So you’ve decided to execute an influencer campaign on Instagram to promote new products. Awesome!

But are you just using Instagram to find influencers for the campaign? Well, that can be a problem. Here’s why:

• Many influencers inflate about their engagement and followership
• You have no idea whether the influencer is genuine or not
• You don’t know whether their audience demographics align with your audience

And most importantly—you don’t have tools to speed up the influencer discovery process. 

In this article, we’ll share how to build an Instagram influencers database and expert tips to make the best use of the platform. 

Let’s dive deep in. 

What is an Instagram influencer database?

Instagram influencer database lets you discover ideal influencers and creators on Instagram—based on their follower count, engagement rate, ROI generated, demographics, and more. 

There are different ways of creating such databases. However, most brands and influencer marketing agencies opt for the traditional method—one that involves finding Instagram influencers manually. 

But there's a problem with this approach: filtering the database can become challenging. If you’re manually searching for influencers on Instagram, you can analyze their profiles based on:

• Follower count,
• Content they publish
• Engagement they receive from their audience.
   

But that’s not the deciding criteria at all times. 

When building their own database here, Irresistible Me’s social media manager shares:

“One challenge we faced was filtering influencers based on specific demographics like location, age, and interests. The database helped us overcome this by offering advanced search filters and detailed profiles. This made it easier to find influencers who perfectly matched our target audience.”

With an Instagram influencer database, you can:

• Enable advanced search filters to find relevant and niche influencers
• Enrich the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaigns
• Verify the quality of influencers

Factors to consider when searching for an Instagram influencers database

To build your influencer database—first, look at the different factors you need to take note of while identifying the right-fit influencer. 

Here are 5 factors you must consider before building your influencer database:

1. Influencer’s authenticity

Katya Varbanova, Brand Marketing Expert & CEO, Viral Marketing Stars emphasizes on the importance of analyzing fake followers:

“Check what % of followers are fake. So many influencers inflate their numbers and many tools and businesses don’t know how to spot these fake followers and that’s super important when calculating their rates!”

So, analyze audience comments and fake followers on the influencer's profile. If the fake followers rate on the influencer’s profile is more than the actual followers, or is relatively higher—chances are the content won't reach the right audience. 

2. Engagement rate

Look for influencers with strong engagement rates—their content performance and impact indicate whether you should collaborate with them or not.

3. Content quality

Are the visuals in the influencer's reels clear? Do the reels have a better audio quality? Do they present their ideas well? Do they make use of captions? If yes, how detailed are these captions? Make sure to assess the influencer’s content in terms of video quality, audio quality, content delivery, and tone of voice.

4. Audience demographics

Does the influencer's audience align with the topics you care about? Or, is their audience active in the geographical locations they’re targeting? Consider audience demographics like their location, age, gender, and interests. 

5. Platform features

Filtering and search capabilities 

Can you filter the influencer based on the audience demographics, follower count, fake followers rate, engagement rate, or purchase intent? With advanced search and filtering capabilities, you can find new influencers in your niche.

For example, filtering the influencer profiles based on topics like home decor and the creator’s brand affinity with brands like Anthropologie.

Influencer analytics

Rahul Vij, the CEO of WebSpero Solutions says, “When determining the credibility and authenticity of influencers listed in the influencer database, we look at engagement rates, follower growth, and brand affinity.”

Irresistible Me, a haircare brand advocates this and shares that they look at a few more metrics beyond engagement rates and follower growth. They look at the influencer’s content quality, past collaborations, and fake followers. 

To dive deep into each of these metrics, you need a detailed influencer analytics system that analyzes metrics like engagement rate, purchase intent, fake follower rate, audience demographics, and overall ROI through sponsored posts. 

💡Pro tip: Use InsightIQ’s free tools—Instagram engagement rate calculator and fake follower checker to check the influencer’s engagement rate and fake followers. 

3 Instagram influencer Database to Enable Influencer Discovery 

Ease of use, customer support, and advanced filtering capabilities are some of the aspects marketers look at when choosing the right influencer database. 

Here are 3 influencer databases we picked from the larger pool based on their reviews from software review sites like G2, Capterra, and Software Advice.

InsightIQ

InsightIQ is an influencer search tool that helps you discover influencers, track influencer campaigns, and measure ROI from each campaign and influencer. It has an influencer database of 450M+ influencers and creators on social media platforms—Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Creator search discovery

When you use InsightIQ’s Creator Search feature, you can choose from multiple search filter options like audience location, creator contact options, and more.

When you click on the more filters option, you’ll see the complete list of search filters to choose from. Once you have selected the relevant filters, you’ll get the narrowed-down influencer search database.

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Influencer analytics

When you use InsightIQ to find a specific influencer's profile analytics, you can monitor metrics like their engagement rate, sponsored posts performance, and average likes and comments per post. 

Besides knowing the influencer’s follower count, you can understand the quality of their followers, and identify fake and suspicious followers. 

Besides the engagement rate, you can also understand the intent of the audience’s comments—positive, negative, or purchase intent.

Furthermore, you can analyze the influencer’s audience based on their brand affinity, and interests to find whether the audience’s interests align with your customer interests. 

For example, if the influencer’s audience is interested in topics like weddings and you want to market a home decor product—this influencer won’t be the right fit even when they talk about home decor and furnishings. 

Pros

• Ease of use
• Purchase intent capabilities
• Detailed analytics for each influencer profile

Cons

• Detailed audience data in post-campaign reports offered on request and additional fee

Pricing: Custom pricing based on the usage

HypeAuditor

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HypeAuditor is an AI-powered influencer marketing platform with a database of 149.6M+ creators. Besides the database, the tool offers a relationship manager that lets you communicate with the influencers and manage their payments. 

Key features

• Influencer discovery: Filter the influencers based on their location, age, gender, ethnicity, and interests, and identify niche influencers. 
• HypeAuditor’s My Network tool: Contact the shortlisted influencers via Gmail, track conversations and manage contracts and influencers’ payments
• Instagram account analytics: Analyze Instagram influencers with 35+ metrics such as engagement rate, follower growth, follower count, and comment authenticity.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Excellent customer support
• 18 free AI-powered Instagram tools for influencer marketing
• 20+ search filters available for influencer discovery

Cons

• Contacting influencers available via Gmail account—and not through the platform.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Modash

Modash comes with a database of 250M influencers and analyzes your campaigns. Beyond just the influencer database tool, it offers a relationship manager that lets you communicate with the influencers without leaving the platform, unlike HypeAuditor. 

With the Influencer Discovery feature, you can find influencers from a database of 250M+.

Key features

• Advanced filtering: Use multiple search filters for influencers and their audiences such as location, follower range, engagement rate., hashtags used, growth rate, demographics, fake followers, and interests. 
• Bulk influencer contact information: Find the email addresses of the shortlisted influencers and send them outreach emails via Modash
• Influencer analytics: Identify the influencer’s reach and authenticity with metrics like engagement rate, fake followers, lookalike accounts, brand affinity, paid performance score, and so on. 

Pros

• Searchable database of 250M influencers
• Competitive pricing
• Easy-to-understand and accurate data
• Campaign monitoring for Instagram posts and stories
• Advanced filtering capabilities
• Excellent customer support

Cons

• Occasional discrepancies in data such as follower count or engagement metrics

Pricing: Starts at $99 per month; 14-day free trial

How to Find an Instagram Influencer Database?

• Manual search: Use similar influencer profile suggestions to find influencers on Instagram.
• Hashtags and keyword searches: Find industry-related keywords and phrases, and paste them on Instagram’s search bar—you'll see a list of posts from multiple creators. 
• Influencer discovery tools: Opt for influencer discovery tools that let you identify influencers by assessing their follower count, engagement rate, quality of content produced, and ROI generated by sponsored posts. 

Steps to Choose and Evaluate the Right Database

Ready to purchase the influencer database for your influencer marketing nerds? Don’t rush. Instead, do the following to evaluate the database that meets your needs. 

Assess your needs

Do you need just an influencer database tool that lets you build the database? Or do you need something more than a database—something that offers influencer outreach and communications tools or tracks influencer campaigns?

Determine the budget and ROI

What’s the budget you’re looking to spend on the tool? Decide on the budget and what’s the ROI you want to generate out of it. 

Do your research

• Go through the pricing page on the tool’s website to check the pricing and features offered under different pricing tiers. 
• Use software review sites like G2, Capterra, and SoftwareAdvice to read what users are saying about the specific tool (and even compare two or more tools together).
• Check out case studies to understand how the product helped their customers achieve relevant results
• Seek advice from peers in your industry and ask them about the tools they have opted for and why

See the selected tools in action  

Once you have selected the influencer based on your research, do either of these:

• Sign up for a free trial and try the tool
• Watch the product demo (if available on the website)

Side note: If the product tour is unavailable on the website—which is most likely to happen—book a demo with the sales team and get a live walkthrough of the product, understanding the product features, pricing, and support.  

5. Deploy and train your team

Once you have purchased the influencer database, deploy it and conduct training sessions. 

• Give your team all the resources needed to learn about the tool—video tutorials, help docs, use cases, and case studies to help them understand the tool better
• Showcase examples of how marketers can integrate the tool into their workflow. 

Best practices for using an Instagram influencer database

Want to make the best use of your influencer tool? Here are 4 expert tips that you can leverage:

1. Regularly update your database search

“Influencer metrics can change rapidly, so keeping your searches fresh ensures you’re always working with the most relevant and effective influencers for your brand.”

—Social Media Manager, Irresistible Me

2. Validate the data through your research

“While these social media platforms offer extensive information, cross-referencing it with other sources—like the influencer’s actual social media profiles—can provide additional layers of authenticity. This ensures that you’re making informed decisions based on the most accurate and comprehensive data available.”

—Andrew Grella, CEO and Founder of Formen Makeup

3. Get to know influencers beyond the numbers

“The database is just a means to an end, but that human intervention is so crucial -- not only to double and triple-check that the info in the database is correct but to get to know the influencers beyond their numbers and data by spending time on their profiles and viewing their content/communities. That's the only way you can provide real, long-term value to your brand and your audiences.”

—Lisa Vetrone, Digital Director, Scenario Communications

If you’re wondering what Vetrone means by spending more time on the influencer’s profile, here’s what it means and what you should be doing:

“I look at engagement rates—it's not just about the number of likes and comments but the quality of interactions. Are followers leaving genuine feedback or just emoji responses? This helps gauge real influence versus fake engagement. Professionalism is next. Established influencers usually have a consistent posting schedule, high-quality content, and a clear sense of their brand. I also give weight to their reputations within industry circles and peer reviews. I look at engagement rates—it's not just about the number of likes and comments but the quality of interactions. Are followers leaving genuine feedback or just emoji responses? This helps gauge real influence versus fake engagement.”

—Andy Gillin, Attorney & Managing Partner, GJEL Accident Attorneys

4. Prioritize quality over quantity

“Instead of focusing solely on influencers with the largest reach, consider micro-influencers who may have smaller but highly engaged and loyal followings. These influencers often provide better ROI and can be more cost-effective than macro-influencers with larger, more diverse audiences.”

—Ilia Tretiakov, Owner and Lead Strategist, So Good Digital

How Does InsightIQ Help in finding an Instagram Creator Database?

To build an influencer database with InsightIQ, there are two ways:

Method 1: Use InsightIQ’s database

Step 1: When you sign in to InsightIQ, you’ll see the influencer database of 450M+ influencers and creators. Now, click on Search by filters and choose the platform as Instagram—it will give you the list of all the Instagram influencers in the database.

Step 2: Narrow down the database by choosing advanced filters like followers, topics, audience creator’s location, and so on. 

To choose more filters, go to More filters. For example, we have narrowed down the database using filters like:

• Topics → homedecor, homedecoration
• Keyword → home decor
• Engagement rate → >10%

Based on these filters, we have narrowed down the database to 983 influencers.

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Step 3: You can check each influencer’s profile metrics—followers, average like engagement rate, and intent to buy the product. To get detailed insights about each influencer, click on the influencer;’s profile to find out. 

Method 2: Refine your manual search with InsightIQ

Step 1: If you already have selected a few influencers in your niche to work with, then go to ‘Search by profile’ in InsightIQ to get the influencer’s analytics. 

Step 2: Add the influencer’s Instagram profile username and tap on ‘get results’. 

Step 3: On clicking the influencer’s profile, you’ll see detailed analytics like comment analysis, purchase intent, engagement rate, and so on. Based on this analysis, you can refine your manual influencer database. 

And voila—you’ve built your Instagram influencer database with InsightIQ.

Sidenote: If you're curious to try out InsightIQ and see how it can help you build your own influencer database, book a demo!

FAQs

Q.1. How to find Instagram influencers by location?

To find Instagram influencers by location, use location tags and geotags on Instagram. Or, use the Creator’s location filter on InsightIQ. With this filter, you can add the location of your choice and find the local influencers from the specific area.

Q.2. How to detect fake influencers?

To detect fake influencers, use InsightIQ’s Instagram fake influencer checker. All you have to do is enter the influencer’s Instagram profile into the tool and InsightIQ will analyze the fake and suspicious followers. 

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