Let’s say you’re looking for influencers for your vegan brand. Here are 27 methods — free and paid — to identify the right profiles.
To keep this from becoming an endless list, we’ve grouped them into 6 families, from the most manual to the most automated.
💡 Before you dive in: ask yourself why influencer marketing is strategic for your brand. In 90% of cases, running influencer campaigns is essential — and this video explains why:
A. Manual Web Research (free)
1. 🔎 Social media
Head over to the search bar on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc. Type in “vegan” and explore the accounts, hashtags (#vegan, #veganfood, #plantbased…) and trending sounds on TikTok.
Pro tip: install the free Chrome plugin Influence4You ([link]) to display influencer stats directly on their profiles. With the Discovery module, you can also add a profile to your list in one click — much faster than copy-pasting into a Google Sheet, and the stats stay up to date.
2. 🌐 Google
A search like “vegan influencers” or “top vegan influencers 2026” often surfaces lists already compiled by specialized blogs or media outlets.
3. 🤖 General-purpose AI
Ask Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Mistral or DeepSeek to list vegan influencers for you. A good starting point to break ground — but the data can be outdated, so verify it afterwards.
4. 👥 Manual “lookalike”
On an interesting influencer’s profile, take a look at the similar accounts suggested by the platform. A great way to discover several adjacent profiles at once.
B. Your Internal Resources (free)
Often overlooked, this is actually the family where you’ll find the most relevant profiles — because they already know the brand.
5. 🛒 Your customers
Add a “social media” field to your forms (sign-up, post-purchase, NPS). You may discover that influencers are already fans of your brand.
6. 💬 Your team
A quick email or internal Slack: “Which vegan influencers do you follow?”. And while you’re at it, ask externally too — a LinkedIn post often surfaces excellent recommendations.
7. 📁 Your Google Drive (or Notion, or whatever you use)
Search for “influencers”. There may already be a list compiled by a former colleague. No need to redo the work.
8. 📞 Your customer service team
Your support teams regularly receive messages from influencers (via social media or email). Set up an internal channel so they can forward these contacts to you.
9. @ Your mentions and tags
Look at who’s already mentioning or tagging you. On Instagram, the “mentions” tab is enough; to go further, tools like Influence4You, Mention or Meltwater automate this monitoring.
C. The Ecosystem Around Your Niche (free)
The idea: don’t go looking for influencers directly — look at where they already are.
10. 🥊 Competitors
Which influencers are working with your competitors? The “tagged” tab on their accounts, or a search on their campaign hashtags, often hands you a ready-made list. Influence4You also lets you see who’s mentioning your competitors and how their social account is performing compared to yours.
11. #️⃣ Hashtags and trending sounds
Beyond the obvious #vegan, explore satellite hashtags (#vegancooking, #veganparis, #veganmom…) and the sounds used on loop on TikTok and Reels.
12. 🗣️ Communities
Reddit (r/vegan), Facebook groups, Discord servers, specialized forums. The most active members are sometimes micro-influencers themselves.
13. 🎙️ Podcasts and newsletters
What are the popular vegan podcasts? Who are the recurring guests? Who writes the Substack newsletters in this space? Often high-impact personalities, but flying under the radar of traditional platforms.
14. 🎪 Events and trade shows
VeggieWorld, Veggie Pride, organic food fairs… Check out the programs, speakers, and partner exhibitors.
15. 📰 Specialized press
Journalists covering your niche know the key personalities in the field — and can themselves be valuable relays.
D. Dedicated Influencer Tools (Influence4You)
When manual research hits its limits, it’s time to bring in specialized tools.
16. ✨ Magic Casting (free)
Influence4You’s free, AI-powered feature. You describe your needs, the AI suggests profiles. Here’s the link to try it.
It’s the most effective approach in 90% of cases!
17. 🔍 The Discovery search engine
A multi-criteria search engine covering 275 million profiles. Filter by audience, geography, engagement, topics… you’ll find what you’re looking for.
18. 👯 Influence4You’s “lookalike”
Found an interesting influencer? Click “lookalike” to find others with similar profiles (audience, content, style). Here’s an example on a vegan profile:
19. 📹 The content search engine
Instead of searching for profiles, search for content. Which videos and posts mention “vegan” — including in video descriptions and audio? You then trace back to the creators.
20. 📈 The trends engine
Identify influencers who recently published trending vegan content (strong growth, high engagement). The tool can surface the influencers buzzing on your topic right now!
21. 🗂️ Your past lists and campaigns
If you’ve already run influencer campaigns on Influence4You, your archives are a goldmine. A campaign from 6 months ago might contain 30 profiles still relevant today.
22. 🧠 AI-driven projects
Create a project on Influence4You, write your brief, and let the AI search for profiles on your behalf. A more advanced version of Magic Casting.
23. 🎁 The micro-influencer (gifting) campaign
Rather than hunting down influencers one by one, launch a gifting campaign with your vegan products and let them come to you by applying. Flipping the problem on its head. Here’s what influencers see when they can apply to your campaigns:
E. Long-Term Programs
Finding influencers on a one-off basis is fine. Building a network over time is better.
24. 🌟 The ambassador program
Your best customers or your most successful collaborations can become regular ambassadors, through a dedicated program: promo codes, product exclusives, events, co-created content…
25. 💸 Affiliate marketing
An affiliate campaign automatically attracts creators who want to monetize their audience in your space. You only pay for performance.
26. 🏪 Official creator marketplaces
TikTok Creator Marketplace, Instagram Creator Marketplace, YouTube BrandConnect: the platforms offer their own tools to connect brands with creators. Free, with verified profiles.
F. Outsourcing (paid)
27. 🤝 Agency or freelancer
Hand the whole job over to an agency or freelancer.
✅ Pros: you save time, and you benefit from an existing network. ❌ Cons: it costs money, it’s not scalable, and nobody knows your brand better than you do. Better to learn to fish than to ask someone else to do it for you.
In summary
| Family | Methods | Cost | Effort | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Manual research | 1 → 4 | Free | High | Getting started, small budget |
| B. Internal resources | 5 → 9 | Free | Low | Always — start here! |
| C. Niche ecosystem | 10 → 15 | Free | Medium | For more differentiated profiles |
| D. Dedicated tools | 16 → 23 | Paid | Low | To scale and save time |
| E. Long-term programs | 24 → 26 | Variable | Medium | A sustainable strategy |
| F. Outsourcing | 27 | Paid | Very low | When you don’t have time in-house |
Bonus tip: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The best influencer campaigns generally combine 3 to 4 different sources — that’s what keeps you from falling into the “everyone is working with the same 20 influencers” trap.
Take action: want to take advantage of all the Influence4You features described above? Get in touch!