TikTok Influencer List: Why Enthusiasm Beats Audience Size

Molly Cole, a creator program manager at Epic Gardening with nearly five years in influencer marketing, walks through how she sources and evaluates TikTok creators for brand partnerships. Her core argument is that enthusiasm beats audience size: some of Epic Gardening's best-performing ambassadors are smaller accounts that genuinely love the brand, and that authentic investment shows up clearly to their audiences. Molly argues that inbound creator outreach is a strong signal of quality because anyone willing to pitch themselves is already motivated to perform.

On TikTok specifically, she notes that the gardening niche is relatively small, so she is actively expanding into adjacent verticals like wellness and cooking, where audiences care about food origins and can be a natural bridge to garden-focused content. Building a TikTok influencer list from only gardening creators, she suggests, is leaving real opportunity on the table.

Watch to see how she thinks about cross-vertical expansion and what she looks for when vetting TikTok creators in real time.