Finding micro-influencers on Instagram is a filtering problem: start from a list of accounts already active in your niche, keep the ones in the right follower band with real engagement, and contact the ones who published an address. Instagram gives you the seed lists for free, a competitor's followers, a post's commenters, a search result. Influencer platforms sell you the same lists pre-filtered from a database. The four steps below do the filtering yourself.
The Mastros Instagram Scraper does steps two to four in one export: every account row carries the follower count, an engagement rate over the last 12 posts computed from real counts, and the email written in the bio, so a seed list becomes a filtered contact list in a spreadsheet.
What is a micro-influencer, and why not just buy a list?
Micro usually means 10,000 to 50,000 followers, sometimes up to 100,000. The appeal is the engagement: a micro creator's audience is closer and more responsive, and the rates are higher than at any larger band. The trouble is finding them, because Instagram's search surfaces the big accounts.
Influencer platforms such as Modash, Upfluence, Heepsy and Collabstr solve that with a database you filter by follower range, engagement, location and niche, and they are the right tool for an agency running many campaigns. For a brand running one, a subscription priced for agencies buys convenience you can replace with an afternoon. The method below is that afternoon.
How do I find micro-influencers on Instagram?
Four steps: seed, export, filter, contact.
1. Seed a list from where your niche already gathers
The seed decides everything. Three sources, from most targeted to broadest:
- A competitor's followers. Open a peer brand's profile. The creators who follow it are, disproportionately, creators who work in the niche and would work with a brand like yours.
- A post's commenters. Open a post that drew the audience you want, on your account or a competitor's. Commenters are engaged by definition, and the export carries each commenter's own bio email.
- A search or Explore result. Search Instagram for the niche term and export the result page. This is the broadest net and the one that finds creators you had not heard of.
Narrow beats broad: #cleanbeautyroutine outperforms #beauty, and a specialist competitor's followers outperform a giant's.
2. Export the seed list
- Install the Mastros Instagram extension from the Chrome Web Store and open instagram.com in Chrome. No password; it reads the session you are signed into.
- Open the seed: the competitor's profile, the post, or the search.
- In the Mastros panel choose Followers, Comments or Search, and start. When Instagram paces a long list, the run pauses, keeps every row, and resumes.
- Save as CSV or XLSX.
3. Filter by follower band and real engagement
- Open the CSV and filter the follower column to your band, say 10,000 to 50,000.
- Sort by the engagement rate column. Mastros computes it over each account's last 12 posts from Instagram's exact counts, at no cost from your limit.
- Keep the rows above the band's typical range; for micro accounts that is roughly 1.5% to 3%, and the benchmarks post has every band.
- Drop the outliers: a micro account at 15% has either a devoted audience or a bought one, and the comments will tell you which.
- Filter the private flag out; a private account is not a creator taking work.
4. Contact the ones who published an address
- Filter the email column to non-blank. Mastros fills it from each creator's bio, resolving the
name (at) domaindisguises, and leaves it blank when nothing was published. - Read the bio and the last few posts before writing. The words next to the address, collabs, PR, booking, tell you it is a business contact.
- Write to each one individually. The address was published for collaboration enquiries; that is what it should receive.
Best for: any niche, any country, in an afternoon. Every surface is free and unlimited during the launch beta.
Which route should I use?
| Instagram search by hand | Mastros export and filter | Influencer platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finds accounts you had not heard of | Slowly | Yes, from search and competitor lists | Yes |
| Filter by follower band | By eye | In a spreadsheet | In the product |
| Engagement rate | You compute it | On every row, last 12 posts | On every row, method varies |
| Bio email | You read it | On every row | Usually, from their index |
| Where your list lives | Nowhere | Your disk | Their servers |
| Price | Free | Free in beta, then by record | Subscription |
Who this is not for
- Anyone running many campaigns a month across several brands. At that volume a platform's saved searches, vetting reports and campaign tracking earn their price.
- Anyone who wants audience demographics, fake-follower scores or brand-safety flags. Those come from a platform's analysis layer, not from an export.
- Anyone planning to mail the whole export. The email column is for individual collaboration enquiries; a bulk send to it is spam under CAN-SPAM and GDPR and burns the niche for you.
FAQ
How do I find a list of micro-influencers?
Export a seed list, a competitor's followers, a post's commenters or a search result, with the Mastros Instagram Scraper, then filter the spreadsheet to your follower band and sort by the engagement rate column. The rows with a bio email are your contact list.
Is there a free tool to find Instagram influencers?
Instagram's own search and Explore are free and manual. The Mastros extension is free and unlimited during its beta and turns any list you can open into a filtered spreadsheet. Platforms such as Modash and influencers.club offer limited free searches before a subscription.
How many followers does a micro-influencer have?
Most definitions say 10,000 to 50,000, some stretch to 100,000. Below 10,000 is nano; 50,000 to 500,000 is mid-tier. The band matters because typical engagement rates differ by band.
What engagement rate should I look for in a micro-influencer?
Roughly 1.5% to 3% over the last 12 posts is typical for 10K to 50K followers. Above the range is good; far above it deserves a look at the comments before it deserves an email.
Can I find micro-influencers by location?
Instagram search covers location tags, and a local competitor's followers skew local. The export shows the bio text, where creators often name a city, but not a structured location; platforms add that from their own data.
Related reading
- Instagram Engagement Rate: Formula and Benchmarks — the bands and ranges used in step 3.
- How to Find the Email Associated With an Instagram Account — where the email column comes from, and where it cannot.
- Instagram Email Finder — the export that fills the contact column.