Your tech team is probably coding twice as fast with AI, and your customer service chatbots are handling queries around the clock. Now you're wondering if AI should manage your influencer marketing too – and if yes, how, and how much of it?

Lina Maassarani, Senior Influencer Talent Manager at HypeFactory Influencer Marketing Agency, emphasizes the importance of keeping AI in a supporting role—

"I wouldn't entrust AI to take over anything - it should be a helping hand, making our work easier and faster, not completely doing it while we blindly agree to everything."

For example, entrusting AI to create the full media plan for a campaign isn't wise. It's very important to personally review every influencer, look through their content, their engagement with their audience and their statistics. AI here can only help filter out the least fitting candidates.*

In this blog, we'll examine 4 key areas where AI can strengthen your influencer marketing. For each area, you'll learn which tasks to automate, which to keep human-driven, and how successful brands are blending both approaches.

A quick note before we dive in —

Throughout this blog, we'll use a protein cereal brand as our running example to show AI in action. While your brand and needs may be different, these examples will show you the level of detail and approach you can take when using AI for your own influencer marketing.

When we talk about AI in this article, we're specifically referring to large language models like GPT-4, Claude, or similar tools that can help with content creation and analysis. These are readily available through various platforms and can serve as your brainstorming partner and writing assistant.

Define your ideal creator profile with help of AI

AI can help you figure out exactly what kind of influencer would be best for your brand by creating an ideal creator profile for your brand. Think of it like making a wishlist for your perfect creator partner — their target audience, type of content, demographics, etc.

Having this profile stops you from making decisions based just on follower count or because you personally like someone's content (we've all been there!). Instead, you'll have a clear checklist to see if a creator is actually right for your brand.

Once you have this profile, anyone on your team can use it. Even if you hire someone new to help with influencer outreach, they'll know exactly what to look for. It turns the whole process of picking creators into a structured, reliable system rather than just going with your gut.

What should you share AI

To define your ideal creator profile, you'll need to tell AI all about your brand. Think of this as getting AI up to speed on everything that makes your brand special. Tell it:

• Who you're trying to reach
• What your brand stands for
• What you're selling and why it matters.
• Any strong brand messaging or unique positioning that sets you apart from others.

The more information you share with AI, the better it can help you find the right creator match.

Sample prompt

Below is an example of how we used AI to create a profile for a protein cereal brand. You can modify this with your own brand's specific details and requirements:

“We make protein-packed breakfast cereals for busy professionals who want a healthy start to their day without compromising on taste. Our cereals have 15g of plant-based protein per serving and come in fun flavors like chocolate peanut butter and maple cinnamon. What makes us different is that we use zero artificial sweeteners, and all our ingredients are recognizable – stuff you'd find in your own kitchen. We're targeting health-conscious millennials who hit the gym regularly but are tired of protein shakes and boring overnight oats. Our brand personality is energetic and encouraging – we believe healthy eating should be delicious and fun.

Can you help create a profile of our ideal creator partner? Please include (in bullet points):

• What kind of creators they are
• Content they usually post
• Values they don't align with
• Things they actively promote
• The type of audience they should have”

Quick reality check

AI can't figure out the basics of your brand for you. Let's say you just tell AI "Hey, I sell protein cereal" – it won't magically know your unique selling point.

AI can't decide if your brand should be all about premium health-focused luxury, fun and playful wellness, or scientific nutrition facts. That's something you need to figure out based on your business goals and market research.

Think of AI as your helper in finding creators who match your brand – but first, you need to know what your brand actually stands for.

Ask AI for hashtag ideas to find relevant influencers

When you're looking for creators, one of the best ways to find them is through hashtags they use in their posts. But manually brainstorming all possible hashtags can be time-consuming and you might miss some great options. You'd have to sit and think about every possible way someone might tag content related to your brand, your industry, and your target audience's interests.

This is where you should use AI.

AI can quickly generate lists of potential hashtags across different categories, helping you find creators in niches you might have missed. Guide AI to think about hashtags in three main categories:

• Core hashtags that directly relate to your product
• Tangential hashtags about lifestyle and values
• Expert hashtags used by professionals in your field

Sample prompt

Let's look at how we used AI to find hashtags for our protein cereal brand. We made sure to specify different categories of hashtags we wanted, which helped us get more comprehensive results:

“We're a protein-rich breakfast cereal brand targeting health-conscious millennials who work out regularly. Can you help me create three lists of hashtags to find relevant creators:
- Core hashtags directly related to our product
- Tangential hashtags about healthy lifestyle and fitness
- Expert hashtags used by nutrition and fitness professionals”

Ask AI to brainstorm hashtags for specific campaigns or seasonal promotions. For example, "What hashtags should we look for to find creators posting about back-to-school healthy breakfast ideas?" or "Give me hashtags for finding creators who make morning routine content."

Once you have your hashtag list, plug them into a social media platform's (X, Instagram or TikTok) search bar one by one. Save creators who catch your eye, and pay attention to which hashtags are leading you to the best matches.

While AI can help accelerate the process, it's valuable to understand the fundamental strategies of hashtag research. Check out our detailed video on traditional hashtag research methods - these principles, combined with the AI approaches we discussed above, will give you a comprehensive toolkit for finding the perfect creators for your brand:

Where you need to step in

AI's suggestions are just the starting point. You'll still need to:

• Check if the hashtags are actually being used on each platform
• See how competitive each hashtag is
• Look for platform-specific variations
• Monitor which hashtags actually help you find good creators

Think of AI as your brainstorming partner, not your strategic advisor. It can suggest #HealthyBreakfast, but it won't know if that hashtag is oversaturated in your market or if it's mostly being used by the wrong type of creators for your brand. These insights come from your experience.

Using AI to create engaging influencer challenges

Influencers challenges are a great way to keep your creators excited and posting consistently about your brand. Instead of just asking them to make regular content, you can turn it into a fun competition that motivates them to get creative and engage more with their audience.

How AI can help create challenge ideas

You can use AI to brainstorm creative challenge ideas that fit your brand. Here's a sample prompt to give you an idea of how to frame a prompt like this for your brand:

"We're a protein cereal brand aimed at health-conscious millennials. We want to create some fun challenges for our creator partners that will get them excited about posting regularly. Our creators are mainly fitness enthusiasts, nutrition coaches, and lifestyle content creators.

Please suggest:

- 5-6 different challenge ideas that would work well with our product
- How long each challenge should run
- What kind of content creators should post”

Here's an example of the reply we got from Claude, an AI tool:

Quick reality check

While AI is great at generating creative challenge ideas, there are some important things it can't help with:

AI doesn't know your specific creators or what motivates them.

Only you know if a challenge is too easy ("post once this week") or too ambitious ("create 30 unique recipes in 30 days") for your creator community. You'll need to adjust difficulty levels based on what you know about your creators' usual posting habits and capabilities.

AI can't tell you if a challenge is actually doable from your end.

A "track every sale from each creator's unique code and reward daily winners" challenge sounds great, but do you have the time and tools to monitor all that? You need to think about your team's bandwidth - who'll verify posts, track progress, and handle reward distribution?

AI won't know what prizes make sense for your budget or if they match the effort required.

A challenge that asks creators to make multiple high-production videos probably needs a better reward than one asking for simple Instagram stories. You'll need to balance the effort you're asking for with rewards that feel worth it to your creators.

Use AI to write your influencer marketing content

AI can be your writing partner for all kinds of influencer marketing content - from outreach emails to influencer program guideline documents. But here's the thing: the secret to getting a great copy isn't just asking AI to "write an email." It's about knowing how to guide AI to write exactly what you need.

What can AI write for you?

Think of all the writing tasks in your influencer marketing that take up time. AI can help with your:

• Outreach emails and follow-ups
• Creator program landing pages
• Campaign briefs and guidelines
• Social media templates
• Performance feedback messages

Sample prompt

Here's how we structured our prompt to get a well-written outreach email. Notice how we specified our tone, key points to include, and important parameters to ensure the output matched our needs:

I need help writing a first outreach email to fitness creators for our protein cereal brand. We're looking for long-term partnerships, offer competitive rates, and value authentic content. Our brand tone is friendly but professional. We want to:
- Mention we love their workout content
- Share basic info about our brand
- Express interest in collaboration
- Ask if they'd like to learn more
- Keep it under 150 words
- Not discuss rates in first contact"

Here's the response we got from the AI tool we were using (Claude):

Here's where most people go wrong

They expect AI to read their minds. They'll just say "write me an email to influencers" and hope for the best.

That  rarely doesn't work!

Lina Maassarani points out a common pitfall —

"AI is misused in everything in influencer marketing - you feel like this job is starting to lack personality. The biggest misuse at the moment is in campaign outreach emails. These have become so similar and robot-like. While AI can help create a strong email template with a good pitch, the only thing that will catch an influencer's or brand's attention is personality and your own experience and expertise."

You have to use AI as your writing assistant, not your replacement. Think of it like briefing a team member - the more context you give, the better the output. You're still in charge of:

• Providing all the key information AI needs
• Setting the right tone for your brand
• Making strategic decisions about approach
• Adding those personal touches that make messages feel authentic
• Double-checking all program details

For example, AI won't know whether your brand prefers to discuss rates upfront or build rapport first.  These are decisions you need to make. Once you do, AI can help you write content that matches your strategy.

What marketers really need

While AI can help with ideation and planning, you need a reliable system to actually execute your influencer marketing strategy and manage your creator relationships day-to-day.

This is where SARAL comes in.

SARAL is an all-in-one influencer marketing platform excels at what matters most:

• Automating repetitive tasks (emails, follow-ups, tracking)
• Organizing creator relationships in one place
• Simplifying performance tracking
• Running all types of campaigns (gifting, seeding, affiliate, ambassador programs, etc.) from one tool

Let's show you in person.

AI isn't going to replace your marketing instincts - and it shouldn't. What you need is the freedom to make strategic moves without drowning in mundane tasks. That's exactly what SARAL delivers.

We handle the time-consuming grunt work so you can focus on strategic decisions, building relationships with influencers, and more.

Book a personalized demo and we'll walk you through exactly how to make your campaigns run smoother, faster, and better.

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