Qué es el B2B Influencer Marketing y cómo hacerlo en tu empresa

The concept of an influencer is, by now, very well-known. What started off as a novel approach in the world of marketing is now a fully established and effective form of advertising, if done well.

Every day on social networks, we see influential people collaborating with brands through their publications and sharing content with their followers, but in the majority of cases, these campaigns are focused towards the final consumer.

So, what happens when your business’ target audience isn’t the final consumer, but rather other companies? Does B2B Influencer Marketing exist? And if it does, is it effective?

The answer is yes! Albeit with certain nuances. With B2B Influencer Marketing, it’s not about looking for someone with a big audience in terms of quantity, but someone who is able to inspire confidence and whose reputation means that their recommendation is sure to be taken on board by key decision-makers from the business world.

These are the basic principles of B2B Influencer Marketing. What to find out more? Keep reading!

A B2B Influencer must be able to inspire confidence and have their recommendation taken on board by decision-makers from the business word

What is B2B Influencer Marketing and how does it work?

The aim of B2B Influencer Marketing is to attract and facilitate business between the company that has launched the campaign and other companies who are potential clients, all thanks to the influencer.

For that reason, selecting the right B2B influencer is crucial and it’s important to refine the search in order to find the right person for each campaign.

The concept of a B2B influencer is different to that of a B2C Influencer. For example, metrics such as the number of followers will not be looked at in order to make a decision. Business to Business Influencer Marketing isn’t a question of quantity, but quality:

1. A brand influencer does not need to have a large audience, but they do need to be well-connected with the right people and be someone whose judgement is respected.
2. In order for these campaigns to work, it’s of the utmost importance to pay attention not only to the message that the company wishes to transmit, but also the issues in which the person who is transmitting them is involved.  
3. The company which launches the campaign must have clear values and a clear message that they wish to transmit. In order for the message to be effective, it must be in line with the influencer’s motives. Only then will you achieve maximum implication from the influencer and ensure that the message will be successfully transmitted.

In order for the message to be effective, it must be in line with the influencer’s motives.

Where can we see B2B Influencer Marketing?

The difficulty of finding a B2B Influencer stems from the fact that it tends to mean looking for people with great work-related responsibilities who therefore don’t have much time to actively take part in these types of campaigns on a regular basis.

For that reason, and because it’s still a very novel concept, there aren’t many examples of B2B influencer campaigns. There are, however, two apparent trends:

• Startups and technological businesses with a greater implication with social networks are the companies which will have more success with these types of campaigns.
• LinkedIn is the most popular social network for these types of campaigns, which is hardly surprising, considering it’s a social network for professionals. Guest posts on blogs and Twitter are other B2B Influencer Marketing trends we’re currently seeing in Spain.

B2B Influencer Marketing tips

The key for success with B2B Influencer Marketing campaigns is to clearly define the steps to take and develop each one in the correct manner. So easy, yet so difficult, right?

To give you an idea of what you should do to launch a successful campaign, here are some tips:

1. Clearly define B2B Influencer Marketing objectives
2. Choose the social network that best fits your objectives
3. Select the best influencer for your brand
4. Work side-by-side with the influencer and give them freedom
5. Feed the relationship and take it further than the campaign
6. Measure campaign results and ROI

• Define the objectives

It’s hard to evaluate the success of a campaign if you’re not sure what you’re trying to achieve. Choose an objective and expectations in terms of the numbers you wish to achieve in a specific time frame and other more general goals that can’t be measured with the same amount of precision, but can still be beneficial, such as objectives related to improving brand reputation or image.

• Choose the social network that best fits your objectives

Now you know what you want to achieve, think about where your target audience is and which social network is best to get your message across. You don’t have to stick to just one, but you should always know where you should be concentrating your greatest efforts. Only then will you be able to maximise your investment.

Keep reading: Objectives: the starting point of any Influencer Marketing campaign

• Select the best influencer for your brand

We’ve already mentioned the importance of choosing your brand influencer. Don’t go with your gut; make sure you warrant the decision with data that strongly supports it. To do so, use the right tools to help you analyse candidate profiles.

Once you’ve selected the right data to analyse, you can start asking more profound questions in order to find out whether they fit in well with the brand or not, such as the following:

• What topics do they tend to talk about?
• Does their content fit in with the brand’s values?
• Do they have a regular online presence? With what impact?
• How do they promote their content? What tone do they use?
• Are they working with other brands?

Make sure you choose a candidate who will provide value to the content, as well as credibility and relevance to your target audience.

• Work side-by-side with the influencer and give them freedom

It’s important to promote a healthy feeling of mutual collaboration between the brand and the influencer. Don’t make the influencer feel like an employee or a loudspeaker for your brand’s message. Instead, give them clear guidelines.

You must work side-by-side in creating the content and give them a margin of freedom with which they feel comfortable. At the end of the day, an influencer is someone who has their own way of expressing themselves and the best way to ensure the campaign is a success, is to for them to be able to identify with it.

• Feed the relationship and take it further than the campaign

If by the end of the campaign, contact with the brand influencer grinds to a halt, you’re missing out on much of the great potential of this strategy. Building a long-term relationship is much more beneficial than limiting it to a mere commercial exchange or a single B2B influencer marketing campaign. Stay in touch, share content and keep meeting up with the influencer. In summary, don’t just contract an influencer, gain an ally.

• Measure campaign results and ROI

Analysing data is much more precise than any other form of assessment or subjective perception. The data is going to tell you exactly how your campaign fared and to what extent it was successful. You need to analyse the results and let the metrics do the talking. Only then will you be able to correct potential errors, detect merits and improve the efficiency of your campaigns.

You may like: ¿How is ROI measured in Influencer Marketing?

Technology for B2B Influencer Marketing campaigns

As we’ve already seen, for campaigns with brand influencers, it’s crucial to have data that allows you to make objective decisions, correct your mistakes on time and analyse results.

From choosing the right influencer to measuring the impact of your campaign, there exists certain tools on the market that allow you to contrast any type of campaign data.

In Influencity, we know which metrics will help you score success and, with our software, the entire B2B (or B2C) Influencer Marketing process is much more simple, as you’ll always have precise data and your campaigns under control:

• From choosing the right influencer to obtaining an estimation of results before you even launch the campaign
• From following the campaign in real-time to accesses detailed reports that will allow you to design new and more efficient campaigns
• The performance of your publication, measuring ROI in real-time…

All your data organised in the most efficient way so that all you have to do is make decisions based on metrics

Want to know more about the results you could obtain with our tool and how it works? Download Influencity’s success case free of charge. Now available on our website.