5 rules of successful B2B influencer marketing

Stats show that marketers spend on social 20 hours or more per week. And no, they don't look for memes to make their colleagues laugh. LinkedIn and Twitter are tested as working media tools which help to complete business tasks. Marketing in collaboration with an influencer looks big for marketers themselves: in a research made by prominent Influencer Marketing Hub 92% of respondents agree it's effective.

Target audience for B2C is customers, average people who follow popular persons on Instagram, TikTok, and whatever else. For B2B it's different: we talk about decision-makers from corporations who seek useful information and professional connections via social media like LinkedIn.

There is usually a group of such B2B decision-makers consisting of 6 to 10 persons. Each of them has the very own sources of information, favorite media recourses, vision of business processes and social activities.

That means you should choose a intelligible language to speak to each one. Experts in HypeFactory can find a way to reach huge variety of businesses all over the world.

To run an influencer social project properly you need to know not just TA in terms of age, gender, income, pain points, and aims. In B2B it's important to understand what market you want to reach on media. There are 4 types of them:

• producers — companies that purchase goods and services to make other products based on these ones: manufacturers and service providers;
  
  
• resellers (wholesalers, brokers, and retailers) who sell goods and services produced by others without changing them;
  
  
• governments — administerial organizations which buy goods and services from private companies for the citizens' and budget institutions' needs;
  
  
• institutions — non-profit organizations (charities, hospitals, churches, social clubs or private colleges). They buy a lot to provide services to people and they are interested in lower costs.

Any type requires special method of interaction during influencer campaign on social media. HypeFactory has huge opportunities for targeting which can make inquiring to desired type of market easier.

B2B influencer may not be a celebrity and does not always have an extensive social network of followers. Yet, in his/ her profession, this influencer is often an authority and respected executive.

Anyways, your choice of an influencer depends on what you want to get in the end.

• Mega-influencers with million or more followers mean more views. They are stars in the full sense of the word. If you want to spread your message as far as you can — collaborate with mega-influencers. They are great to have as speakers on promotional events or as authors of case studies for campaigns held by global brands.
  
  
• Micro-influencers (10 000 to 100 000 followers) and nano-influencers (1 000 to 10 000 followers) are objectively less popular. But they nearly always have attached audience behind them. For example engagement rate of nano-influencers on Instagram is 7.2%. For micro-influencers it's 3.7% which is good too. These opinion leaders are open for collaboration and require smaller budget. They likely will review your product or service just to get them for free.
  
  
• And don't forget about macro-influencers (300 000 to 1 million followers) and mid-tier influencers (100 000 – 300 000 followers) who work well on niche social projects.

If you're in doubt what type of B2B influencer you need to promote your brand on social — ask HypeFactory to pick ones. With prolific specialists and unique AI technologies it provides precise selection that perfectly fits a B2B influencer campaign.

Statistics prove that top-6 social media for B2B realms are:

• LinkedIn (97%);
  
• Twitter (87%);
  
• Facebook (86%);
  
• YouTube (60%);
  
• Instagram (30%);
  
• Google+ (28%).

It's no surprise LinkedIn is #1 on this chart. This social media created as B2B network for professionals and is used to find a job or hire a worker. LinkedIn has more than 875 million members and over 58 million registered companies. 40% of users access it on a daily basis making over 1 billion interactions every month. 46% of social traffic to B2B sites goes right from LinkedIn. A brand would rather use this platform for marketing purposes on B2B side than for B2C communication.

There is a special term for media influencer who share work-related content: 'work-fluencer'. Such social activities help their self-promotion but also make firms they work in more popular. When other users see personal posts and profiles they often feel much more of a 'human touch' than corporate accounts have. Therefore 'work-fluencers' may be useful for marketing as they promote brands' values and make B2B connections.

You can include various blogging platforms like WordPress or HubSpot in marketing activities too. On such sites there are a lot of relevant authors who earned respect in professional society.

The more people involved — the more time it takes to do anything. Same in marketing: B2B campaigns are mostly require rather long time. It can take 30 days to see the whole variety of results for B2C project. Some reaction, especially if some mega-influencer included, may be seen immediately. Buying cycle for business-to-business promo can take months before you see it in a full effect. Again: remember about decision-makers. Big corporations have larger number of such executives for B2B needs so they come to conclusion slower.

If you want to organize a B2B promo with maximum effectiveness (and save time) use these 5 marketing rules and have a deal with established agency that will lead your business to its goals.