Busted: Influencer marketing by definition leverages key opinion leaders on social media. That doesn’t just includes beauty or fashion icons on YouTube or Instagram, but equally any industry professional on LinkedIn who regularly shares their views on professional topics. Clearly, there is no less potential using influencer marketing in a B2B context.
Busted: Any influencer programme must align with your overall B2B marketing strategy. If you approach B2B influencer marketing solely with the aim to shift more units, you will be doomed to fail in the long run. Which credible influencers want to solely talk about your product? If all they do is redistribute product messaging their influence will lessen.
To be effective such programmes must add value to all parties – your firm and its campaign, the influencers and the people they influence. It can’t be a one-way conversation.
Busted: You’d be surprised how many champions there are. Extreme relevance gives you agency. Unpaid influencer relations has the potential for you to benefit in a big way. You can materially grow unpaid reach and credibility (super important for unknown people or brands). It takes work but the only investment is time. You’ve got this.
Busted: Many believe that influencer marketing is all about paying influencers to endorse your brand/product. It’s not – that’s influencer advertising. Brands have so much more value to offer influencers than a pay cheque.
Influencer marketing is give and take; it’s a mutually beneficial collaboration for the influencer, brand and both audiences. Give your influencers exposure, a platform; help them become more influential. If you are going to pay them, pay for their time, not their opinion.
Busted: The B2B influencer ecosystem is very different from the B2C one. Most B2B influencers are professionals who are part of the industry: they grow their influence on social media as a way to increase their own visibility, and sometimes their own business (many are consultants) – or out of sheer interest and passion for the topic they cover. There are almost no professional influencers in B2B.
While consultants who get invited to events and contribute to content might expect to be compensated for the time they invest in your project, it is clearly not the rule for most B2B influencers.
Busted: I’m a huge believer in leveraging influencers in B2B activities. But measurement isn’t always straightforward. Think of it in two ways:
- Use influencers in activities with established measurement such as emails, webinars, field events, etc. Measure likes and check the lift against your baseline.
- Talk to your influencer partners about when they mention you on social media and in their consulting agreements.
Busted: Less is more. A better way to stand out is to create content that’s audience focused, endorsed, validated and shared by influencers, experts and partners, and where the UX is engaging, enlightening and enjoyable.
Better to be seen by 100 of the right people than 1000 vaguely interested ones. Time to ditch the vanity metrics of social for good.
Busted: There will be fantastic expertise internally, it just needs to be nurtured. Viewing staff as internal influencers is ideal because they’re specialists that customers want to call upon for expertise, feedback and ultimately perspectives that external influencers cannot provide. Activity or campaigns should consider both. Moreover, this approach should be ingrained into the DNA of the business.
Busted: Enabling conversations between prospects and an influencer at your event or roundtable is a powerful way to build trust in your brand and a deeper understanding of its value to them.
Collaborate with influencers based on their ability to engage and inspire rather than the number of Twitter followers they have.
Busted: You don’t need to hunt around for influencers. Every organisation has its own, free-to-use influencer marketing resource – its CEO.
No matter what else changes in the world, people buy from people. And if you have a CEO who is known and respected, couple this with a regular content strategy that focuses on building their position as a voice of authority, and a strong social media profile, you have a CEO who can be particularly influential in various respects.
Busted: Customer advocacy as a platform for influence is gaining rapid traction in the B2B space, as brands realise that their customer voices speak the loudest. We listen more to the people we feel we can relate to.
This gives rise to new multi-channel, integrated advocacy programmes that use social, personalised digital experience and events together, turning stories into opportunities.
