B2B Influencer Marketing and your Business

How to Get Going?

Influencer Marketing is the reason many brands have survived the Covid 19 crisis.

It’s a bold and blanket statement, but look at it from a logistical point of view – influencer marketing, from a brand/business perspective requires little to no physical application or engagement from their team with the influencers and their efforts. A good thing too.

The meet ‘n’ greets are gone (for the time being) and the audience, yours and theirs understands the limitations that a business is experiencing, because they too are suffering, but that doesn’t stop your followers, these millions of consumers from engaging and buying.

What’s truly remarkable about influencer marketing is that it is all but entirely in the hands of individuals that have either experience, creativity, or both. If you’re a teenager with a phone and a comedic slant, Tiktok’s your oyster. If you’re a 60 year old with generations of tech and or business related acumen, then Twitter can be your gold mine and revitalise your outlook.

Influencer marketing is the career path a school councellor never heard of when you were young, but tell ’em you’ve 100,000 followers on Instagram and growing and see how quickly they ‘follow’ you.

All that being said, b2b influencer marketing is an avenue that not enough businesses see as either advantageous or are simply blind to. The benefits that a core group of specialist knowledge experts can lend to a small to medium sized enterprise can be the difference between a generation, labouring and climbing that mountain, only to ever reach a lower ledge.

It’s understandable. It takes time to research, to review, to realise that having a programme of like-minded, product savvy peoples, spouting your qualities from their digital rooftops is how many enterprises can take greater strides than those of a business stuck in a pre-Facebook/Linkedin era.

So, rather than continue to say that you should go down the influencer route, here’s how you could…and it won’t cost you the Earth (possibly just a more in-depth consultation).

Understand the Industry

Spend an hour here, 30 minutes there, over a lunch break and have a look at what your compatriots are up to.

Start a Twitter account (if you don’t already have one), type into the serach bar: Accountants, SMEs, supply chain…whatever your business is related to and scroll down the results.

You’ll find individuals and companies that are sharing blog posts, articles, commenting on news, making bold statement about their products, offering advance access to a new program, running chats and generally engaging…you’ll also find Bot accounts too, but we’ll put a pin in that for the moment.

Follow a few accounts. Read what your competitors are doing. Maybe they have an influencer programme and a group of experts speaking on their behalf already? Read what the individuals are saying – it might just be exactly what you’re thinking.

Keep reading, keep engaging (or don’t – you can keep your cards close to your chest for a while) and when you’re ready, send a Direct Message (DM) and start a private converstaion.

Understand the Influencer

After a week, maybe a few, you’ll start to understand the style and approach of your new digital contacts. You’ll know what drives them and what frustrates them. You’ll also begin to get a feel for whether they might be a good fit for your business.

Their ‘feeds’ will tell you so much about their professional and often, personal lives. It’ll refer you to their blog or website, or their other social media channels. It will show tell you about future changes to your industry that you might not have been aware of or had time to study (you’re busy, after all). You’ll also see whether they are already affiliated with a brand/competitor.

Influencers often showcase their involvement with a brand through their headline banners. A programme they’re affiliated with will often provide social media imagery that influencers can use accross their channels, and they’ll be happy to post. Right there, you are aligned, you are front and centre with a new audience, the influencer’s followers and more often than not, they have more, many more than you do.

Start your Programme

Sit down with your team, all of them and throw that idea forth.

“Good Morning, team. I’ve been thinking and I’d like to taje a slice of this Influencer marketing pie…who’s hungry?”

Or something like that.

What do you wish to achieve? What is your timeline? How much time/money can you spare? What do you want to call it?

Here’s a few tips:

Name – relate it to your brand and make it hashtagable.

Timeline – allow for a few weeks to plan, open the idea to your first few influencers and ask them their thoughts (chances are, they know more that you do and their insights are what you’re after, after all).

Money – not that relevant, to be honest. B2B experts are usually running their own businesses and as long as affiliation with your brand is mutually beneficial, then the cost is negligible.

Launch it – they say ‘go big or go home’, so don’t be shy. This is your business, your idea – be bold and go for it!

Any other queries, you know where we are.