provide a boost in both brand awareness and sales. However, finding these influencers can be a challenge. Our influencer platform with a directory of LinkedIn influencers can make it easier.

Influencers:

Looking to partner with industry-leading brands? Create your free profile today. 

Marketers:

The world’s biggest brands trust IZEA’s influencer marketing software and managed solutions. Find out which solution is right for you.