Web Scraping to Discover Micro-influencers
The internet and information technologies have revolutionized the world of advertisement by adding an efficient personal touch. Instead of translating ads through TV, radio, and other forms of traditional media, we have better ways to reach a target audience that could be interested in an advertised service or a product. 
On the web, interesting, talented, and charismatic individuals have a spotlight to shine. This helps public figures share their craft and even earn a living and generate income through advertisements.
Social media networks give these micro-influencers the platforms they need to share interesting content and add ads into the mix. These minor partnerships benefit both the advertiser and the business seeking to promote their product. Influencer marketing is exceptionally useful for growing companies that want to lure clients and turn them into loyal, recurring customers.
Micro-influencers capture the attention of unique audiences, and businesses that deal in products and services that are familiar to their niche can seek them out for efficient and effective marketing. Predominantly male audiences react more to advertisements for video games and male grooming products. Companies that discover these patterns build the most effective marketing campaigns. But how can they find micro-influencers and turn them into potential partners?
In this article, our goal is to introduce the concept of web scraping and explain how automated bots help companies find micro-influencers. Automation lets us data scrape Instagram or any other publicly available network that will reveal micro-influencers. We will also discuss proxy servers, the best providers, and their role in data scraping for influencer marketing. For example, having an Instagram proxy will help you scrape the platform for influencers without the fear of getting banned, as well as manage your Instagram accounts easily. You can use an Instagram proxy as a flexible tool, both for web scraping and social media management. We can observe the power of these tools used en masse when we look at the shifted focus of social media bots. Check out this article by The Guardian to learn about changes in bot activity in response to political turmoil. Robots are much harder to detect with tools like an Instagram proxy, and larger groups of bots require a lot more IPs for concealment. But for now, let’s discuss the process of web scraping to discover micro-influencers.
Learning the art of web scraping
Web scraping is a simple process, and anyone with little programming knowledge can write the code for a simple scraper that extracts the HTML code from visited websites. To complete this task, most coders use Python – the world’s most popular programming language with tons of external libraries to enhance and customize data extraction as well as plenty of educational content to build further skills in web scraping and data science.
Still, a manually written scraper may be insufficient for completing bigger data extraction tasks. To save time and get the best possible service, we recommend choosing pre-built scraping tools that fit your niche.
Best tools for social media scraping
Let’s start with a heavy-hitter: Octoparse – a free web scraping tool applicable for various web scraping tasks and even has tutorials for social media scraping. With this knowledge you can extract Facebook and Instagram posts and apply filters to discover influencers.
Parsehub is another free tool that is great for scraping social media networks. However, for a bigger task, both tools have standard pricing if you want to continue scraping for micro-influencers. When it comes to price, Octoparse has the upper hand. You can analyze their customizable tools, as well as other competitors like Zyte to find the tool that suits your needs.
Scraping with proxy servers
Proxy servers play a big role in web scraping. Without an intermediary server, you put your IP address at the risk of getting banned. Once the network identity gets blacklisted you, or even worse, your company, won’t be able to connect to social media networks with that address and your prior presence will not be forgotten.
With a reliable proxy provider, you can rotate between various residential proxies while scraping the web, constantly changing the identity of your scraper without putting your IP at risk. Using a customized Instagram proxy will help you shift from extracting information to managing your social media accounts at the same time.
Online marketing automation is pushing the boundaries of efficiency. With web scrapers we can discover network connections, micro-influencers, and influential people in those networks. The future of marketing lies in social media platforms. Find the people with active audiences and cook up a deal that will ensure personalized advertisements and discount deals on their page or channel. Web scraping is a great tool that helps us build bridges between businesses and potential advertisers.