With social networks growing rapidly, traditional strategies are no longer as effective as they used to be and businesses have to be creative in their approach to market products using social media. Customers today are better educated, more informed, and well connected with different social platforms. Hence, grabbing their attention amidst this overcrowded marketplace is a bit of a challenge.
Influencer marketing is a great source of help in this process. By leveraging influencers, many businesses have successfully expanded their reach, while many are enjoying the benefits of having celebrities, local leaders, and other prominent personalities advocate their brand. Also, influencer marketing is not only reserved for B2C companies - B2B marketers are effectively leveraging influencers in their marketing strategies.
Let’s take a look at how they’re doing it -
Building influencer-specific content
Creating content that is specific to prospects, users, and customers is extremely important for any business. Providing valuable and helpful information to customers is important, but this content may not always match the interest of influencers in the B2B space. If your content doesn’t capture the attention of influencers, it’ll be tough to get them to spread the word on your behalf.
An excellent example of this method is VideoFruit. VideoFruit offers solutions to help businesses build their email lists. The company’s founder Bryan Harris decided to write guest blogs for prominent sites that target entrepreneurs. After his first guest post for Noah Kagan’s OkDork site was published, VideoFruit’s website was visited by a whopping 1,086 visitors as compared to its daily average of 285 visitors proving how effective guest blogging can be as a form of influencer marketing.
Encouraging the practice of sharing
Sharing of content is easier in the B2C space. In the B2B space, your content will most likely be shared by others in your niche giving you ample opportunity for content collaboration. For B2B influencer marketing efforts, it is important to choose a platform that is frequently used by others in your industry and make a content sharing plan to encourage individuals who follow you on social media as well as your employees.
One company that has successfully implemented this strategy is IBM. The company encourages the practice of sharing among its employees. It empowers them to promote their business solutions, products, and services on various social media platforms by providing them content for posting and sharing.
Creating collaborated content
This is one of the most effective strategies involving influencer marketing in B2B business and one of the best ways to grab the attention influencers. You can include your influencers in your content in a number of ways. Summarize the best quotes from influential people in your niche in a blog post or conduct a collaborative webinar with an influencer - think about different, creative ways you can use to place your influencers in your content.
The best example of this is enterprise software developer SAP. To widen the reach of its annual user conference Sapphire, held in Orlando, SAP collaborated with 11 influencers to produce an interview-based video content of the event. The influencers were able to share this content with around 80,000 people who could not attend the conference in person.
Conclusion
Similar to any form of marketing, B2B influencer marketing also requires proper planning. Decide which channels you want to use for your campaign and keep the messages you want your influencers to share short and engaging.
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