Influencer marketing for small businesses

The facts here come from the platforms' own help pages: Instagram Help Center's About Meta Creator Marketing Hub and Find creators to partner with on Meta Creator Marketing Hub; TikTok's About TikTok One for advertisers, How to find creators who work with TikTok One, About collaborating with creators on TikTok One projects, How to create a new Creator marketing project in TikTok One and TikTok One Policies; and YouTube Help's Get started with YouTube Creator Partnerships. Menus and availability change by country, so check the page for your region before you start.

The short answer

Pick the one platform where your customers already spend time. Use that platform's creator tool to find a few creators whose audience matches your customers, agree in writing what they will make, how it is disclosed and whether you may run it as an ad, then tag every link so you can see the visits and sales it brings. Start with one creator and one product, learn from it, then repeat what worked.

Finding creators with the platforms' own tools

Meta Creator Marketing Hub (Facebook and Instagram). Meta describes it as a tool "that can be accessed in Meta Business Suite or Ads Manager that helps brands discover and evaluate creators to partner with on branded content and partnership ads". You open it from Creator marketing in the left menu of Meta Business Suite. Your business has to meet Meta's eligibility rules, and a business portfolio admin has to give each person access. Under Discover creators you see recommendations "personalized to your brand", a keyword search, and filters "like interests, age and follower count". You can also filter by the creator's audience, save creators to lists, or upload a .csv of creators you already work with to see similar ones. The Contact button on each card lets you copy the creator's email, if available, or send a message.

TikTok One. TikTok says TikTok One lets you "find creators, produce high-quality videos, and analyze your ad performance" in one place. In Explore creators, Creator search takes a username or a keyword such as "skincare" and returns creators who posted about it. Filters cover creator details (country or region, follower count, language), audience details (country or region, age range, gender ratio) and performance (median video views and engagement rate). Your business must be verified to create a project, and you can only view and create projects in your current region.

YouTube Creator Partnerships. YouTube says these features "enable brands to discover creators for brand deals", and that all eligible YouTube Partner Program creators are discoverable. Creators can set their desired rates and a business contact, and the program runs only in the countries and regions YouTube lists on that page.

You can of course also find creators by hand: the people who already tag your business, review your products or post about your town. The platform tools add audience data you cannot see from a public profile.

What to check before you reach out

Follower count is the least useful number. Both tools show more:

• Audience. TikTok One shows the creator's audience age range, gender ratio and country or region; Meta lets you filter creators by the audience you want to reach. A local business should check that the audience lives where it sells.
• Past work. Meta's creator profile shows "past and active partnership ads, branded content, past partners and metrics". TikTok suggests watching recent organic and sponsored videos "to assess their content style, quality, and brand alignment".
• Consistency. TikTok's profile shows follower growth, video views and engagement rate over time, plus a collaboration evaluation score based on recent content, activity on TikTok One and how published content performed.

Then look at the comments yourself. Real questions from real customers are a better sign than a high engagement rate.

The brief and the agreement

TikTok's project form is a useful checklist even if you work with a creator directly. A Creator marketing brief asks for a project name and description, country or region, video requirements and guidelines, an expected post date, an "Ad authorization period", a collaboration model and a payment preference. In plain words, write down:

• what the creator makes (number of posts, format, length) and the date it goes live;
• the facts they must get right about the product and anything they must not claim;
• how many rounds of changes you can ask for (TikTok One allows "up to 5 edit requests" after a video passes platform review);
• usage rights: whether you may run the post as an ad, on which platforms and for how long;
• the fee and when it is paid;
• how the paid relationship is disclosed.

On disclosure, the business shares the responsibility, and each platform has its own label for paid posts; TikTok says that when posting content that promotes a brand, "you're required to turn on the commercial content disclosure setting". Our influencer disclosure guide covers the rules and what to put in the agreement.

How payment works on the platforms

The platforms do not publish what creators charge, and rates vary by creator, so there is no fair average fee to quote. What the tools do show is the process. On TikTok One, creators invited directly or through an open application "can negotiate the price before accepting the invitation", and TikTok sends you an inbox notification if a creator proposes a new price. TikTok holds the payment and pays the creator after you confirm the video. On YouTube, creators can set "preferred rates for long-form videos and Shorts brand deals", which gives you a starting point. When you deal with a creator directly, outside a platform, agree the amount and payment date in writing before work starts.

Running creator posts as ads

A creator's post reaches their followers once. Running it as an ad lets you put it in front of your own target audience for as long as the agreement allows.

• Facebook and Instagram: partnership ads can show the creator's account, yours or both in the ad header. Meta's hub shows partner content from the last 90 days and "Recommended content to boost". The permissions, ad codes and set-up are in our Instagram partnership ads guide.
• TikTok: once a video is ready, you can request the creator's authorization to Spark it; if approved, TikTok says you "can sync the video to TikTok Ads Manager and deliver it as a Spark ad". Authorization codes and rules are in our TikTok Spark Ads guide.

This is why the usage rights line in the agreement matters: without it you may have a good video you are not allowed to promote.

Tracking what the creator brought in

Platform reports show views and engagement; they do not show what happened on your website. Give each creator their own tagged link with UTM parameters (for example the creator's handle as utm_content) so GA4 shows their visits, sign-ups and sales separately. Our UTM tracking links guide explains the parameters and naming. A discount code per creator catches people who saw the post but typed your address instead of tapping the link. When the post runs as an ad, the ad platform's own conversion tracking adds the ad results; TikTok One also has project reports with key metrics.

Where to start (our view)

For most small businesses we would start with one platform, two or three smaller creators whose audience matches your customers, and one clear product or offer. Ask for the right to run the posts as ads for a set period, tag every link, and compare the cost per sale with your other channels after a month. Keep the creators that brought customers and drop the ones that only brought views. We plan and run social and paid campaigns like this as part of our marketing services.

Frequently asked questions

How do small businesses find influencers?

Use the platform's own tool: Meta Creator Marketing Hub in Meta Business Suite for Facebook and Instagram, TikTok One for TikTok, or YouTube Creator Partnerships for YouTube. Each lets you search and filter creators by topic, audience and performance before you contact them.

What is the best influencer marketing platform for a small business?

The one where your customers already are. Meta Creator Marketing Hub and TikTok One are run by the platforms themselves and connect to their ad tools, so a creator's post can later run as a partnership ad or a Spark ad.

How much does influencer marketing cost for a small business?

There is no set price; creators set or negotiate their own rates. On TikTok One creators can propose a price before accepting, and on YouTube they can list preferred rates. Agree the fee, deliverables and usage rights in writing before work starts.

Do I need permission to run an influencer's post as an ad?

Yes. On Instagram and Facebook the creator grants partnership ad permission, and on TikTok the creator authorizes a Spark ad. Put the right to run ads, the platforms and the period in your agreement.

How do I know if an influencer campaign worked?

Give each creator a UTM-tagged link and a discount code, then compare visits, sign-ups and sales in GA4 and your shop with what you paid. Views and likes alone do not show whether the campaign made money.