There’s no denying that influencer marketing presents a lucrative business opportunity. In fact, in 2022 the market was valued at a record $16.4 billion U.S. dollars. For many of us, social media influencer marketing brings to mind perfectly filtered visuals of trendy content creators or hulking personalities sharing product ideas or reviews with their carefully nurtured audiences. Now, imagine the same social power among a business-minded audience. A LinkedIn influencer program creates natural conversations, connections, and beneficial opportunities that leverage the power of social media to create outsize results and bring impressive ROI to your B2B marketing strategy.
What is the value of B2B marketing on LinkedIn?
Establishing and leveraging a social media presence can be a valuable piece of your overall small business marketing strategy. As you consider which social media platform is best for your business, LinkedIn offers direct benefits to B2B businesses that other platforms—like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram—can’t provide.
LinkedIn has more than 875 million users worldwide—including more than 65 million decision-makers. And unlike many other social media platforms, LinkedIn is still proliferating.
Rather than focusing only on making your business look trendy or selling products, it’s important to cultivate your professional presence on LinkedIn. Doing so will establish you as an expert and thought leader and offer an opportunity to share content and opinions that engage and shape conversations within your industry.
LinkedIn also strengthens your professional network by opening space far beyond what is possible when you pass your card out or chat over lunch at a conference. The LinkedIn audience is unique in its desire to engage, connect, and communicate.
And LinkedIn is rated as the most effective platform for driving high-quality leads, cutting down on the time you’ll spend chasing connections that won’t bear fruit.
When you invest time and energy in LinkedIn, you don’t just increase your contacts: you increase your connection to the people who matter most for your brand.
Where LinkedIn influencers come in
LinkedIn influencers are generally experts who have spent years cultivating a persona and curating an audience within a specific niche. They invest time in sharing valuable content, opinions, and personal updates that create innately human social connections. This prompts the audience to see the influencer not only as an expert and thought leader in the field but also as a trusted friend.
Because of social media algorithms, an influencer’s audience grows more consistently due to their direct followers and the users who are connected to them. Their posts get significantly more views and generate more engagement in the form of likes, comments, and shares.
What does a LinkedIn influencer campaign look like?
Unlike influencer campaigns on other social media platforms, a LinkedIn influencer program frequently takes the form of more subtle, natural-feeling partnerships that promote your brand while reinforcing the influencer’s expertise within their niche.
LinkedIn influencer program campaigns include:
- Co-hosting a webinar or live Q&A on a topic within your industry
- Co-authoring a LinkedIn white paper or article
- Being a podcast guest
- Promoting content from your brand
What can a LinkedIn influencer program do for your B2B business?
Establishing a presence on LinkedIn is just the first step for your brand. Leveraging the power of influencers takes your business to the next level. Here are four sizable benefits to making a LinkedIn influencer program part of your marketing strategy:
- Take a shortcut to trust and legitimacy. When you partner with a LinkedIn influencer, they lend you the benefit of the trust and authority they have cultivated. Because an influencer’s network looks to them for vetted insight, your business can more quickly earn trust compared to other marketing tactics.
- Exponentially grow your audience. Partnering with an influencer gives your brand access to a much larger audience than you have access to within your own followers. These types of partnerships also present your brand messaging and content in a more personalized way. And when you partner with the right influencers, you get targeted brand exposure and make connections with your ideal audience due to the influencer’s carefully nurtured network.
- Connect with the right people. While influencers will expand your audience, avoid the temptation to choose influencers simply based on the size of their audience. For example, micro-influencer audiences, while small, tend to be more engaged and are more likely to support a business action like buying a product or reaching out for more information.
- Get noticed by decision-makers. Nearly 25% of LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers in their companies, and a whopping 80% of users hold some power to drive business decisions. Reaching a larger audience on LinkedIn means networking with more people who can make ripples, splashes, and waves.
Get started with a LinkedIn influencer program
While social media influencers have saturated the market on other platforms, LinkedIn remains relatively new territory. As you focus on building your LinkedIn presence with quality, relevant content that builds trust with your audience and establishes your brand, a LinkedIn influencer program can increase your impact and drastically speed up your growth timeline.
Do you need help getting started on LinkedIn, publishing and promoting quality content on the B2B platform, or partnering with LinkedIn influencers to take your brand to the next level? Schedule a no-cost, no-obligation exploratory call with us to chat about how we can help.
