The influencer marketing playbook has long been written for consumer brands. Beauty tutorials on YouTube, unboxing videos on TikTok, lifestyle content on Instagram… these are the channels that come to mind when we think about influence. But something fundamental has shifted in the business world. The same dynamics that made influencer marketing indispensable for reaching consumers are now reshaping how businesses communicate with other businesses.
Why B2B Influence Works Differently
B2B purchasing decisions have principles of their own. A company doesn’t impulse-buy enterprise software the way someone might grab a new lipstick after watching a makeup tutorial. These decisions involve multiple stakeholders, lengthy evaluation periods, and significant financial commitments. The path from awareness to purchase can stretch across months or even years. Yet even in this intricate environment, influence matters—perhaps now more than ever.
What’s changed is who wields that influence. While B2C brands partner with lifestyle creators and entertainment personalities, B2B influence relies on a different kind of voice: the professional expert. These aren’t traditional celebrities. They’re CEOs sharing leadership insights, academics publishing research findings, doctors explaining medical innovations, and industry specialists breaking down complex topics for their peers. According to recent research, 75% of B2B businesses now collaborate with these expert influencers, and 84% do so specifically to boost brand awareness.
The Platform Driving This Transformation
The platform at the heart of this transformation is LinkedIn, where over 80% of B2B marketers now focus their influencer efforts. With nearly 800 million members worldwide—including 40 million decision-makers—LinkedIn has evolved far beyond its origins as a digital resume. It has become a true social network where professional content thrives and engagement rates average 2.61%, significantly outpacing Facebook’s 0.26% and Twitter’s mere 0.05%.
Corporate Influencers: The Inside Voice
But the real revolution isn’t just about partnering with external experts like industry CEOs and academics. Companies are increasingly looking inward, transforming their own employees into brand ambassadors. These “corporate influencers” represent something genuinely new in the marketing landscape. They’re regular employees who share their experiences, expertise, and insights on social media—not because they’re paid to promote, but because they’re genuinely engaged with their work.
When a software engineer posts about solving a challenging technical problem, or a sustainability officer shares behind-the-scenes progress on environmental initiatives, the authenticity resonates in ways that traditional marketing simply cannot match. This employee advocacy trend corresponds perfectly to what millennial B2B buyers—who now constitute 90% of purchase decision-makers—are seeking. They want “people-like-me” use cases and peer-to-peer recommendations. They’re skeptical of polished corporate messaging but trust the voices of actual practitioners.
Finding the Right Professional Voices
Identifying these professional influencers requires a different approach than discovering lifestyle creators. Tools like Kolsquare, an influencer marketing platform, have adapted to help brands identify experts whose audiences align with business objectives, tracking not just follower counts but genuine expertise, engagement quality, and audience demographics that matter in professional contexts.
Content Formats That Work in B2B
The formats are evolving too. B2B influencer partnerships increasingly take the form of webinars where experts share knowledge with targeted audiences, live events that generate professional networking value, and even audio events following the Clubhouse model—spaces where business professionals gather to discuss industry challenges in real-time. These aren’t entertainment; they’re genuine knowledge exchange that happens to elevate brand visibility.
A Different Kind of Success
The metrics that matter are shifting as well. While B2C campaigns often chase immediate conversions, B2B influencer marketing plays a longer game. Success looks like increased brand awareness among decision-makers, enhanced credibility within specific industries, and the gradual accumulation of trust that eventually influences those multi-month purchasing decisions. It’s about planting seeds today to harvest relationships tomorrow.
What we’re witnessing isn’t simply B2B companies copying B2C tactics. It’s the emergence of a distinct form of influence—one built on expertise rather than entertainment, on professional credibility rather than lifestyle aspiration, on long-term relationship building rather than quick conversions. Professional voices are reshaping brand reputations in the business world, one authentic insight at a time.
