Instagram Influencer Marketing: Using Suggested Accounts to Source Free

Influencer marketing strategist Ali Appelbaum, who led influencer, athlete, and celebrity marketing at Tonal before going independent, walks through her manual sourcing process for finding creators on Instagram. She argues that the first filter when evaluating any creator should be content quality and aesthetic fit, asking whether the final deliverable will actually feel authentic to that creator's audience.

Brand safety is equally non-negotiable: Appelbaum flags profanity and political content as common dealbreakers brands overlook in early vetting. She also emphasizes the importance of understanding a creator's storytelling style, specifically whether they use voiceover or speak to camera, because that shapes what deliverables they can realistically produce.

For teams not using a paid platform, she recommends two free tactics:

• searching relevant hashtags to surface top performers
• leaning on Instagram's built-in suggested accounts feature once you have identified a handful of aligned creators

That second tactic is genuinely underused in Instagram influencer marketing and can uncover organic partners faster than most people expect. Watch to see exactly how she strings these steps into a repeatable sourcing workflow.