In order to do this, the first tool we'll use to find influencers is Audiense (formerly known as SocialBro). Audiense has a free trial that will let us find and target instagram users by niche, sorting them by number of followers (though it will convert to $39/month).

So in this case we would create an Audiense account, enter our niche (we'll say "fashion"), and see that (at the time of writing) there are 490,492 people we can target.

Now we want to filter this for influential people, but still not so influential that they have a price for shoutouts. Let's say we want to target 10,000 to 50,000 followers for this test.

We now have a neatly curated list of people to approach for shoutouts, and we can sort or filter them in any way we see fit. (We may, for example, choose only to target males, as we're selling neckties for men.) It's time to start wheeling and dealing.

This is the manual part where you'll have to find a way to approach these people and see what works. Don't be afraid of that part; it's the last mile of the marathon.