How to Hire Influencers: A Step-by-Step Guide for Brands

Quick answer

To hire an influencer, follow these steps:

1. Set one clear goal and a budget.
2. Define the audience and the type of creator you need.
3. Find candidates through platform marketplaces, search or an agency.
4. Vet their audience, engagement and past brand work.
5. Reach out with a specific offer.
6. Agree on a written contract covering deliverables, rights, disclosure and payment.
7. Brief them, review the content and publish it.
8. Amplify the best posts with paid ads.
9. Measure results and rehire the creators who perform.

Step 1: Set a goal and a budget

Start with what the campaign needs to do. Common goals include:

• Awareness: reach and views among a new audience.
• Sales: tracked clicks, codes or purchases.
• Ad creative: videos you can run as paid social ads.
• Social proof: reviews and demonstrations for your site and product pages.

Your goal determines the type of creator, the deliverables and how you measure success. Next, set a budget that covers creator fees, product, shipping and any ad spend you plan to put behind the content. Our influencer budgeting guide breaks down typical rates by tier and platform.

Step 2: Define the creator you need

Write a short profile before you search:

• Audience: age, location and interests of the people you want to reach.
• Platform: where your buyers spend time, such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.
• Tier: nano (1,000–10,000 followers), micro, mid-tier or macro.
• Style: educational, funny, aspirational or straightforward reviews.

Do not overlook small creators. Influencer Marketing Hub's benchmark report, published in March 2026, found that nano-influencers make up 75.9% of Instagram's influencer base and have a higher average engagement rate than macro-influencers.

Step 3: Find influencers

There are four main ways to recruit influencers:

1. Platform marketplaces: Instagram's creator marketplace, accessed through Meta Business Suite, lets brands search creators by creator and audience attributes, see who has expressed interest in working with them, and send project details and rates. TikTok One is TikTok's official hub for creator partnerships and replaced the TikTok Creator Marketplace in 2025.
2. Your own community: Check who already tags your brand, reviews your product or follows you. These creators are often the most credible and easiest to sign.
3. Search and hashtags: Search for topics and keywords your buyers use and note the creators who appear repeatedly.
4. Software and agencies: Discovery tools and agencies save time when you need many creators, because they filter by audience data and handle outreach at scale.

Step 4: Vet every candidate

Follower count is the least useful number. Check these instead:

• Audience fit: Ask for screenshots of audience age, gender and location from the creator's analytics.
• Real engagement: Read comments. Specific, varied comments are a good sign. Generic comments and sudden follower spikes are warning signs.
• Content quality: Watch several recent videos. Would the content work as an ad for your brand?
• Brand safety: Review past posts for anything that conflicts with your values.
• Past partnerships: Check whether they disclose sponsorships properly and whether sponsored posts still perform.

Fake influence also carries legal risk. The FTC's rule on fake reviews and testimonials, announced in August 2024 and effective October 2024, prohibits buying or selling fake indicators of social media influence, such as bot followers or views, when they are used to misrepresent influence for a commercial purpose.

Step 5: Reach out with a clear offer

Good outreach is short and specific. Include:

• Who you are and why you chose them, referencing a specific post.
• What you want them to create and where it will appear.
• The compensation: a flat fee, free product, commission or a mix.
• The timeline and next step.

Use the creator's business email or the platform's partnership messaging. Expect to negotiate, and respond quickly when creators reply.

Step 6: Put the agreement in writing

Every partnership needs a written agreement, even for small deals. Cover these terms:

• Deliverables: number of posts, formats, length and platforms.
• Timeline: draft dates, revision rounds and posting dates.
• Usage rights: whether you can run the content as ads, on which channels and for how long.
• Ad authorization: whether the creator will grant access for Meta partnership ads or TikTok Spark Ads.
• Exclusivity: whether they can promote competitors, and for how long.
• Disclosure: how they will label the post as sponsored.
• Payment: amount, schedule and what happens if deliverables are late.

On disclosure, the FTC's updated Endorsement Guides, finalized in June 2023, require material connections to be disclosed clearly and unavoidably. According to an analysis by law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, endorsers cannot rely only on a platform's built-in disclosure tool, and the FTC expects advertisers to instruct and monitor their endorsers.

Step 7: Brief, review and publish

A good brief gives the creator what they need without scripting every word. Include:

• The single main message and two or three supporting points.
• Claims they must not make, especially health, financial or performance claims.
• Must-have shots, such as the product in use or the packaging.
• Examples of content you like.
• Disclosure requirements.

Review drafts against the brief, but avoid rewriting the creator's voice. Their style is why their audience trusts them.

Step 8: Amplify with paid media

An organic post reaches only part of a creator's audience. Running it as an ad extends that reach to the audiences you choose.

• Meta partnership ads run ads that show both your brand and the creator's handle. Brands can boost a creator's organic post or create new partnership ads in Ads Manager. Learn more in our guide to Meta partnership ads.
• TikTok Spark Ads promote a creator's original post. According to TikTok's help center, the creator generates a video authorization code in the TikTok app, choosing an authorization period of 7, 30, 60 or 365 days, and shares it with the advertiser. Captions cannot be edited after the post is authorized, so finalize them first.

Step 9: Measure and rehire

Measure each creator against the goal you set in Step 1. Use tracked links, discount codes and ad results to compare cost per result. Then rehire the creators who performed. Long-term partnerships usually feel more authentic to audiences and cost less to manage than constant one-off deals.

When to use an agency instead

Hiring influencers yourself works well for a handful of creators. Once you need dozens of videos a month, or want content built for paid ads from the start, a managed partner can save significant time. MediaNug produces creator-led UGC and paid social ads for TikTok, Meta, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat. Our NugVerse marketplace matches brands with vetted creators and generates campaign briefs with AI, so you can move from brief to ad faster.

Frequently asked questions

How do I hire an influencer to promote my brand?

Set a goal and budget, find creators whose audience matches your buyers, vet their engagement and audience data, send a specific offer, sign a written agreement and brief them clearly. Then review the content and amplify the best posts with ads.

Where can I find influencers to hire?

Start with platform marketplaces such as Instagram's creator marketplace and TikTok One. You can also look at your existing followers and customers, search relevant hashtags, or use influencer software or an agency.

How do I work with influencers once they are hired?

Give them a clear brief with one main message, leave room for their own style, agree on revision rounds and posting dates, and make sure every sponsored post is clearly disclosed.

Do influencers have to disclose paid partnerships?

Yes. In the US, the FTC requires clear disclosure of any material connection, such as payment or free product, and it expects brands to monitor their creators' compliance.

Sources

• Influencer Marketing Hub, "Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report" (published March 3, 2026)
• Instagram for Business, "Instagram's Creator Marketplace is Expanding to New Markets and Testing Smarter Recommendations" (February 21, 2024, updated October 31, 2024)
• Social Media Today, "TikTok One replacing Creator Marketplace" (February 27, 2025)
• TikTok Ads Help Center, "How to create Spark Ads for Smart+ Campaigns in TikTok Ads Manager" (accessed October 2026)
• Davis Wright Tremaine, "In a One, Two, Three Punch, the FTC Issues Updated Endorsement Guides" (July 10, 2023)
• Davis Wright Tremaine, "FTC Finalizes Rule Prohibiting Fake Reviews" (August 26, 2024)