Top YouTube Influencer: Three Manual Sourcing Tactics That Beat the Tools

By Milan Freeman
Influencer Marketing Expert & Strategist
People's Influence

Milan Freeman, an influencer marketing consultant with brand-side experience at Curology and Fenty Skin, breaks down a practical three-part framework for sourcing YouTube creators that most marketers overlook. She argues that standard influencer discovery tools are built for Instagram and TikTok, making them poorly suited for finding YouTubers, so manual search is often the stronger starting point.

Her framework runs in three parts:

• First tactic: Treat YouTube like an SEO exercise: identify the top search queries people use when researching your product category, then see which creators rank at the top of those results, since those are the voices buyers already trust.
• Second approach: Flip the platform: find strong creators on Instagram or TikTok using familiar tools, then check whether they also run a YouTube channel.
• Third tactic: Study collaboration patterns, because creators in tight niches frequently make content together, which surfaces a cluster of relevant voices from a single discovery.

Finding the top YouTube influencer for your product may be less about software and more about thinking like a search strategist. Watch to see exactly how Milan maps that process in practice.