Sourcing YouTube Creators: A Complete Guide for Influencer Marketing

We’ve covered sourcing and vetting creators on Instagram. Now, it’s time to turn our attention to the king of long-form video.

Within the creator economy, YouTube is often considered the ‘slept-on’ platform. Lacking the virality of TikTok or the instant resonance found on Instagram, YouTube is frequently overlooked as a channel for influencer partnerships - perhaps because it’s the most misunderstood.

Due to the evergreen nature of YouTube content and the higher production value, partnerships on this platform don’t come cheap. YouTube should be considered a longer term play in your influencer marketing strategy and less orientated about ‘quick wins.’ While you can see short-term boosts in conversions if you play your cards right, the real value of YouTube partnerships lies in the long tail of that content.

So, how can you source YouTube creators that won’t just give you short-term results, but keep driving engagement and conversions your brand?

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What is the difference between sourcing creators on YouTube versus Instagram or TikTok?

You don’t to have a veteran in influencer marketing to know that YouTube is a different beast from Instagram and TikTok - another reason why influencer marketers tend to stay away from it. As Kristen explains, YouTube partnerships take longer to mature and bear fruit:

“I think it's definitely the long game. You wouldn't see conversions right off the jump. I think it's a partner that you need to invest in long-term over, you know, six months.”

Kristen Althoff, Senior Director of Influencers and Socials at Mary Ruth’s.

But guess what? This only opens up more ground for your brand! If you lean into these platform differences when sourcing YouTube creators, you can build a highly successful program with serious staying power.

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What are YouTube Shorts, and how can they be used in influencer marketing?

The rise of YouTube Shorts has absolutely changed the game for both brands and creators. Shorts offer brands a very different style of YouTube content to work with, as they are better suited for brand awareness and quick brand mentions than product promotion.

Plus, being able to repurpose short-form content from TikTok to YouTube offers a less resource-intensive way to run influencer content on the platform. You may want to consider Shorts if brand awareness is the goal of your influencer campaign or program (we’ll cover this in more depth in our chapter on booking content for YouTube).

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Start off strong: create your own YouTube account

Creating a YouTube account that’s dedicated to sourcing creators will make your job significantly easier. Having an account means you can subscribe to relevant channels and creators, save videos, and like/comment.

This is useful to keep all of your sourcing activities in one place, but the primary benefit is that YouTube’s algorithm will begin recommending similar content and creators - meaning you can built an engine for creator discovery with very little lift.

To DIY an best-in-class sourcing algorithm, you also need to be selective about what characteristics you’re looking for. This isn’t just a numbers game, but also looking at the overall feel of a channel and whether it aligns with your brand:

“So first and foremost, I always split between quantitative and qualitative. So there's the number side of things and then there's the more emotional sort of aesthetic side of things.“

Mike Newton, Influencer Marketing Strategist.

Here are some criteria to factor into your YouTube sourcing strategy:

Thumbnail design

Thumbnails are the static images that make up the collage of videos on an Influencer’s channel. Thumbnails may be super busy or super plain, but consistency is key here. What you really want is some sophistication in their overall branding.

Long-form or short-form?

Does a creator demonstrate a preference for long-form over YouTube Shorts? Or are they comfortable using a mixture of the two? This flexibility can give your brand more options when it comes to deliverables.

Posting/upload cadence

While a creator doesn’t need to be posting every day of the week, you should look for a clear, defined posting cadence. This shows a commitment to their channel and their community.

It’s also worth noting that rigid posting schedules may affect how easily/often you can work with a particular creator. For example, if they only post a couple of times per month, those partnership spots may fill up quickly.

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Pay close attention to YouTube collabs

YouTube collaborations between influencers in the same category or niche are a great way to boost discovery opportunities and understand what kinds of content are resonating with a specific community.

”Especially in the beauty and skincare space, for example, vlogs are becoming more popular. So, I found that a lot of YouTube creators will hang out with each other and sometimes they'll appear on each other's vlogs.”

Milan Freeman, Influencer Marketing Expert and Strategist.

How do YouTube creator collaborations help boost influencer marketing campaigns?

The smaller a community is, the more likely is it that influencers will pair up in their content to increase reach. This is great not only for campaigns, but also helps you to add more creators to your potential partnerships list. Even if you don’t plan on reaching out to them ASAP, you can get really good insight into a creator’s personality and style of content how they interact in YouTube collabs.

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Tailor your sourcing strategy to your product category

The best way of sourcing creators on YouTube will vary depending on the vertical you’re in. Consider that different types of products have different levels of seasonal demand and shorter/longer sales cycles. You need to lean into this when YouTube sourcing to time your outreach for the time when creators are going to be most receptive to hearing about your product.

Ask yourself the question: How can I time my YouTube influencer outreach based on product seasonality? Think about the characteristics of your product, and when consumers are most likely to be interested in using/purchasing that product. By timing influencer partnerships for when your product is top of mind, you’re more likely to see robust conversions off the back of creator content. Molly explains how this works for her at Epic Gardening:

“Gardening is so seasonal - this isn't like a beauty brand where I can send a blush and they can use it tomorrow and post about it the next day. I'll send them an email now to introduce myself, but we might start working together in like six months when it’s appropriate to actually plant those things.”

Molly Cole, Influencer Marketing Strategist + Partnerships at Epic Gardening.

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Quick tips for successfully sourcing YouTube creators

Look for multi-platform creators

On Instagram and TikTok, creators are dependant on affiliate partnerships or sponsored content because neither platform pays out for content. YouTube content is monetized by ad revenue, which gives creators a lot more sway over the terms of a partnership. This can make it more challenging to source creators, depending on how you want to structure compensation:

“The trick to YouTube is that it's very hard to make an affiliate situation work properly. I recommend approaching it with a base plus commission kind of situation.”

Bren Daniel, Associate Director of Partnerships at Caraway.

The upside? Because YouTube is such a creator-friendly platform, influencers on other social channels frequently make the shift once they have an established audience. It’s a good idea to cross-reference Instagram and TikTok creators to see whether they also have a YouTube presence you can leverage!

Lean into SEO

YouTube is a search engine. In other words, keywords are your best friend when it comes to discovering creators. But using terms like ‘beauty creators’ or ‘fashion influencers’ isn’t going to get you any closer to sourcing YouTube creators who have robust audiences.

Instead, think about the kinds of searches that are going to connect a specific community with like-minded creators. What is your target customer most interested in, and HOW are they looking for it? This is how Amber managed to supercharge Style Haul’s YouTube sourcing strategy:

“I had to get in the mindset of who are the people that are watching the beauty and lifestyle and fashion creators. That led me to help scale Style Haul’s creator base from 250 creators to 4,000 within two years.”

Amber Kai, Head of Creator and Brand Partnerships at Sequincial.

Consumers regularly go to YouTube to find product reviews and recommendations. So, searching for trending products in a certain vertical is a great way to find YouTube creators who are right on the pulse of different brands.

Prioritize evergreen content

Thanks to SEO, content doesn’t disappear on YouTube hours after posting like Instagram and TikTok. As Kendall explains, all it takes is a single quality video to move the needle for your program:

“We tested our first YouTube video at the end of August of 2023…the reason being that one, it's great for brand awareness. And two, conversion is mind-boggling in the best way possible because it never stops. The video from August still converts every single day since!”

Kendall Dickieson, Head of Social and Influencer at Graza.

A well-optimized, educational piece of video content can do the rounds on the platform for months and even years, continuing to serve up conversions. This means the ROI on a single partnership is virtually limitless—so long as you’ve selecting appropriate creators to partner with.

The key to successful creator sourcing on YouTube is finding creators who are a genuine fit for your brand and approaching it as an investment into a long-term relationship, not just a one-off transaction. YouTube takes little longer than other platforms to gain traction, but content has a substantially longer tail and can become a serious sales driver for your brand.

However, it’s important to find creators that have the right community and vibe to really resonate with your audience to keep that long tail going. But how do you know whether these aligned creators will perform for you? This is where vetting YouTube creators become into the picture! Keep on reading 👀

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Why is YouTube important for influencer marketing?

YouTube is a critical platform for influencer marketing because it functions as a search engine for high-intent consumers to find products and brands. Consumers are more open to consuming long-form, product-driven content from trusted creators on YouTube, especially if it helps them come to a purchasing decision. By partnering with YouTube creators in communities that would really benefit from your product, you can drive a lot of middle and bottom of funnel activity.

What are the benefits of evergreen content on YouTube for influencer marketing?

An influencer partnership on YouTube can keep generating engagement and sales for months or even years after the initial partnership, thanks to SEO. Video can continue driving traffic and conversions over a long period of time after posting, which differs from Instagram and TikTok. This means that it’s worth brand investing in longer-form, high-quality content, as this will keep paying it forward in the weeks and months after a partnership.

How can SEO help me discover relevant YouTube creators?

YouTube is powered by SEO, meaning appropriate creators can easily be surfaced via search, rather than getting buried by net-new videos. By identifying the search terms and topics your audience is looking for on YouTube, you can find creators who are making relevant, engaging content that would be a natural fit for your brand.

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