How to Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand in 2027

Cover: How to Find Influencers: 2027 Guide

To find the right influencers for your brand, start with your goal and target audience, not with follower counts. Define what the collaboration should achieve, decide which platforms your audience uses, search for people whose content and values already fit your brand, and then vet them carefully – audience data, engagement quality, earlier collaborations and brand safety – before you test, negotiate and scale. Heading into 2027, AI tools will make it faster to find candidates, but human judgement on fit and credibility will matter more than ever.

Finding influencers is a real challenge for many brands. In Influencer Marketing Hub’s latest Benchmark Report, creator discovery is the most common use of AI in influencer marketing, and AI-driven creator matching is the area where most teams want to improve. Here is a step-by-step guide to finding influencers who actually move the needle.

Why does choosing the right influencer matter so much?

Because the influencer is not just a channel – they are the message. When a person recommends something to their audience, they lend their credibility to the brand. If the fit is wrong, the audience notices immediately and the content feels like an ad they scroll past. If the fit is right, the collaboration feels like a natural recommendation.

Consumers are clear about what they want. In Sprout Social’s Influencer Marketing Report, 67 percent of consumers say the key to the best brand and influencer collaborations is being honest and unbiased, and 64 percent say genuine reviews are the most effective type of influencer content. That kind of content only comes from people who genuinely like what they are recommending.

How do you find influencers step by step?

Step 1: What should the collaboration achieve?

Start with one main goal. Building awareness for a launch calls for different people than driving sales with discount codes or building long-term trust in a brand. Awareness often benefits from well-known personalities with broad reach, while conversion and niche credibility often come from smaller creators with highly engaged communities. Write down the goal, the key message and how you will measure success before you start searching.

Step 2: Who is your target audience, and where are they?

Describe the audience as concretely as possible: age, interests, life situation and the platforms they use. Platform choice matters a lot in Sweden. According to Internetstiftelsen’s Svenskarna och internet 2025, 78 percent of Swedes have used YouTube in the past twelve months, but daily use is much higher among men (44 percent) than among women (18 percent). LinkedIn reaches 43 percent of employed Swedes over a year. Look at the data for your own audience before deciding where to search.

Step 3: What kind of person fits your brand?

Create a profile of the ideal influencer: tone of voice, values, content style, expertise and the kind of life they show. Ask what would make a collaboration feel natural. A fitness brand might look for people who already train and talk about it; a home appliance brand might look for people who share everyday life at home. Also think about who should not represent you, for example people who have recently promoted direct competitors.

Step 4: Where do you search for influencers?

Use several methods at once:

Search the platforms directly. Use hashtags, keywords and topic searches on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and look at who the platforms suggest when you view a relevant account.
Look at your own followers and customers. People who already love your brand often make the most credible partners.
See who your audience already follows. Check which profiles comment on and share content in your category.
Use creator marketplaces and tools. TikTok and YouTube offer their own tools for finding creators, and YouTube’s Creator Partnerships uses Gemini to match brands with creators from more than three million members of the YouTube Partner Program.
Work with an agency. Agencies have relationships, negotiation experience and knowledge of who delivers. According to Digiday’s coverage of the World Federation of Advertisers’ research, the share of multinational brands using agencies to identify influencers rose from around 54 percent in 2019 to nearly 74 percent.

Step 5: How do you vet an influencer before signing?

This is where many brands cut corners – and where most problems start. Check at least the following:

Audience data: ask for screenshots or exports of audience age, gender and country. A Swedish brand needs a Swedish audience.
Engagement quality: read the comments. Are they real conversations or generic emojis? Influencer Marketing Hub finds that fake or bot followers make up more than half of all reported fraud and quality issues.
Content history: scroll back months, not days. Does the tone fit your brand? Are there statements or collaborations that could cause problems?
Earlier brand collaborations: how many sponsored posts do they publish, and how did they perform? Too many ads can weaken credibility.
Labelling: do they label advertising correctly? Under Swedish rules the brand carries the main responsibility, so a creator who is careless with labelling is a risk.

Step 6: How do you test and scale?

Start with a smaller collaboration or a test period if you are unsure. Compare results between influencers and keep working with those who perform. The best relationships often grow into long-term ambassadorships, where the audience gets used to seeing the person and the brand together.

Should you choose small creators or well-known personalities?

It depends on the goal, and many brands are combining both. In Influencer Marketing Hub’s research, more than half of respondents plan to expand their use of nano and micro creators, while intentions for macro creators are roughly flat. Smaller creators offer authenticity and niche reach at a lower cost.

Well-known personalities, on the other hand, offer instant recognition and trust built over many years. When Collabri brought Carolina Gynning and Carina Berg to Tough Viking for Ellos, the pairing of two recognisable faces with a physical challenge created a natural story – and more than 756,000 views. For the Coca-Cola Loves Tacos campaign, the right choice of profiles helped the content reach more than 4.5 million views and 6,300 interactions. The point is not size but fit: the person must make sense for the brand and the idea.

What does finding influencers cost?

Search itself can be done for free on the platforms, but it takes time. Tools and marketplaces usually charge a subscription, and agencies charge for strategy, selection, negotiation and project management. Rising creator fees are the top challenge in Influencer Marketing Hub’s survey, cited by around 35 percent of respondents, so good selection is also about getting value for money: one well-chosen influencer usually delivers more than three poorly chosen ones.

What changes in finding influencers toward 2027?

Four shifts will shape how brands find influencers next year:

AI does the first search. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok are building AI-driven creator matching into their own tools, and discovery is already the most common use of AI in influencer marketing. Expect shortlists in minutes – but the final choice still requires people who understand the brand.
Verification becomes standard. As fake engagement remains a problem, brands will increasingly require verified audience data before signing.
AI-generated content must be disclosed. In the EU, the AI Act’s transparency obligations apply from 2 August this year, with obligations on watermark-detection interoperability following on 2 February 2027. When vetting creators, check how they use AI in their content.
Long-term fit beats one-off reach. More brands are shifting budget from single posts to ambassadorships, which makes the initial choice even more important.

Key takeaways

Start with the goal and the target audience, not follower counts.
Search in several places: platforms, your own customers, tools, marketplaces and agencies.
Vet audience data, engagement quality, content history and labelling before you sign.
Combine smaller creators and well-known personalities depending on the goal.
Prepare for 2027: AI-driven discovery, verified data, AI disclosure and more long-term partnerships.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find influencers in my niche?

Search hashtags and keywords on the platforms your audience uses, look at who your customers and followers already follow, and use creator tools such as YouTube Creator Partnerships or TikTok’s marketplace. An agency can shorten the process significantly.

How can I tell if an influencer has fake followers?

Ask for audience data directly from the creator, read the comments, look for sudden jumps in follower numbers and compare engagement with similar accounts. Fake or bot followers are the most commonly reported fraud issue in Influencer Marketing Hub’s research.

How many influencers should I work with?

It depends on the goal and the budget. A launch might combine one or two well-known personalities with several smaller creators, while a long-term programme might focus on a few ambassadors.

Should I contact influencers directly or through an agency?

Both work. Direct contact suits small, simple collaborations. For well-known personalities, several markets or campaigns that combine creators, production and paid media, an agency handles selection, negotiation and agreements.

Want help finding the right influencers and well-known personalities for your brand in Sweden and Norway? Contact Collabri at info@collabri.se. You can also browse our talents and client projects.

Sources

Influencer Marketing Hub – Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026 (2026): https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report/
Digiday – WFA sees 54% of multinational brands boosting influencer spending – with more relying on agencies to find creators (2025): https://digiday.com/marketing/wfa-sees-54-of-multinational-brands-boosting-influencer-spending-with-more-relying-on-agencies-to-find-creators/
Sprout Social – 32 Influencer marketing statistics to know in 2026 (2026): https://sproutsocial.com/insights/influencer-marketing-statistics/
Internetstiftelsen – Svenskarna och internet 2025: Sociala medier (2025): https://svenskarnaochinternet.se/rapporter/svenskarna-och-internet-2025/sociala-medier/
YouTube Blog – YouTube Creator Partnerships: A new era for brand and creator collaborations (2026): https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-creator-partnerships-newfronts-2026/
Paul, Weiss – EU Finalises Transparency Rules for AI-Generated Content (2026): https://www.paulweiss.com/insights/client-memos/eu-finalises-transparency-rules-for-ai-generated-content
Konsumentverket – Influencers reklaminlägg – regler för företag: https://www.konsumentverket.se/marknadsratt-foretag/influencers-reklaminlagg-regler-for-foretag/

This article was written with the help of AI and reviewed by Collabri.