How to find creators for a campaign

Start a creator search with the campaign brief. A creator whose work fits your product and format can be worth reviewing even when their largest post is smaller than someone else's.

With Vaaya, you can discover relevant posts, inspect the creators behind them and return a shortlist with evidence. Keep commercial rates, audience claims and availability separate from the public content you can observe.

Write the campaign constraints first

Define the product, intended audience, language, platform, format and restrictions. Include examples of work you like and explain why. A technical demonstration, a humorous sketch and a product review require different creator skills.

Connect through the Vaaya setup guide. Then give your agent a bounded brief:

Find creators for [campaign/product] on [platform]. We need [format],
[language] and content relevant to [audience/problem]. Exclude [restrictions].
Use Vaaya consult first and stay within [research budget].
Discover relevant recent posts, then inspect a small set of their authors.
Return [number] shortlisted creators with content links and fit reasons.
Keep audience claims, rates and availability unknown unless sourced.
Do not contact anyone or infer private demographic attributes.

1. Discover content about the problem

Search for the subject a creator would cover, including a few phrase variants from the brief. If the product is a developer tool, searches for the workflow it improves may be more useful than a broad “technology influencer” query.

The Vaaya catalog lists apify/tiktok-posts with required keywords and an optional maxItems cap. For YouTube, apify/youtube-videos requires searchQueries, also with a result cap. Ask consult for the quote on your chosen request before running it.

Preserve the post URL, author identifier, publication time and metrics that were returned. Review the content for topical fit before sorting by popularity. A search result can mention your keyword while covering an unrelated subject.

2. Inspect the creator's recent work

Group relevant posts by creator and examine the strongest candidates. The current apify/tiktok-profile action accepts usernames and optional maxItems. Other platforms may use a platform ID or channel URL; ask vaaya/discover for the exact route when using TikHub.

Look for repeated coverage of the subject, format quality and examples that resemble the requested deliverable. Include a recent ordinary post as well as an unusually popular one. A single hit is useful evidence of that video's performance, but weak evidence of a repeatable result.

If you calculate a recent-post median, state the period, number of posts and metric used. Compare like formats and publication ages as far as the data allows. Missing metrics should remain missing; a blank view count is not zero.

3. Apply a written fit rubric

Use criteria a colleague can check: subject relevance, demonstrated format, language and observed disclosure practices. Record an evidence link for each positive judgment.

Keep unverified fields out of the score. Public posts rarely settle questions about audience location, campaign conversions, pricing or availability. Add those to a later creator questionnaire. Do not infer a person's sensitive attributes to fill a campaign audience field.

Review potential conflicts at the level needed for the campaign. A visible competitor partnership may be relevant, but the absence of one in your sample does not prove that no exclusivity agreement exists.

4. Deliver a shortlist with useful questions

The table below is an illustrative schema for your results, not a list of creators found in a paid run.

Field	Evidence to include
Creator and profile	Stable account URL and platform identifier
Fit reason	The campaign requirement their work demonstrates
Example posts	Relevant URLs, dates and formats
Observed metrics	Native counts with retrieval time
Review limits	Sample size and unavailable fields
Next questions	Rate, availability, audience evidence and rights

Use a short paragraph per shortlisted creator to explain the recommendation. It should be possible to disagree with your choice by examining the same content. “Great engagement” without a definition or examples is hard to review.

Stop before the research becomes outreach

If a platform request fails, log the error and inspect the route before expanding to another provider. If no creator fits, change one campaign constraint deliberately and label the resulting candidates accordingly.

Keep receipts using the Vaaya call response, so the team can see the cost of finding and reviewing each shortlist. Once someone chooses the candidates, prepare separate outreach with the approved offer and contact channel. The research document should make that next conversation specific enough to answer.

Questions

Should I rank creators by follower count?

Use follower count as one dated field. Review content fit, recent relevant posts and the campaign requirements before deciding whom to shortlist.

Can public post data tell me a creator’s audience demographics?

Usually not with enough certainty for a campaign decision. Mark audience geography, demographics and commercial performance as unverified unless an appropriate source provides them.

Does the workflow contact creators?

No. It ends with a reviewed shortlist and missing questions. Outreach requires a separate approved recipient, offer and message.