If  we don’t take into consideration today’s fuss about influencer marketing strategies and take a look at the history we will see that influencer marketing has even started before the creation of social media. The definition of the “influencer” is a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. Clear message and easy to understand but is it? Can anybody be an influencer? 

What makes a Person an Influencer

Beautiful minds inspire others. Just think, do we like influencers just because we want to be like them?  The answer is  yes for some of us, but for the rest of us, we value the effort they put in their work. The influencers inspire us to be the best version of ourselves, do the right thing in every condition and keep pushing our boundaries.

The influencers take action deliberately. They don’t have magic sticks which make all of their dreams come true. They build their name bit by bit. No matter if we call them content creators, mentors, guides, experts or anything like that, they all serve to the same purpose. Creating the impact they were aiming for is their solemn duty.

Honesty saves everyone’s time. Indeed it does. Would you rely on someone who lies to you? Possibly there isn’t any worse thing for  an influencer to tell a lie and get caught. Because once it happens that influencer’s credibility flies out of the window and it’s unlikely to repair again. The reputation is the essence of the influencer’s ability to influence.

This is not a controversial matter, whether or not you have a great thought or actions, if you have people who think like you, in another word if they can relate with you, these people will follow you. However was this always like that? Let’s have a look at the dusty pages of history.

The Blonde Bombshell was on Duty

The Blonde Bombshell, Marilyn Monroe skyrocketed the sales of Chanel №5. In April 1952, Marilyn Monroe appeared for the first time on the cover of Life Magazine, and the article mentions her answer to the question, “What do you wear to bed?” and her reply, “a few drops of Chanel №5”.

Now when we see one or another celebrity praise a perfume it’s quite normal, but Marilyn Monroe was the first celebrity who was endorsing a perfume. Chanel №5 is the most famous and best selling perfume but the popularity of the icon escalated in the twinkling of an eye. 

After that brands discovered the way to use the power of popularity and public images of the celebrities they use it unceasingly. That was easier to entice potential customers with the personalization of celebrities’ looks and their ways of living. 

A Long Way from Down to the Top

Have you heard about Nancy Green? She was one of the first African American models in history to become the face of a popular food product. She didn’t have a beautiful body to show off, we can’t call her a scholar because she was’t. Nancy was a slave, then nanny and cook finally an influencer who fight against the racial discrimination. 

In 1889 Nancy Green was hired to promote a brand called “Aunt Jemima”. The product itself was out of ordinary for its time, self-rising pancake flour with a Black woman’s face on the box  made an instant hit across the country. If we look at the 21st century’s individual’s perspective, yes the design may seem racial and stereotypical nevertheless it was innovative for the 1880s. Green made the big chunk of money while working for the brand for 33 years until her unexpected death. Moreover she became one of the most influential advocates who spoke out against poverty and equal rights.

“Because They’re Worth It”

If you go out and ask a random person who is the second person did a revolutionary act in any case for the first time, it would be doubtful that you will find the right answer. However, we know our pioneers. In 1971, when women didn’t even have a voice over the product specifically manufactured for them, L’Oréal made something groundbreaking. Those days were special for the women’s rights movement  but still advertising controlled by men and women were completely left out.

“Because I’m Worth It” said brand ambassador Joanne Dusseau for the first time and it changed the views of women forever. Some sources claim that L’Oréal came up with this tagline because they wanted to beat their competitor Clairol and encourage women to spend more money on their product. Well, it worked. Because in the 70s almost every commercial featured male actors and showed their perspectives. If you take a look at Clairol’s ads in the 1970s you will see women with a male voiceover. However in the L’Oréal advertisement we see a woman who narrates that she  bought  a premium beauty product for the first time just for herself. The tagline slightly changed over the course of history and evolved its latest form, “ Because You’re Worth It”. Yet no matter how you comprehend it the slogan has been translated into 40 languages and it gave women confidence when they didn’t use to feel they are worth it. L’Oréal didn’t just became the pioneer in feminist advertising, more importantly it influenced the women’s outlooks about themselves.

It doesn’t matter who was the first influencer or when  exactly influencing has started. What we are making of it is the thing we need to focus on and thrive. Try to be a better influential leader to relate and impact others in a deep and sincere way.

Interacting with influencers from the digital realm rather than the real-world, may sound like a sci-fi movie scenario, but in fact, this is where the influencer marketing heading with ultra-speed or is it already there? The answer is YES. Virtual and Augmented Reality is the future of influencer marketing. VR and AR are becoming mainstream media faster than you realize. As well as the fast emergence of social media, it challenges businesses to “stay up-to-date or die”. It’s no surprise that the predicted combined size of AR and VR industries is over $29.5 billion by 2020. It’s only a matter of time before every company is using some form of AR, VR, or both.

Influencer marketing is an inseparable part of digital marketing. Although the use of influencer marketing for B2B is not very common in practice, it’s growing into a new trend. Partnering with influencers on B2B is a much more complicated process. For B2C seeing the results of working with influencers is immediate while for B2B evaluating the effectiveness of collaboration takes a long time, as influencers cannot make a story or a video post about taste, style of the product. 

Finding the relevant influencer for B2B is also different from B2C. For effective marketing strategy industry experts, and real influencers are needed. There are several factors that business need to consider once they are willing to collaborate with influencers:

• Active use of social media. There should not be a long pause between influencers’ posts.
• Finding on topic influencers. The ones that rarely post about related business may not give high ROI.
• Focusing on the right social media channel. Instagram may not be an effective platform for marketing tech products. 

So what is the right strategy to collaborate with influencers on B2B? Here are several strategies that will move the needle in any industry and for companies of all sizes.

Look for existing advocates

To find their “fresh” advocates companies should look nowhere but inside their existing ecosystems. Often, relevant influencers are already somehow associated with your brand. After identifying why you want to carry out B2B Influencer Marketing the next step is to carefully analyze and asses your current customers, business partners, fans and employees for proof of influence and advocacy. With the help of online tools, you can examine the influence of everyone around your brand on social channels that can generate exceptional insights. 

Collaboration with micro and nano influencers

Brands usually tend to partner with influencers that are more famous and have a larger audience. Instead of working with mega-influencers, business needs to consider micro and nano influencers, as they are more engaged in social media. Their small but engaged audience creates credibility and more in touch relations between followers and other influencers. Apart from this, micro-influencers are cost-effective from a marketing perspective. 

Co-create content with industry experts 

Expertise from the influencers to create and launch new products. Word-of-mouth does not work all the time. For big business decisions, you need more in-depth research and real users. Industry experts are one way to increase awareness about the product or service. Working with influencers not only for advertising but also during the production process, guest-posting on influencers’ blogs, showing real-life experience over promoted product. This approach provides a natural distribution channel for your content and builds credibility. 

Leverage employee advocacy

Social media is the main assistant for employee advocacy. In fact, employees are more active on social media users than the corporate accounts and they have more followers than their employers. Resharing the company posts get more click than the original post. Employees are internal influencers for your company. They have an organic audience and real connections for your business. Because employees work on the given product, they can effectively share their knowledge and experience in real life as well. 

While companies still face difficulties in finding the right influencer campaigns, we can mention a few of the successful influencer campaigns.

Dell Influencer Marketing Programs

This one is a good example of B2B Influencer Marketing. But instead of partnering with influencers, Dell works with industry experts for increasing brand leadership such as guest blog posts, podcast interviews and inviting influencers to Dell events. Dell launched the “Dell Luminaries” podcast which worldwide tech experts share their views over different topics from technology to Formula One. Through the program, the business can see and analyze the importance of technology for every business which in turn, will help Dell to reach more business partners. Outside expert views on innovative technology bring new audiences for both, Dell and influencers. The shared value of influencer programs are vital for Dell’s partnership, said Dell marketing expert. 

Prophix – Adapt & Innovate: AI and the Next Evolution of Finance

As a global corporate performance management software, Prophix intended to build leadership in the tech applied finance industry. The company intended to make business analyze the role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to amplify its future position. Prophix created microsite called Adapt & Innovate: AI and the Next Level of Finance where expert influencers and AI personality Penny answering customers’ questions. The site included blog posts, insight infographics, promotional emailing for influencers to share. Virtual Financial Analyst eliminates time spent on repetitive and manual tasks, gives quick analysis for finance professionals. 

3M Science Champions 

3M has done the biggest science research, the State of Science Index to increase everyone’s access to the depth and complexities of science. Featuring twenty-one experts and influencers “Science Champions” podcast launched in relation to the research. 

For successful B2B experience on influencer marketing, detailed market research and expert comments are vital. The key factor here is, creating credibility in customers’ eyes. Instead of traditional marketing, expanding business networks with internal experts as brand advocates and outside experts is more viable. If you want to give Influencer Marketing a try with us just click the “Register” button below with the respective category. 

LinkedIn is a social networking site for the business community to foster connections with former, current and potential colleagues. It’s a great place to exchange business ideas, build relationships with prospects, search for jobs or talents. 

In 2015, it gave access to all users of the English speaking countries to its publishing platform in an attempt to increase page views and time that the users spent. As a result 320 mln LinkedIn users granted access to the publishing platform allowing them to become an influencer in their respective niches. 

Each day, over 2 mln posts, videos, and articles flow the LinkedIn feed, generating tens of thousands of comments every hour – and tens of millions more shares and likes. So how to stand out in this business-focused social media platform? In this post, we will answer this question.

How to Become an Influencer on LinkedIn? 

To be a LinkedIn influencer is quite different from being an influencer in any other platform like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. The platform brings out its annual “Top Voices” list of most engaged creators and influencers. To appear in this list you don’t necessarily have to be the CEO of a global company or professional expert with years of experience in a particular field. Each year, LinkedIn’s editors only choose the most active and engaged users independent of their industry. 

So, it just takes a reasonable period of time to do research and dedication, to get noticed by the team. 

#1 Publish Fresh and Curated Content

As stated by Bill Gates “the content is king”. However, creating fresh and eye-catching content requires to invest your time and effort. Engaging content is what makes people scroll on your newsfeed. And people engage in your content if they find it useful and informational. 

The key point here is to post daily and post right. Start posting content that is related to your and your connections’ industry. Showing your expertise in a particular industry you need to create and publish long-form posts which are over 600-1000 words. Just publishing content will not alone do the whole job, you will need to engage with the audience through comments and reply to the posts that have shared by your connections.

The latest news and developments perform really good on the platform. You can also share curated content and short videos. In this way, you are not attracting just random people, but people who are really engaged with your industry. 

#2 Build Your Audience

By sharing industry-relevant content you already attracted followers, but if you want them to engage, you need to add value by providing insightful and informational content.  Focus on what matters most to your followers. 

LinkedIn’s publishing platform gives you an opportunity to grow your audience. Here you can interact with others who might be interested in your industry.  Always keep in mind that here the type of connections is more important than the number. You need to focus on forming strategic connections. 

#3 Optimize Your Profile

As your LinkedIn profile is like a resume or business card, it’s essentially a marketing tool. Optimizing your profile will have a great impact on your personal brand. So, consider creating a well-written and resume-like profile that potential partners can notice the benefits of collaborating with you.  First of all, make sure all important areas are in order. Let’s start with profile and background images. It is recommended to make the profile photo visible to everyone. This move will develop trust and make your profile easily found by the search engines. 

Add the professional profile of skills, experience, interests on your headline. Try to express what you do in 120 characters in a creative and informative way. Keep your summary short but don’t forget to add as many relevant keywords as you can. It makes your profile easier to find when looking for experts in your field of specialization on LinkedIn. 

#4 Stand out in your industry

LinkedIn is your chance to get your name and face in front of hundreds (or even thousands) of professionals in your industry. But to build an influence you need to stand out among those professionals by being a reliable source of good information and to address your audience’s pain points. You need to constantly publish creative and innovative solutions through fresh and curated content. 

Differentiate yourself. Don’t just recount the day’s news. Instead, put a spin on the mundane by writing short articles with catchy headlines like “Why your pain medication may be killing you!” This will make your audience sit up and take notice.

#5 Promote Your Content  

Of course, your content will not get around by itself. Sponsored Content is native advertising on LinkedIn. It allows you to promote your content directly in the LinkedIn feeds of the professionals you want to reach on LinkedIn and increase your content’s reach as a LinkedIn Influencer. 

But there are some tactics, some of which work far better than others. To help you out, here are the tactics of LinkedIn content promotion so you can start getting more attention for your content. 

• Go after your ideal readers,
• Use groups, 
• Use LinkedIn’s publishing platform – The Pulse,
• Buy some Sponsored Update Advertising.