Reach out to influencers

Your bot researches creators in your niche, builds a shortlist you can see the reasoning behind, drafts a personal first message for each one, and — once you approve — sends that outreach through your own connected social accounts.

Who this is for

You want to start real conversations with creators who fit your brand, without days of scrolling profiles or the same copy-pasted DM to everyone. GATE has no dedicated "find influencers" tool — this guide combines two things your bot already does: research and reasoning in chat, and the outreach campaigns that run through Social Engagement.

Before you start

• A social account connected and signed in — Instagram or LinkedIn. Those are the two platforms that support DM outreach; Facebook is posting-only, so outreach campaigns can't run there. See Connect social accounts if you haven't set one up yet.
• A Brand profile with a voice and a signature line. The bot can draft outreach without one, but the messages read more like you once the brand's voice is on file.
• A rough sense of who you're after — your niche, your audience, and which platform you want to run outreach on. The more specific you are, the better the shortlist.

Steps

1. Describe who you're looking for. Tell your bot the niche, the audience, and roughly how many names you want. For example: "Find 15 creators in sustainable homeware whose audience looks like ours — tell me why each one fits." This is general research and reasoning, not a packaged influencer-search feature, so give it enough context to judge fit rather than just a keyword to search.

2. The bot researches and shortlists with reasoning. It searches for creators in that space and evaluates each one against your niche and audience — topic, angle, and why the fit makes sense — rather than handing back a raw list of handles. What you'll see: a shortlist in chat, one entry per creator, each with the reasoning behind the pick.

3. Review and approve the list. Cut names, ask for more, or redirect the search — "drop the ones under 5k followers, find a few more with a stronger sustainability angle." Nothing moves to outreach until you sign off on who's on it.

4. The bot drafts a personal first message per creator. Once the list is approved, ask it to draft outreach — "write the first message to each of these." Each message references the creator's own work and why you're reaching out, not one template with a name swapped in. If drafts read generic, hand the bot examples of how you actually write; see Troubleshooting. What you'll see: a draft message per creator, listed for your review before anything sends.

5. Approve the drafts and run the outreach as a campaign. Once you're happy with the messages, tell your bot to send them — "send these on my Instagram account." The bot starts an outreach campaign through Social Engagement, targeting these specific creators with your approved messages, paced under the same safety limits as any other campaign — it doesn't fire every DM at once.

6. Track replies and keep threads warm. Check back with your bot for status — "who's replied so far?" — and ask it to follow up on threads that have gone quiet, on a cadence you set rather than all at once.

What you'll see

• A reasoned shortlist in chat, with the "why" attached to each name.
• One draft message per creator, held for your review before anything sends.
• An active outreach campaign in Social Engagement, sending one paced DM at a time through your connected account.
• Reply status and follow-up suggestions from your bot as creators respond.

Troubleshooting

• The bot says it can't DM a creator. Check which platform the account is on — Instagram and LinkedIn support DM outreach, Facebook doesn't. If you connected a Facebook account expecting outreach, you'll need an Instagram or LinkedIn account for this instead.
• A creator doesn't reply. Don't ask the bot to re-send manually — set a follow-up cadence instead: "if there's no reply in a week, send a short follow-up." Repeated manual pings outside the paced campaign are what get accounts flagged.
• The outreach reads generic. Give the bot real examples of how you write — past captions, DMs, or emails — and ask it to update your brand's voice and signature line. Drafts pull from that profile, so a thin one produces thin messages.
• The campaign pauses partway through. Outreach runs inside the same per-action caps, cooldowns, and pacing as any Social Engagement campaign. Ask your bot why it paused — a fresh or lightly used account is often on a more cautious safety preset, which slows down how many DMs go out per day.
• Your bot says it doesn't have Social access. Social Engagement has to be enabled for your org first. Ask an admin to turn it on, then try again.

Going deeper

See Social integrations for what Social Engagement covers and which platforms support outreach, and Connect social accounts for the full account setup walkthrough.