How B2B influencer marketing will grow your brand

Every member of a procurement team is more than just a professional—they’re people. Parents, pickleball players, podcast enthusiasts—and those are just the P’s. On and off the clock, they research potential purchases just as everyone else might. There lies the magic of B2B influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing has long been a staple for business-to-consumer (B2C) brands looking to cultivate more authentic connections with their audience. It’s not just a trend—it’s a proven strategy. It’s time for B2B brands to embrace the power of influencers.

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.

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.

However, influencer marketing is not only viable for B2B brands; it can play a crucial role in B2B 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.

Most social platforms have their own professional communities, both formal and informal. It might look like a Facebook group geared toward career development in a specific industry, or a hashtag community on X (formerly known as Twitter). There’s even the WorkTok community on TikTok, if you want to experiment with short-form video.

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, Sprout Social Influencer Marketing (formerly Tagger) 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.

Benefits of B2B influencer 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 

According to a recent study from Gartner, B2B buyers value third-party interactions 1.4 times more than those with digital suppliers. That can look like reading reviews, speaking to customers and of course, consulting 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

Our Q3 2023 Sprout Social Pulse Survey reveals a telling insight: half of all marketers (50%) consider elevated engagement rates on social platforms as the most valuable opportunity through 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 content gains traction, your brand benefits from increased engagement that drives more 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’re not sure what that looks like, just consider your relationship with your favorite influencers. You rely on them because their opinions resonate, earned through a consistent display of expertise or an interesting perspective. As you probably know, this level of trust doesn't materialize overnight.

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.

Not to mention, to further enhance your B2B influencer marketing campaigns, consider leveraging AI tools. Learn more about how AI can elevate your strategy in our guide on AI influencer marketing.

3 B2B influencer marketing examples you can learn from

Now that we've laid the foundation, let's dive into real-world examples of B2B influencer marketing. Each of these examples comes with a valuable takeaway to guide your business's approach.

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.

Takeaway: Influencers don’t have to be industry-specific if you can find a meaningful way to link them to your brand. Think outside the box by considering how influencers from other spaces may be able to speak to the appeal of your brand.

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.

ad | Being a CEO is not for the faint of heart, using @mondaydotcom helps me stay balanced as the first in my family to do it #mondaypartner #femaleentrepreneur #femalebusinessowner #dayinmylife

♬ original sound ' Janell