Finding creators is easy. Finding creators who fit your customer, deliver on time, and have an audience that is genuinely theirs is the actual job, and it is where most first campaigns quietly go wrong. Here is a vetting pass you can run before any money moves.
Where to look, in order of effort
- Your own customers and followers: the highest-converting creators a brand books are frequently people who already bought. Search your tagged posts first.
- Hashtag and keyword search on-platform: slow, but it surfaces creators who are already making content about your category rather than about brand deals.
- Competitor tags: whoever posted well for a competitor already knows how to brief for your category.
- Marketplaces and platforms: fastest volume, and the vetting burden stays with you.
- A manager or agency: they do the finding, and you should still demand the per-creator numbers.
The four checks that matter
Run these in order. The first two take a minute each and eliminate most of the list.
- Audience fit: is their audience your customer? A beauty creator with a teenage audience is the wrong buy for a premium serum, at any engagement rate.
- Engagement rate: likes plus comments over followers, on recent posts. Compare within a tier, never across.
- Recent view consistency: five recent posts, not their best-ever. Wildly uneven views usually mean one viral post carrying an otherwise quiet account.
- Delivery history: have they done paid work, and did the brand book them again? A repeat booking is worth more than any metric.
Audience-quality red flags
- Comments that say nothing: emoji-only or generic praise in volume, from accounts that follow thousands and post nothing.
- Follower count far out of step with views: 200K followers and 2K views is a bought or long-decayed audience.
- Geography mismatch: a large audience in markets you do not ship to is reach you cannot use.
- A feed that is all brand deals: audiences discount recommendations from accounts that recommend everything.
A portfolio shows you what a creator can make. It tells you nothing about whether they will make it on time.
Ask for the two screenshots
Before you commit, ask for a screenshot of their audience demographics and one of a recent post's insights. Reach, views, saves, and audience location in one image will tell you more than any media kit, and a creator who works professionally will send both without hesitating. Reluctance is itself an answer.
Then test small
The cheapest vetting there is remains a small first booking. Seed widely, watch who delivers on brief and on deadline, and rebook only the ones who did. Variance between creators is enormous, and no amount of upfront analysis substitutes for having worked with someone once.
Sadie runs this pass for you and returns a shortlist with the fit reasoning attached, so what reaches you is a decision rather than a spreadsheet.
FAQ
What is a good engagement rate? It depends on tier and platform, and smaller accounts should be higher. Compare candidates against each other within the same tier rather than against a universal benchmark.
How do I spot fake followers? Look at the ratio of views to followers, the quality of comments, and whether follower growth has obvious vertical jumps. Any one can be innocent; all three together rarely are.
How many creators should a first campaign have? Enough to learn from the variance. A handful is a coin flip. A wider first batch shows you which creators, angles, and hooks work before you put real fees behind them.