Increase your brand’s visibility through B2B influencer marketing strategies.

Each person on a procurement team is not only a skilled expert, but also an individual with their own unique hobbies and interests, such as being a parent, enjoying pickleball, or being an avid podcast listener. Even when they’re not working, they investigate possible buys like anyone else. This is where the power of B2B influencer marketing comes into play.

Influencer marketing has been a key component for brands targeting individual consumers, aiming to build genuine relationships with their audience. It’s not just a passing fad – it’s an effective approach. B2B brands should now consider leveraging the influence of key opinion leaders.

In this guide, we’re diving into the essentials of B2B influencer marketing. We’ll explore need-to-know benefits, draw inspiration from real-world examples, and provide tips to shape your strategy.

• Can you explain B2B influencer marketing?
• Benefits of B2B influencer marketing
• 3 B2B influencer marketing examples you can learn from
• How to add B2B influencer marketing to your social strategy

What is B2B influencer marketing?

B2B influencer marketing is a strategic approach where businesses promote their product or services through collaborative partnerships with subject matter experts within a specific industry. Through these relationships, businesses are able to harness an influencer’s credibility to reach new audiences.

When people typically envision influencer marketing, their minds often go to business-to-consumer interactions. B2C influencer marketing often gets more attention because of its potential to yield direct sales. The impacts of B2B influencer marketing, on the other hand, are harder to quantify because it primarily drives brand awareness and affinity.

Influencer marketing isn’t just effective for B2B companies; it can also be a key component in their social media strategies.

Which platforms work best for B2B influencer marketing?

When you think of B2B influencer marketing, you probably think of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a powerhouse for businesses looking to build brand awareness with several audiences—prospects, investors, potential hires—but it’s not the only avenue available for B2B marketers.

Numerous social networks offer specialized communities for professionals, whether they are officially organized or more casual in nature. This could take the shape of a Facebook group focused on advancing careers within a certain field, or a group of users connected by a specific hashtag on X (previously recognized as Twitter). Additionally, if you’re interested in exploring brief video content, there’s the WorkTok community on TikTok.

If you want to find an ideal influencer partner without scrolling endlessly through your social feeds, try using an influencer management tool to support creator identification. For example, Tagger by Sprout Social provides users with smart filters to easily sort through thousands of vetted creators and influencers. It finds the accounts with relevant audiences on platforms that are right for your brand so you don’t have to.

Given the inherent challenges B2B brands face in quantifying the impact of their strategies, having a tool that also accurately measures and reports on ROI from influencer marketing campaigns across networks becomes crucial for scaling a program effectively.

Advantages of using influencers in business-to-business marketing.

Let’s be honest; the B2B procurement process isn’t typically what one would call exciting. We’re not claiming that a well-executed B2B influencer marketing campaign will get prospects happy-dancing over your request for proposal (RFP). However, it undeniably has the power to cultivate a more receptive and engaged audience throughout the buying journey.

For B2B brands, influencer marketing humanizes the appeal of your tool or solution. It offers your prospects a glimpse at how their workday might improve by choosing your company as a vendor. Here’s how. 

It expands brand reach 

A recent Gartner study has found that B2B buyers place 1.4 times more importance on interactions with third parties than with digital vendors. This includes activities such as reading reviews, talking to customers, and seeking advice from influencers.

There are influencers within your industry that hold the attention of sizable audiences who may be unfamiliar with your product, brand or mission. Working with these individuals creates a unique opportunity to extend your brand’s reach into new and untapped audiences.

This is particularly powerful for B2B brands that craft thought leadership content. Partnering with an established influencer within your industry can significantly amplify the reach of your content, extending your expertise beyond the confines of your organic channels.

It boosts engagement

The results of the Sprout Social Pulse Survey for the third quarter of 2023 show a significant finding: 50% of marketers believe that increased engagement rates on social media platforms are the greatest benefit of influencer marketing.

This comes as no surprise, given the role user engagement plays in signaling a piece of content’s relevance to a social media algorithm. The more engagement a post receives, the more likely it is to be prioritized by an algorithm to be surfaced to other users.

That’s what makes influencers so valuable to businesses of all kinds, including B2B companies. Brand content may make its way into user feeds, but let’s be real—few are holding their breath for it. Influencers, on the other hand, have dedicated fan bases that seek them out to actively engage with their content.

As your influencer marketing material gains popularity, your brand experiences heightened interaction that boosts overall awareness.

It enhances brand loyalty and trust

When B2B brands partner with influencers, they tap into the power of their genuine audience connections.

If you are uncertain of what this entails, think about your connection with the influencers you admire. You trust them because their viewpoints resonate with you, which they have gained through continually showcasing their knowledge or unique perspective. As you may be aware, this kind of trust doesn’t develop instantly.

Audiences trust that their favorite influencers wouldn’t jeopardize that hard-earned trust for any and every sponsored content opportunity. Their credibility is, after all, their currency. That’s what makes the right B2B influencer marketing partnership so valuable. It’s a critical lever for building trust.

3 B2B influencer marketing examples you can learn from

Let’s now delve into practical instances of B2B influencer marketing, having established the groundwork. Every example provided offers a useful lesson to steer your company’s strategy.

1. Flock Freight

This example from Flock Freight is one of our favorite influencer marketing examples to date, and we’re not alone. This campaign won a Cannes Lion for B2B Creative in the Challenger Brand category in June 2023.

For their “Define Your Load” campaign, the brand partnered with Steve Burns of Blue’s Clues fame to create a series of video clips where the TV icon seeks definitions for some “common” phrases in the supply chain industry. The resulting video clips are both laugh-out-loud funny and educational.

Key point: You don’t need to limit yourself to influencers within your industry. Look for creative ways to connect influencers from different fields to your brand, as they may be able to effectively communicate its attractiveness.

2. Monday.com

Monday.com is a versatile work operating system that caters to the diverse needs of businesses across industries and sizes—even those that are just starting out.

In this influencer marketing collaboration, Janell Robers (@janell.roberts) does an excellent job demonstrating what Monday.com can do for budding entrepreneurs. Throughout the video, she seamlessly navigates her to-do list as a young CEO, effortlessly checking off every item on her list using the Monday.com app.

Key point: Partnerships with B2B influencers can be centered around your product if you adopt an advertorial strategy. Concentrate on highlighting the benefits and value your product or service brings to your influencer partner’s life, instead of the usual method of selling solutions.

3. Shopify

Gartner’s study on B2B buyer influencers found that YouTube informed 65% of recent B2B purchase decisions, making it the most popular platform for research.

Shopify capitalizes on that consumer behavior in their recent partnership with Ali Abdaal, a popular productivity YouTuber who transitioned from a medical career to build a thriving business as a content creator. In the video, Abdaal clearly identifies Shopify as a sponsor of the video, before covering the benefits of the platform and thanking them for their partnership.

Key Point: Viewers are aware of the business model behind content creators and understand that brand partnerships are common. This knowledge does not lessen the value of the partnership in their eyes. Making sure that sponsored content is clearly labeled as such not only complies with FTC regulations but also strengthens the association between the influencer and your brand in a positive way.

How to add B2B influencer marketing to your social strategy

Piloting an influencer marketing strategy can seem daunting at first but it’s just a matter of conducting manageable tests and learning as you go. Use these tips to inform your first go.

1. Align B2B influencer marketing objectives with overall business objectives.

Marketing initiatives shouldn’t just happen for the sake of checking a box. If you’re making the case for an additional budget to support your influencer marketing program, you should have a clear idea of what business goals will benefit from the partnership.

The first step is to understand how your B2B influencer marketing strategy supports your business plan. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to expand into new markets? Or support a new product launch? Are you closing a competitive gap? Your ability to articulate this clearly will play a major role in securing buy-in.

If you are collaborating with your CFO to obtain budget approval, communicate in terms of income and cash flow. When executed correctly, influencer marketing can be an affordable method to reach new customers. Illustrate how this can reduce operational costs compared to conventional advertising expenses, and you will position yourself for success.

2. Look for examples of B2B influencer content in your industry

Before diving into strategy development, take a moment to research how other brands in your industry are working with influencers. This serves as a valuable starting point for crafting your approach. Analyzing their strategies provides content inspiration and meaningful clues on what is resonating with B2B audiences. It also provides insight into what type of influencer content works and what doesn’t.

Instead of endlessly searching for posts with the #Ad hashtag, simplify the process by using a social listening tool. A tool with the appropriate features will assist you in finding posts from various networks in a single, centralized location.

Use search parameters to create a query that identifies posts labeled as ads. This approach helps you understand current trends and may also reveal influential figures making an impact in your industry.

3. Zero in on the topics that resonate best with your audience

To determine what content appeals to your specific audience, it is important to analyze your past data. The information gathered from your performance report serves as a guide, directing you towards the topics, platforms, and formats that consistently capture the attention and interaction of your audience.

In Sprout, the Post Performance Report unveils trends in what your followers like to see in their feeds. Leverage these insights to shape your creative briefs, ensuring that any influencer content aligns seamlessly with what your audience values most.

4. Write a clear creative brief

Now that you have finished the research phase, it’s time to start writing. The creative brief is not only for your influencer partner but also for other internal teams to use as a guide to prepare for the campaign.

You’ll want to share it with your organic social team to ensure they’re all set to engage with and amplify the post on publish day. If you’re working with an influencer to support a new product launch, you should also share the creative brief with your customer service and product marketing teams to ensure cross-functional alignment.

In your brief, strive to provide guidance—not instructions. You want to ensure that an influencer understands how to relay your message without compromising their creativity and uniqueness. At the same time, if you’re not clear enough, you may find yourself going through round after round of creative review down the line.

Establish a financial plan and develop a plan for managing it.

Some of the most common influencer marketing challenges revolve around managing relationships with influencers and budgeting constraints. Unfortunately, hurdles related to these two topics are inevitable. After all, you’re dealing with another human who has their own responsibilities, financial needs and business goals.

That said, these challenges don’t need to get in the way of your campaign. You just need to be prepared for them.

You don’t need to create a deck or lengthy document detailing exactly how you’ll handle any and all pitfalls. Instead, just answer the following questions, and ensure stakeholders are aligned on your responses.

• How much money can you set aside for your influencer marketing plan? Which influencers are within your budget range?
• Who will manage your influencer marketing campaign? Who needs to be involved in contract negotiations? Who will manage the ongoing relationship with your influencer partner(s)?
• What is the proposed timeline for your campaign? Could an influencer realistically turn around great content within that time frame?

If you find that handling all the connections, agreements, and content approvals becomes overwhelming while you’re working on your project and gaining knowledge from your attempts, consider using an influencer marketing platform such as Tagger.

With Tagger, you manage entire campaigns with multiple influencer partners all from the same platform, granting you a holistic view of your success in real time.

Incorporate influencer marketing into your B2B content strategy.

Remember: Companies don’t buy products—people do. B2B brands that tap into the power of influencer marketing are poised to build the brand loyalty needed to win in a competitive market. If you’re looking for creative ways to outpace your competitors, this is it.

Spend some time brainstorming your strategy. If you need a framework to create some structure, use our B2B content plan worksheet to work smarter, not harder and ensure you’re getting the most mileage out of all your content ideas.

The post How B2B influencer marketing will grow your brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

Influencer marketing for businesses targeting other businesses (B2B) is a powerful tool for expanding your brand and attracting new customers. Utilizing influencers can help you produce impactful content that connects with your intended market and encourages interaction. Here are some suggestions to help you begin with B2B influencer marketing.

1. Choose the Appropriate Influencers: The initial step in a successful B2B influencer marketing effort is to select the appropriate influencers to collaborate with. Look for influencers who have a significant following in your field and who have a positive reputation among their followers. You should also take into account their expertise level and their ability to create content that appeals to your target audience.

2. Formulate a Plan: After identifying the right influencers, it’s time to formulate a plan for your B2B influencer marketing campaign. Think about the type of content you want to produce, the platforms you want to use, and the objectives you want to accomplish. This will help you develop a plan that ensures the success of your campaign.

3. Produce Captivating Content: Content is crucial in B2B influencer marketing. You need to produce content that connects with your target audience and motivates them to interact with your brand. Consider creating videos, blog posts, or podcasts that offer valuable information and insights related to your industry.

4. Track Your Progress: After launching your B2B influencer marketing campaign, it’s essential to track your progress. Monitor the performance of your content and assess the engagement it’s generating. This will help you determine what’s effective and what needs improvement.

B2B influencer marketing is a powerful way to expand your brand and attract new customers. By leveraging influencers, you can produce impactful content that connects with your intended market and encourages interaction. With a well-thought-out strategy and engaging content, you can make sure your B2B influencer marketing campaign is a triumph.

Source: sproutsocial.com