The current approach to B2B influencer marketing is fundamentally flawed: here's why

Hey there, funky folks! Welcome to the newest edition of the Marketing with a bit of Funk newsletter with me, Nemanja Zivkovic.

Today, I want to touch on an important and rising topic that I see a lot of buzz around. It is new in the B2B space, but it's getting more and more traction, and more companies are including it in their strategies.

As I said, there's a buzz about B2B influencers that's hard to miss, but it's time we face the music: the current approach to B2B influencer marketing is fundamentally flawed. Let me break it down for you. ??

Influence is often equated with reach, especially in B2B. This has led to companies prioritizing external influencers over the goldmine of potential influencers they have within their ranks.

Yes, I’m talking about leveraging the power of internal employees over external influencers.

Why?

Because the real influence comes from those who breathe your brand every day, not from a one-off post by an outsider, no matter how wide their reach.

Imagine this: you're considering spending $500–$600 for a single post from an external influencer. It sounds like a straightforward investment for some instant visibility, right?

But here's the kicker—what happens when the post fades into the abyss of the ever-changing LinkedIn algorithm?

The impact is momentary at best.

Instead, what if we redirected our focus internally?

Let's talk about creating long-term relationships not just with external figures but nurturing our own employees into becoming brand evangelists.

These are the subject-matter experts, the faces behind the brand, that can authentically represent and advocate for your company. They’re not just influencers; they’re evangelists deeply embedded in your industry, ready to share their expertise and passion with the world.

The goal?

To turn our employees into the most powerful influencers for our brand.

Wait, wait, this isn’t about transforming them into company billboards! Not at all!

It is about helping them digitalize their reputation, making them visible, approachable, AND helpful, and thereby elevating the company's visibility as well.

Check out my conversation with Belen Wagaw ?? on the Funky Marketing podcast to learn how to raise company valuation through personal branding for SAAS founders.

So this approach isn't just about adapting to the LinkedIn algorithm. It's about making your strategy sustainable, so it can bring your brand closer to your customers in the most authentic way possible.

In B2B with high ACV and long sales cycles, trust and relationships reign supreme, and customers are more inclined to engage with and buy from people they know and trust.

Just get them to where your customers spend time—communities, social, and offline events—and make their reputation visible.

Rethink your strategy!

It's not about the hard sell. It's about solving problems for your customers, and who better to communicate this than the very people who embody our brand every day?

B2B influencer marketing future: we look inward to project our brand outward in the most impactful way.

Transform your employees into your most powerful asset in the marketplace.

It gets me to employee advocacy programs and reminds me of a conversation Richard van der Blom had with Dreamdata 's Laura Erdem . Let me share with you a part of their conversation and Richard's visdom.

How to set up an employee advocacy programme

One of the central pillars for succeeding with your content strategy on LinkedIn is employee advocacy (also known as social selling). For Richard, employee advocacy plays the pivotal role in amplifying a company’s presence on LinkedIn.?

Here’s what he had to say about what you need to set up a successful LinkedIn employee advocacy programme:

• Know the four tiers of employee advocates Richard tells us to identify and categorize your employees (and their LinkedIn contribution) into one of these four categories.

1. Thought Leaders: These are typically executives, directors, or individuals who have already established a significant footprint on LinkedIn. They create their content and may have their channels, such as LinkedIn newsletters or YouTube channels. Thought leaders are instrumental in growing their communities and setting the tone for the company’s presence on LinkedIn.
2. Active Ambassadors: These employees are engaged with the company’s content and also publish their LinkedIn posts. They might not have the seniority or the reach of thought leaders but play a crucial role in amplifying the company’s voice through their activity.
3. Engagement Advocates: Engagement advocates are employees who might not create their content but are willing to engage with the company’s posts through likes, shares, and comments. This tier includes employees who support the company’s messaging and help increase its reach, even though they are not content creators themselves.
4. Potential Promoters: These are employees who are not yet convinced of the value or may not fully understand how to use LinkedIn effectively. They represent a group that, with the right encouragement and training, could move up the ladder to become engagement advocates or even active ambassadors.

Some fall outside these tiers, usually individuals who are not on LinkedIn or even anti-LinkedIn or social media in general - i.e. ‘the 20%’ in the next point below.

• Adopt the 30-50-20 Rule When setting up your programme, concentrate efforts on nurturing the 30% of employees who are natural brand ambassadors (think category 1 and 2 above), as they are key to influencing the rest and bolstering your brand’s visibility and engagement, support the persuadable middle 50% (your category 3 and 4s), and don’t stress over the resistant 20%.

• Provide tools and training Equip employees with the necessary tools and training to share their insights and stories on LinkedIn, moving towards a culture of content creation. Richard has plenty of advice on his profile for how you can train people up, check it out.
• Recognize and reward Finally, acknowledge active participants to foster a sense of ownership and contribution towards the company’s LinkedIn success. At Dreamdata we set a goal for total team impressions and promised a team dinner if achieved. You can read about Dreamdata's experience with employee advocacy/ social selling here. They are currently running our second programme and have now also included individual awards, such as ‘best improved’ and ‘most engagement’. Maybe Laura Erdem can share results with us in the comments?

And theeeeen add outside influencers to the equation!

On the other hand, hiring external influencers works just fine, but only if you have a relationship with them (and theme with your customers), and you're able to involve them in creating events, research, etc. together.

Now, I had a chat with some great folks experienced in this matter, and decided to include their thoughts inside this newsletter, so we can round up the topic.

Devin Bramhall and Ashley Faus presented about the rise of internal influencers at the B2B Forum, and Atlassian has hired some technical evangelists whose jobs include creating content, speaking at conferences, etc.

They are experts in their craft, so it's not just about selling Atlassian's products; it's about helping their peers solve problems. And they have the credibility to offer that kind of advice precisely because they're NOT selling a product.

Sure, Atlassian's products do come up, but they're not the sole focus of every article or presentation.

Ashley Faus and I agree on amplifying practitioners across all seniority levels, not just executives.

Don't assume that you need just "thought leaders"! You need a mix of SMEs, influencers, and thought leaders across disciplines and seniority. ~ Ashley Faus

And for everybody reading this, it doesn't mean that you need a lot of people. That's the opposite pitfall: trying to force every employee to become an advocate, ambassador, or influencer.

Ashley Faus was my guest on the Funky Marketing podcast and shared a lot about Thought Leadership Framework. Check it out on YouTube using the link below, or on any podcat platform.

On the other hand, Tim Davidson and I agree with the concept of this very very very much. He's been on all sides of this, and he'll say it’s extremely hard to get internal employees to be active on social to the extent that it brings the new business value we all strive for.

Everyone's busy and rarely gets extra time to do it so that person needs to be driven outside of the brand value it brings to the company, which can be hard if they aren’t getting the feedback loop to stick with it.

Recruiting, and preventing churn are great too, but let’s be honest, most brands care about influencer marketing for the new business value.

I’m not saying this means you should go out and do external influencer marketing and expect the world but am asking if anyone has the playbook to get internal employees to be the brand advocates we all want, please sell it bc I can’t figure it out ??. On the other side of it, execs and companies NEED to shift their mindset on how they think of internal employees being active on social media. Yeah, this means they are more likely to get poached but that means you need to pay them more. Stop micromanaging everything they say and for fudge sake, don’t tell them they need to do x, y, and z. It’s their social media accounts, not yours. ~ Tim Davidson

Those are all valid points by Tim! You need to take a realistic look at your team when coming up with a strategy. Sometimes, you just don't have a team to be able to do something, and sometimes, it means that you need to hire the people with the right mindset if you know what you need to do because they certainly won't do it because of you.

Itir Eraslan agreed that the internal voices are underutilized. However, she said that there is a problem there.

When I read about a product from the employees of the company, oftentimes it feels like an ad to me. Even if I knew an external person is most probably paid, that feels less like an ad to me. And to be honest, I also get extremely bored when people post how their company strategy off-site went so great, how they bonded with their teams. ?? There should be a lot of training to turn internal voices authentic influencers. ~ Itir Eraslan

Valid points! They shouldn't sell, it's not what we're talking about here. Employees should be there to help customers solve problems. That's what selling in B2B actually is.

Outside influencers shouldn't sell either; they need to do basically the same as those internal ones. Once again

Selling in B2B = solving problems.

This is where I see the difference between CXOs and subject-matter experts. The latter will always jump to help first, compared to selling people what they don't need (be it their own product or not).

To close, allow me to sum it up with the help of Nitin Kaura .

Folks don't have to flaunt/shout/sell that they know/do something. Done right, this practice does the job itself. It starts sending the right signals to the right audience.

Create real estate in the hearts and minds of your customers.

The time when the "lightbulb moment" will strike varies a lot. But when it does, and the flywheel starts spinning, its off to the races.

Are you ready to do what needs to be done? Start by setting up the right culture and the right team.

Anything to add? Let me hear from you in the comments.

And as always, if you like what you're reading, please share. Appreciate you.

Keep it funky!