Finding the Right Creators
How to move from "anyone in our niche" to a shortlist of creators who are actually right for your brand.
The problem with follower count
Follower count is the most visible number in influencer marketing and one of the least reliable signals. A creator with 2M followers and a 0.3% engagement rate reaches fewer real people than a creator with 80K followers and a 5% engagement rate.
Fair's filters let you search by the metrics that actually matter.
Start with audience, not creator
Before you open Creator Discovery, define your target audience:
Demographics — age range, gender split, income bracket
Location — country, city, or region
Interests — what they care about beyond your product category
Platform habits — where they spend time (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube)
This shapes every filter you apply. A creator might look perfect on the surface but reach an audience that doesn't match your buyer profile at all.
Using Creator Discovery filters
Go to Creator Discovery and use the filter panel on the left.
Reach filters
Followers
Set a minimum and maximum range
Engagement rate
Filter for quality — 2%+ is generally healthy
Average views
For video-first platforms (TikTok, YouTube)
Average likes
Cross-platform signal for content resonance
Audience filters
Audience country
Match your target market
Audience age
Align with your buyer demographics
Audience gender
Filter for gender-skewed campaigns
Audience interests
Reach audiences with specific interest categories
Creator filters
Category / niche
Find creators in your product vertical
Platform
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or TikTok Shop
Creator location
If local relevance matters
Language
Filter by the language creators post in
Authenticity score
Filter for real, organic audiences
Reading the Analyser profile
When a creator looks promising in search, open their full Analyser profile before adding them to a campaign.
Authenticity score
Fair's authenticity score estimates the proportion of a creator's audience that is real, organic, and engaged. A low score suggests inflated followers or low-quality traffic. Look for scores above 70.
Engagement trend
Check whether engagement is growing, stable, or declining. A creator with declining engagement might be losing relevance even if their follower count looks strong.
Audience breakdown
The audience section shows:
Countries — where their followers actually are, not just where the creator is based
Age and gender split — real follower demographics, not claimed
Interests — what the audience engages with broadly
This is the section that tells you whether the creator's audience matches your buyer.
Past brand partnerships
Some profiles include a history of brand mentions. If a creator has promoted several direct competitors recently, consider whether that affects brand exclusivity.
Creator tiers as a starting point
Nano
1K–10K
High trust, niche communities, low cost
Micro
10K–100K
Best engagement-to-cost ratio for most campaigns
Mid-tier
100K–500K
Broader reach with some audience specificity
Macro
500K–1M
Awareness campaigns, broad audiences
Mega / Celebrity
1M+
Max reach, lower engagement, high cost
For most campaigns, micro and mid-tier creators deliver the best return. Nano creators work well for hyper-local or niche campaigns. Macro and mega creators are best when reach is the only goal.
Checking for audience overlap
If you're planning to use multiple creators in one campaign, run overlap checks before finalising your list.
Open a creator → Check Overlap → search for a second creator.
A result above 40% means a significant portion of your budget on the second creator is hitting the same people who already saw your message. That's not always wrong — frequency can help with recall — but it should be a deliberate choice.
See Creator Overlap for the full overlap guide.
Saving shortlists
Once you've filtered down to a set of candidates, save them:
Open a creator profile → Save to List
Create a new list or add to an existing one
Name the list by campaign or brief
Saved lists persist across sessions. This means you can build creator rosters over time rather than starting from scratch each campaign.
Common mistakes
Filtering by followers first. Start with audience demographics and engagement rate — followers as a primary filter usually leads to overpriced, under-performing selections.
Skipping the audience breakdown. A creator might be based in Singapore but have 70% of their audience in the US. Check before assuming.
Ignoring the authenticity score. Inflated follower counts are common. A creator with 300K followers and a 30 authenticity score is not worth the same as one with 100K followers and an 85 score.
Booking all creators in the same tier. A mix of one mid-tier creator and several micro-creators often outperforms a single macro creator for the same budget.
Related
Creator Discovery — full filter and search reference
Analyser — understanding creator profiles
Creator Overlap — checking shared audiences
Running Your First Campaign — putting it all together
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