TikTok Influencer Marketing: Sourcing by Product, Not Keyword

Amber Kai, CEO of Sequential and a decade-long veteran of the creator economy, breaks down exactly how her agency sources and vets creators for TikTok influencer marketing campaigns. She argues that every brand should have a presence on TikTok because the platform builds community more organically than Instagram or YouTube, and that authenticity is a structural feature of how creators behave there, not just a trend.

Her sourcing approach is deliberately hyper-specific: rather than broad keyword searches, she uses TikTok Shop as a discovery tool and searches at the product and trend level, the way she explains it, she wants to see how a product looks on a specific hair type or what a specific model year looks like from the inside. She also recommends brands confirm their target demographic is already active on TikTok before investing, and notes that the platform covers virtually every vertical from education to niche community building.

Watch to see exactly how she structures that hyper-specific search process and why she treats TikTok differently from every other platform.