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Sebastian Wallinstabot project

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How to Find Travel Influencers Programmatically with AI Agents

#travel #influencermarketing #api #ai

Finding the right travel influencer used to mean hours scrolling Instagram manually or paying $300/month for a platform you use twice. Here's a faster way: an API that costs $0.10 per search, requires no signup, and works directly inside AI agents.

The Problem With Influencer Tools

Most influencer search platforms have the same model: monthly subscription, minimum contract, clunky web UI. That works if you run campaigns constantly. It doesn't work if you're an agency dev building an automation, or a brand team that needs 10 searches total this quarter.

How the API Works

Social Intel is a search API for Instagram influencer data. It uses the x402 payment protocol — you pay $0.10 USDC per request, no account required.

A travel influencer search looks like this:

curl "https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=travel&country=US&min_followers=10000"
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Without a wallet, you'll get a 402 response with payment instructions. To try it free:

curl "https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=travel+influencer&demo=true"
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The response includes username, follower count, category, verification status, and public email (for business accounts).

Filtering By Niche

You can combine filters for more specific results:

# Micro travel influencers in specific country
curl "https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=travel&country=France&min_followers=5000&max_followers=50000"

# Verified travel accounts in the US
curl "https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=adventure+travel&country=US&is_verified=true"

# Travel + fashion crossover
curl "https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=travel+fashion&min_followers=20000"
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Using It From an AI Agent

The API is also available as an MCP server, so Claude, Cursor, and other AI agents can search influencers autonomously.

Add this to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "social-intel": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "social-intel-mcp"]
    }
  }
}
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Then ask your agent: "Find me 20 travel influencers in Australia with 10k-100k followers." The agent calls the API, pays $0.10 USDC from its wallet, returns structured results.

What You Get Back 

{
  "results": [
    {
      "username": "wanderlust.au",
      "followers": 47200,
      "category": "Travel",
      "is_verified": false,
      "public_email": "hello@wanderlust.au"
    }
  ],
  "count": 23,
  "query": "travel",
  "country": "Australia"
}
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The public_email field is the high-value one — it's only populated on business accounts, but when it is, you skip the DM-cold-outreach-wait loop entirely.

No Subscription, No Lock-In

The x402 protocol means each request is atomic: your x402 client pays on Base chain, gets results, done. No API key rotation, no usage cap negotiation, no billing dashboard.

If you're building a campaign tool, influencer matching workflow, or just want to pull a list without a monthly commitment: try the live demo.

Full API docs and MCP setup: socialintel.dev/docs

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