In a world saturated with social media content, it can be almost impossible for a brand to grow without the use of social media influencers.  Influencers are sometimes referred to content creators, content curators, tastemakers, creators or bloggers. Simply put, an influencer is defined as a person who has a loyal and engaged (and often large) following on social media. Their followers trust them to make recommendations and suggestions about what to buy, where to go, and how to spend their money. These influencers are paid by brands, either directly or in the form of a commission,  to create original content that showcases a brands’ product or service.

Essentially, if you enlist the service of an influencer, you are forming a relationship with someone who already has a large and loyal audience of consumers. The influencer will share your brand with a group of people who may not find you otherwise, and if all goes well, those people will buy your product, or at the very least, become aware of its existence. It’s like the digital version of word-of-mouth, which only worked back in the olden days when people still talked to each other.

A survey done in 2017 by Influencer Marketing Hub (yes there is a website devoted entirely to influencer marketing) found that the average earned media value per $1 spent on influencer marketing was a $7.65. That is very high. Influencer marketing strategies are also by far the fastest growing method of customer acquisition, well above email campaigns and organic or paid searches.

That same survey found that 230 new influencer marketing agencies and platforms had popped up in the previous 24 months. Put simply, there are a ton of influencer marketing platforms to choose from, many offer very comparable services, and it can be near impossible to know where to start.  With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of some of the very best influencer marketing platforms out there.

Heepsy

Heepsy allows its user to find influencers by location, tags, followers,  projected engagement or cost.

They offer 4 pricing tiers (the bottom tier is free) all the way up to pro for $99 a month. You can find the right influencer in the right location for any type of brand; their website specifically mentions fashion and beauty, restaurants and bars, events, retail, marketing agencies and hotel and travel.

Hypr

The Hypr platform searches through over 10 million influencer profiles to find the ones that specifically fit your needs. An amazing statistic on their website claims that “30% of the world’s largest brands, agencies, and influencer marketing platforms trust HYPR’s data.” HYPR uses over 35 databases and collects publicly available information to index “over 1 billion social media accounts.” It counts high-profile brands including Pepsi, Microsoft, and Time Inc among its clients.

Pepperjam

Pepperjam is an affiliate marketing platform with a goal of driving commerce. They have a results-driven, boutique approach that makes it easy for you to connect with influencers, track analytics, and analyze your successes. They also handle all commision and payouts, so payments are a breeze. The interface is streamlined and simple to use.

FameBit

FameBit is said to be one of the best platforms for YouTube branded content. The platform connects brands with creators (influencers, essentially) allowing brands to have their content received by an active audience which is already engaged. They work with well-known brands including Canon, Sony, adidas, and Conair. Once an influencer and brand have matched and the content has been approved, FameBit takes a 10 percent from both parties and for a total fee of 20 percent per brand partnership agreement.

Activate

The Activate team works with over 150,000 influencers and creators who produce over 6500 pieces of branded content per month. The Activate platform identifies potential influencers who will help you reach your target audience and garner “higher than average engagement.” The original version of Activate was called BLOGLOVIN’ and launched in 2007, before the term influencer held its current meaning. Their website states that Activate has “over 12 million registered global users engaging with content on our platform.” With Activate, you can search for leading influencers across all social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube). Their users include Nars,H&M, Olay, Burberry and more.

Adly

Adly connects brands with influencers and celebrities to reach a wide audience, drive engagement, and generate leads and sales. The Adly strategy is to use “data-driven audience targeting, in-stream social advertising, and real-time events that result in direct sales and actionable insights.”

Adly works across all social platforms; YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ and have been successfully in business since 2010. Some of their high-profile clients include at&t, Toyota, Coca-Cola, and Disney.

Adly offers precise campaign strategies and performance insight to help match you with the most relevant celebrities and influencers to drive engagement for you specific campaign.

Buzz Stream

Buzz Stream is primarily a research tool that lets you filter through influencers to find the right one for your needs. They take the often time-consuming and tedious process of sorting through influencers and make it an efficient process. In addition to finding influencers, Buzz Stream saves all your emails and tweets in one place and encourages you to set reminders to follow up with influencers once the initial introduction has been made.  They create a centralized database for you and your team to work exclusively from; your team can collaborate in this space, share notes, and keep projects organized.

Their customizable analytics reports will give you insight into what is working well with your outreach campaigns, team, and link placements. They also provide “digital PR” and help you build a press list, tips for optimizing link placement, and content promotion.

Their impressive client list includes AirBnB, Shopify, and Canva.

Crowdly

Crowdly thinks of itself as the digital version of word-of-mouth communication. What this means is that is pairs brands and agencies with influencer (also known as advocates) who truly love and support whatever the brand is selling or doing. They are an “authentic marketing” company with the goal to “to connect brands with their own best advocates. The passion our customers have for their advocates – and the passion their advocates have for our customers – guides us. We are happy when we help brands foster real relationships with real customers.”  Crowdly has found that “unpaid advocates” receive far higher engagement than influencers, have a deeper brand knowledge, and are more loyal to your brand.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo goes beyond the traditional influencer platform. It works to help you identify the content that performs best and is shared the most within your keywords and among competitors. You can easily run a search of  what you are planning your content around (ie: flyfishing) and it will provide you with similar content that has performed well across social media.

The platform also helps you to understand an influencer’s typical angle and find the right influencer to help you amplify your content.

GroupHigh

GroupHigh helps your brand find influencers that will authentically promote your product and create evergreen content (content that can be published any time and is always relevant.) With extensive data on over 50 million websites, GroupHigh helps you see blogs that have linked to your competitors, your brand, or your clients. You can use this data to build new relationships. They offer extensive filtering options including SEO authority, language, and location. Their target audience demographics help you hone on on the best bloggers and influencers to deliver your content.

They also provide an influencer search which allows you to filter by type of influencer including “micro” and “long-tail”.

Their “Earned Media Reports” are an easy to follow, visual representation used to analyze post engagement, number of shares, and side by side comparisons of influencers to find the influencers who are working best for your brand.

HollyFy

HollyFy is driven by the idea of merging art and commerce to empower creators and elevate brands. Influencers on HollyFy are able to create their own page within the Hollyfy site and app. They provide brands with key information about themselves including the type of content they create, their audience demographics,  and the kind of work they’re interested in pursuing.

Their creators include influencers, of course, but also musicians, video game developers, and movie and television productions. These creators generate revenue for themselves and buzz for the brand by mentioning a product, service, or location in a scene or song (ie song lyrics that mention a brand, or product placement in  a show.)

iambassador

iambassador stands out because of it’s niche; it is an influencer platform specifically created for the travel industry. It pairs the top travel brands with the best travel influencers around the world. The influencer marketing platform is truly customizable; they offer influencer trips that “can be combined with an extended social media campaign, stand-alone content-creation projects, or social media amplification packages.”

They make sure that all of their created content is engaging and unique, and clients can decide how many influencers are needed and for how long the campaign will run.  Their clients include South Africa, Germany, Tourism Ireland, and Uk Trade & Investment, and their services have been mentioned in the New York Times. iambassador was the recipient of the 2017 and 2018 aware for Europe’s Leading Marketing Campaign.

Hypetap

Hypetap’s slogan is “Tap Into Authentic Influencers” and that is exactly what they do. Each brand who works with this influencer marketing platform is given an Account Manager who will oversee and guide every step of the process. Influencers are recommend based on fit, demographic, geographic location, and engagement data. Once the influencers have been selected, your content is tailored to align with your campaign goals and reach target audiences.

Australia-based Hypetap handles the campaign management including scheduling, “briefing, approvals, logistics, and Q&A.” This frees up time for you to spend growing your brand. Finally, they offer insights and reporting on all forms of engagement so you can discover what is working well for your brand.

Their clients include Nestle, American Airline, LG, and Disney, and their influencer network remains prestigious  through its invitation-only selection process. This means their influencer network is noticeably smaller than other platforms, but the quality of content and engagement levels are consistently high.

iFluenz

iFluenz is an influencer marketing platform is specific to Instagram. It connects brands with “micro-influencers”. A micro-influencer is a person who does not have a ton of followers (specific follower count is not specified) but holds a lot of clout in a specific area, and has a history of strong engagement.

Studies have shown that the less followers a person has, the higher the engagements with their posts is. iFluenz works off this model. There is no subscription fee to sign up; you pay only once you have confirmed an influencer’s post proposal.

Users (brands) receive proposals from influencers, are able to preview the post, request any changes, then accept or deny the proposal. Once the post is live you can use real-time analytics to track the post (even when it is linked to the influencers account)and  review your influencer.

Influencers with at least 5,000 followers and a highly-engaged, real audience are able to sign up for the platform.

Jamballa

Jamballa is an amazing resource to know about, particularly if you are a blogger. The influencer marketing platform connects bloggers with brands, and is free to sign up for. Bloggers are able to curate their profiles to reflect the type of products they want to write about. Filters include minimum product value, products of interest, and your region.

Jamballa gives bloggers the opportunity to score free products, and enrich their blogs with fresh content, and for brands, Jamballa makes finding a blogger simple. Their platform contains information on each blogger including readership and subscribers so you can find the right person for your product. There are currently 8683 bloggers to choose from.

Mavrck

Mavrck counts PG, eBay, Gillette, and Nike among its clients. They call themselves an “all-in-one” influencer marketing platform which means users are able to “create, refer, review, and research” content. They have a network of over 2 million followers, and are well-known for their powerful integrations. Their patented platform “empowers brands to discover and activate thousands of their most impactful influencers, advocates, referrers, and loyalists to create ideas, insights, and content across touchpoints.”

Niche

Niche is home to a community of highly-regarded content creators. As a brand, you are able to reach creators and collaborate on unique and engaging content, grow your following by sharing you content, and amplify your message by promoting content through the use of Twitter ads.

Niche was acquired by Twitter in 2015, however the influencer marketing platform works across all social media platforms. They call themselves a “creator-first” platform, with the goal of increasing visibility and support for their creators and for the brands with which their creators partner.

The platform works on a campaign-by-campaign basis and partners and creators have the opportunity to attend meets-up and events with creators from around the world.

Popular Pays

Popular Pays, (sometimes referred to as Pop Pays) calls their creators “a talented, experienced, community of social media experts skilled in creating any content type your brand might need.”

This influencer marketing platform helps your brand coordinate campaigns across the platform of multiple influencers, which helps your hashtag take off and your brand gain visibility and engagement. For example, Kind Bar ran a campaign last year to call attention to their brand, and 70 influencers found through the Popular Pays platform posted about the brand on the same day using the hashtag #kindmatters.

Their creators are adept at producing Instagram Stories, photos, blog posts, and videos. They have worked with adidas, M&Ms, Dyson, Method and more.

InNetwork

InNetwork believes that influencer marketing campaigns should be, above all, fun and easy. Every step of your campaign can be managed within their platform.

They believe that engagement rather than follower count is the key to a successful influencer. InNetwork distinguishes themselves from other influencer marketing campaigns by approving influencers with as little as 500 followers, as long as their engagement levels are consistently high. They are working on incorporating payment through the platform which will make for a seamless experience.

There are currently 11,485 (and rising) influencers on the platform, and each one have been carefully vetted to assure that their followers are loyal, and most importantly, real.

Shoutcart

With a combined network of over 400 million active followers, Shoutcart is one of the most highly-regarded influencer marketing platforms. They work exclusively with Instagram influencers, each of whom has been vetted for accuracy and authenticity then given a “proprietary Shoutcart Score.” Their roster of influencers is audited daily to keep the information constantly relevant.

You can browse their Influencer database for free; fees vary depending on the influencer’s reach and follower count. You can also easily browse by category including Fashion & Style, Fitness & Sports, Food & Nutrition, or Outdoor & Travel.

When you find an account you may want to work with, Shoutcart will give you helpful information including audience demographics and best time for influencers to “shout” (post) about your brand in order to be seen by the widest audience possible.

Socialix

Socialix is a New York City tech company that manages influencers, helps brands connect with digital audiences and grow their social presence. Your existing technology will integrate seamlessly with theirs, so there will be no need for your team to learn a new interface. You can keep influencers organized with a single CRM (customer relationship manager) which allows you to message influencers directly.

You also have the option to automate your workflow to manage contracts, handle product shipments, content approval, payments, and taxes.

TRAACKR

Traackr is an influencer marketing platform that helps you discover new influencers and “manage, expand, validate, and scale your global influencer marketing.” The platform operates using IRM (Influencer Relationship Management) which allows brands to find influencers and make strides to “value their community, and in turn become valued members.”

The platform tracks ROI, helps establish a streamlined workflow for all content, standardizes KPIs, and ultimately helps grow influencer relationships. You also have the option to have influencers recommended to you based on the type of creators with whom you are currently working.

Tribe

Tribe differentiates itself from other influencer marketing platforms by working solely with micro-influencers. A micro-influencer is an “everyday person” who may not have a ton of followers, but who have built their loyal and engaged following based on a curated passion or interest.

At the present, there are 44,830 influencers within their system. The content is created by influencers before you pay a cent, and if you love it, you buy it, and if you don’t love it there is no pressure to buy.

They offer two types of campaigns. The first is called “Influencer Marketing” and this is the typical influencer model where content is created for your brand and published to the influencer’s feed. The second type is called a “Content Campaign” and while influencers still craft the content for your brand, you are able to publish it on your brand’s social media instead of on the influencer’s channels.

Brandbacker

With over 30,000 influencers and creators to choose from, you are sure to find the right influencer on Brandbacker. These influencers create original articles, reviews, videos and contests/giveaways to drive engagement to your brand and increase your SEO ranking.

You can filter influencers (from over 85 countries and 40 language options) by location, language, demographics, keywords, and influence levels. The Brandbacker network includes influencers from all niches including lifestyle, beauty, fashion, food, health, menswear, travel and more.

You will receive real-time analytics including “influencer scores” which will help your brand evaluate the effectiveness of partnering with each influencer. They also offer “Media and Comment Aggregation”, an incredibly helpful tool for seeing all of your images, videos, and comments from all of your campaigns in one place.

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Let us know in the comments if you’ve had experiences, good or bad, with any of the influencer marketing platforms we’ve listed, and please let us know if we’ve missed any great ones!