Finding influencers in Nigeria sounds easy. Open Instagram or TikTok, search a hashtag, and send a few DMs.
In practice, most businesses run into the same problems: creators who never reply, follower counts that don't match real engagement, and no clear way to know who will actually move your product.
This guide walks you through how to find the right influencers for your brand, how to check that they're a good fit, and how to run your first campaign without the usual back-and-forth.
Step 1: Decide what kind of creator you need
Before you start searching, be clear about two things: who you want to reach and what you want them to do.
- Who: Age, city, interests. A Lagos fashion brand and an Abuja restaurant need very different creators.
- What: Do you want awareness (people seeing your brand), engagement (comments, shares), or sales (people buying)?
Then pick a creator size. At Aktivate, we group creators like this:
| Tier | Followers | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Nano | 1K – 10K | Trust, local reach, word-of-mouth sales |
| Micro | 10K – 50K | Niche communities, strong engagement |
| Mid-tier | 50K – 500K | Wider awareness in a category |
| Macro | 500K – 1M | Mass reach, big launches |
For most SMEs, nano and micro creators give the best value. Their audiences trust them, they cost less, and you can work with several of them for the price of one big name.
Step 2: Know where to look
There are four common ways brands find influencers in Nigeria:
- Manual search on Instagram and TikTok. Search hashtags and locations related to your niche (for example, food in Lekki or skincare in Abuja). It's free but slow, and it's hard to know who is genuinely active.
- Asking your own customers. Some of your best creators may already follow you. Check who tags you or comments often.
- Agencies. Good for big campaigns, but often expensive, and many require a monthly retainer.
- Creator marketplaces. Platforms like Aktivate's Collaboration Hub let you post one campaign brief and have verified creators apply to you, instead of you chasing them.
Step 3: Check engagement, not just followers
A creator with 8,000 engaged followers can outperform one with 80,000 inactive ones. Before you work with anyone, look at:
- Engagement rate: likes + comments on recent posts, divided by followers. You can check any creator for free with our engagement rate calculator.
- Comment quality: Are people having real conversations, or is it all emojis and "nice"?
- Consistency: Do they post regularly? A creator who posted three months ago may not deliver on time.
- Audience fit: Do their followers look like your customers?
- Account ownership: Make sure the person you're paying actually controls the account. On Aktivate, every creator is verified before they can apply to campaigns.
Step 4: Write a clear brief
Most campaign problems start with an unclear brief. A good brief includes:
- What you sell and who it's for
- Deliverables: for example, 1 Instagram Reel + 2 Stories
- Key message: the one thing people should remember
- Do's and don'ts: words to avoid, competitor mentions, etc.
- Timeline: when drafts are due and when content goes live
- Budget: what you're paying per creator or in total
The clearer your brief, the better the applications you'll get.
Step 5: Review content before it goes live
Always approve content before it's posted. Agree on this upfront so creators know to send drafts first.
Many brands manage this over WhatsApp, which gets messy fast when you're working with ten creators at once. On the new Collaboration Hub, you get a private chat with each creator you select. They send drafts there, you approve them, and they share the live post link in the same thread.
Step 6: Track results
Once posts are live, collect every post link and track views, likes, comments and shares. This tells you which creators to work with again.
If you're running lots of posts, Aktivate Reports pulls the public metrics from your post links into one report, so you don't have to screenshot each one.
Run your first campaign on Aktivate
Aktivate connects brands with 51,000+ verified nano and micro creators across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. Brands like Adidas, Access Bank and Burger King have used it to run creator campaigns, and over $3 million has been paid out to creators so far.
Here's how it works:
- Sign up at app.useaktivate.com
- Open Collaboration Hub on the sidebar
- Create your campaign: brief, deliverables, budget and timeline
- Publish it to our creator network
- Review applications, pick your creators, and manage everything in-app
There's no subscription. You only pay when you run a campaign.
