Growing a brand for businesses is very different from growing a brand for consumers. These top B2B influencers give useful advice on how to use social media to find prospects and keep clients happy. Most people who have a lot of influence in B2B use Twitter, so you can expect your feed to be full of useful information.

Twitter is a good way to find out about the latest marketing news and trends. If you follow the right people on Twitter, it's easy to keep up with trends and learn useful things at the same time.

Here are the top B2B marketing influencers we think you should follow for useful and entertaining content that will help you improve your marketing strategy.

Who Is A B2B Influencer?

COPYRIGHT_MARX: Published on https://marxcommunications.com/top-b2b-influencers/ by Keith Peterson on 2022-10-07T05:14:02.593Z

How do you know if a B2B influencer is real, trustworthy, and credible enough to work with? The report says that you need to look at more than just vanity metrics like followers and subscribers.

It's less important how big your audience is than how relevant it is. Marketers don't care as much about the number of followers as they do about how relevant, credible, and knowledgeable the account is.

Those with a large audience can help a campaign reach more people, but it's important to include more influential people with smaller audiences. When B2B marketers and communications professionals are asked about the influencers they work with, they say:

• Industry experts and analysts (77%)
• Internal executives (56%)
• Niche experts (48%)
• Customers (46%)
• Professional influencers (45%)
• Employees (42%)
• Prospects (12%)

How Are They Influencing?

One thing that has happened recently in the B2B industry is that buyers are taking longer to make decisions.

This is because different people who make decisions are involved in the process, and most buyers do their own research. This is the best time for an influential person to show off his skills.

He talks about it at seminars, conferences, and other events, and then he posts about it on social media to let his followers know about it. In the process of teaching, he subtly promotes a certain brand's services or products.

Since his followers like and respect him, it's likely that they will value the information he gives them.

Qualities Of Top B2B Influencers

TopRank Marketing asked people who took their survey to rank a list of qualities as either "essential," "nice to have," or "not important." This helped them learn more about the most important traits of a B2B influencer. Here's what came out of it:

• Relevance of audience (98%)
• Audience sees them as trustworthy (87%)
• Subject matter expertise (78%)
• Values align with the brand (69%)
• Influencer publishes on at least one platform (65%)
• Ability to create content (54%)
• Size of audience (49%)
• Professional credentials (42%)
• Advocate for our brand (33%)

4 Ways To Identify B2B Influencers

B2B INFLUENCERS: How to work with them

Topical Based-Influencers

Influencers in a certain field are experts in that field. Their posts are written to teach and inform their readers about the latest news, events, or trends in their area of interest. There are some differences, but industry influencers are mostly the same. A topical influencer has a narrower focus. They might be futurists, thought leaders, or innovators who want to help others stay ahead of the curve. I've seen more metaverse influencers on Twitter and LinkedIn over the past year. A lot of them talk about how businesses can use the metaverse and how brands can use this new technology.

Channel-Based Influencers

Influencers who build their audience and authority on a specific platform, like TikTok, are called "channel-based influencers." They know a lot about the platforms, what they can do, and how the algorithms work. As social media sites become less useful, their users will be among the first to try out new apps and networks. They will have already tried out new platforms, so their followers won't have to. This is helpful because it saves time for people who want to be on the cutting edge but don't have the time or skills to do all the research.

Functional-Based Influencers

Functional-based influencers are respected people in their field or industry, and they often have a large following on many social platforms. They use their platform to teach, inform, and entertain the people who watch them. Many of them are also respected thought leaders because of how much they know and have done.

There are many different kinds of role-based influencers, such as:

• CEOs & Founders
• Industry Analysts
• Influential technologists (engineers, developers, data scientists)

Using Audience Data To Find Influencers

When you work in B2B marketing, it's not hard to find your audience on social media, which is a plus. Most people who are B2B decision makers or technologists say so in their bios. So, it's easier to find them and talk to them. Also, most of them are already talking online about what hurts them and what they need.

Most Effective Types Of Content For B2B Influencer Marketing

The types of content that survey respondents like best show a trend toward interactive and multimedia collaboration. In the last report, blog posts were at the top of the list. Webinars are the clear winner in 2022. When people were asked what kinds of content work best for B2B influencer marketing right now, they said:

• Webinars (81%)
• Social media (74%)
• Blog posts (71%)
• Recorded video (67%)
• Interviews (62%)
• Podcasts (52%)
• Live video (48%)
• Case studies (38%)
• Industry (33%)
• Interactive content (31%)
• Third-party analyst (29%)
• Social audio (22%)
• Infographics (17%)

Start Following These Top B2B Influencers

Ann Handley

Ann Handley on Writing

Ann often shares useful tips and the latest trends to help you improve your content and digital marketing. These tips and trends are both funny and useful. She is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and IBM named her one of the seven people shaping modern marketing and brings a plethora of content to her Twitter that you don’t want to miss.

Jon Miller

As a co-founder of Marketo, Jon now continues to share thought-provoking content on Twitter in his new role as Chief Marketing Officer at Demandbase. Jon shares all the latest trends and interesting articles from third-party sources. If you follow Jon, you can find a lot of useful information about B2B marketing.

Jay Baer

4 Reasons Piwik PRO is a solid Google Analytics Alternative

A Hall of Fame keynote speaker and emcee, host of the award-winning Social Pros podcast, and the author of six best-selling books, Jay Baer has been an influential marketer in the B2B space for over a decade.

His blog, Convince & Convert, has been named one of the best content marketing blogs in the world. On it, he posts educational materials. You can find out little bits of information about all of his projects on Twitter.

Neil Patel

How I Spend My Day as a Digital Marketer

For over two decades Neil has been providing consulting and thought leadership to the business and marketing community. President Obama named him one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 30.

The UN also named him one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35. With his insightful tips on B2B marketing and SEO, his Twitter is a must-follow.

Michael Brenner

With experience in leadership, marketing and sales, Michael shares unique ideas and strategies that revolve around his expertise in consumer insights, search, media buying, social media, lead generation, and content strategy.

Michael's Twitter is full of tips and trends from the Marketing Insider Groups blog, so if you're a B2B marketer, you'll never run out of things to read.

@SydSloan

Sydney is one of the most successful and well-known places for B2B marketing. As the previous CMO at SalesLoft, she possesses great expertise in go-to-market strategy, brand positioning, pricing, packaging strategies, and partnerships. Follow her on Twitter to get great tips and useful information from all of her other social media accounts.

@Mike_Stelzner

Just Ship It! The Journey, Episode 1

Michael runs the successful social media marketing resource with tools for B2B marketers where you can learn how to use social media to connect with customers, drive traffic, raise awareness, and increase sales. Mike focuses on all parts of social media marketing and posts relevant content from around the web often to help you stay up to date.

@PamDidner

How to Connect the Dots in B2B Sales & Marketing | Pam Didner

Pam has been working in the B2B space for more than 20 years. She is now helping B2B marketing teams increase sales through content, sales enablement, and account-based marketing. She often tells B2B marketers about helpful tips and the latest trends.

@joepulizzi

Content Marketing Strategy | Joe Pulizzi

Joe is an expert in creating content. He started one of the most well-known content marketing websites and runs the biggest content marketing event in the world. He talks to his followers often and posts tips and tools that will help you with all of your content marketing needs.

Rand Fishkin

Center of Influence Marketing - @RandFishkin

Rand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of Spark Toro, a company that makes software for research on audiences. He has spent his whole career writing, making videos, giving talks, and writing a book to help people do better marketing.

He was the CEO of Moz for more than seven years. On his Twitter, he shares a lot of insights and tips, and he also shares tweets from other thought leaders in the B2B marketing space.

People Also Ask

How Do You Become A B2B Influencer?

• Personalizing your business.
• Budget your time.
• Tell a story.
• Connecting with the in-crowd.

What Is The Best Influencer Marketing Platform For B2B?

Klear is one of the best platforms for influencer marketing. It gives users the tools they need to connect with influencers, track their performance, and measure their return on investment (ROI).

Does B2B Work On Instagram?

Businesses that sell to other businesses can and should be on Instagram. They just need to know what to post and how to say it best. Every day, more than 200 million Instagram users go to at least one business profile. Some brands that sell to businesses use Instagram as a window into their business.

Conclusion

During a pandemic, it's not easy to stay out of the "doom and gloom" zone. Especially since the world of B2B marketing is changing at a rate that has never been seen before and in ways that no one knows.

To get an idea of what these directions might be and how B2B marketing will look when the dust settles? You should likely keep up with the top B2B influencers listed above.