Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

How to Develop a B2B Influencer Marketing Program [Tim Williams Interview]

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 313

Share episode

One might argue that influencer marketing should be an even more important marketing channel for B2B brands, but most simply misunderstand what is potentially the most powerful marketing channel for them.

From leveraging employees as internal influencers to properly collaborating with external influencers, influencer marketing can have a profound impact on B2B businesses when done right.

So how do you best DO B2B influencer marketing?

I can't think of anyone in the world to more knowledgable about B2B influencer marketing than Tim Williams, CEO of Onalytica.

Together we will discuss the following:

- ROI of B2B Influencer Marketing
- Best ways to activate B2B Creators
- What B2B Creators are looking for when partnering with brands
- How to connect your Employee Advocacy & Influencer Marketing programs
- How to measure influencer marketing success

I hope you can join us for what should be a profoundly educational and invaluable use of your time!

Learn More:

Neal Schaffer:

Hey, Neal Schaffer, your digital marketing coach here. We're all talking about AI. But how exactly can we leverage the power of AI to transform our small business marketing? Well, no one is teaching us how to do this. I saw an opportunity. And I said, You know what, I'm gonna get together with my friends over at tailwind who are developing AI tools as well. And we're going to put on a free webinar for my community. That's right. It's going to be a free masterclass on how to harness the power of AI to transform your small business marketing. We're going to cover topics such as why you should use AI to automate processes, how to find the best AI tools for your business, how to get started with AI and small business marketing, how to measure your success, and also give you tips and tricks for getting the most out of AI in your small business marketing. By the end of this webinar, you will have the skills and the knowledge to start using AI to take your small business marketing to the next level. If you're interested. This is going to be April 19. On a Wednesday at 10am. Pacific. I hope you'll join me go to Neal schaffer.com/tailwind ai that's ne l Sch. Ff er.com/taillon di t ai LWIND. A I look forward to serving you on that webinar Wednesday, April 19. b2b influencer marketing, is it a thing? It almost sounds counterintuitive, but I would argue that b2b brands have more to gain from leveraging influencer marketing than consumer facing brands do and today I literally have the King of b2b influencer marketing as my guest on this next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. Digital social media content influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody. Neal Schaffer here. How the heck are you doing? I hope you enjoyed my previous episode number 312, where I talked all about how live streaming changes everything. That episode was really, really important to me that I tell you, my latest thoughts, my latest experiments, and today is going to be a another episode that was also live streamed on I am now whether it is a solo episode, or a guest interview. These are being live stream. Hey, I love podcasts just like you do. I do not consume podcasts through video. But if you wanted to get a chance to engage with the people I'm interviewing or engage with me while I'm recording and actually get your questions answered. I urge you to check out if you go to youtube.com/neal Schaffer, there is a Live tab. In the Live tab you can see all of my upcoming live streams. So you could join you could say hi, you could also ask a question. I have two specific live streams coming up. But you've already missed a bunch. To be honest with you. I have Andy Lambert, who is formerly of content cow currently works at Adobe on their Adobe Express team. He is also the author of Social 3.0. And what's really relevant to what we're going to be talking about is he believes that social media is the best way to achieve growth for b2b brands going forward. So that's going to be a great one. I also have my friend Viper Viper is that's vypr. He is the man about tech. He is also the social media director for vid IQ, one of the top YouTube tools that we're all going to talk about podcasters leveraging YouTube, if you're on YouTube, why don't you have a podcast if you have a podcast merge on YouTube, live streaming changes everything right? So go check that out. You can also find other interviews that I've done that I've yet to publish on the podcast hinted I'm currently first recording the live stream then recording the podcast. So it also gives you a sneak peek of what's coming in the podcast. Should you want to check it out. So once a youtube.com/neal Schaffer you might need to put the app mark in front of my name because YouTube started this system of handles And then if you go to slash streams, you'll be able to actually get notified as a little Notify Me button, that you'll be able to get notified for my future live streams if you are on Youtube. All right. Well, today's guest is one of those special guests. I know when I begin the interview, I'm going to be interviewing him as well. If you follow me on social media, you'll know that I was in London for an event back in early November of 2022. That event was for b2b influencer marketing put on by Analytica, I'm interviewing Tim Williams, the CEO of that company, and he's going to be back in San Francisco doing an American version, I'm excited to be part of to be on a panel on as well. So I want to just jump in, I know that you're gonna love this episode. And even if you're not in b2b, these concepts apply to b2c as well. So keep listening. Let's do it. Here's my interview with Tim Williams, CEO of Analytica, you're listening to your digital marketing coach, this is Neal Schaffer. Tim, welcome. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here because I, I heard you talk about b2b influencer marketing, probably 2015 2016, or some kind of way back when and sort of, you know, in in San Diego, there's of social media marketing conferences. So now to appear on your podcast. I'm truly honored. So thank you. No, and I remember that and I remember you challenged me because obviously you built a technology company, and the role that technology can have an influence on marketing at the time, I was like, let's let's dumb it down. Let's everybody get on the same page as to understanding the concepts. And then obviously, if you want to scale your program, you need that technology. Right. So I know we're going to cover both ends of the spectrum today. But Tim, that was sort of my, my way of looking at analytics. I know that you have a past even before Analytica that sort of gives you your unique perspective on this b2b influencer marketing. So I want you to tell your story. I mean, what how did you get get involved in all this? And in launching analytic and b2b influencer marketing, what what happened before that professionally, that made you see that this was a huge area that that needed this company? Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for sort of allowing me to go back into the you know how it started. I mean, really, from 2003, I was looking at how, you know, individuals, practitioners could could lobby or influence your certain target audiences, but through influences. So in 2003, it was really looking at lobbyists trying to influence politicians. And then when I was looking for more rounds of 2008 2009, it was looking at how PR professionals can lobby journalists are looking at some media databases. And then just I naturally went on to social media and ran about your 2006. I think so Twitter, came out, obviously, Facebook was in its infancy. And you know, 2012 to 2014, I was just seeing that there were social media influencers, or, indeed websites that were being very, very influential at the time. And I wanted to extend the expertise I had, you're with lobbying politicians or trying to influence journalists into social media influences. I just was really excited by the scale of social media, because politicians, you if you're talking about trying to influence the Senate in the US, or, or maybe parliament in the UK, it's still quite a small niche of people. If you're looking at journalists, people might have like 40 or 50 journalists that they're trying to influence. But when you're looking at social media influences, sometimes you think you're looking at 10s of 1000s of influences in one particular topic. So it just it was an extension of what I was doing, but it just excited me the actual scale of which people could sort of tap into that crater economy. And Tim, would you agree? Yeah, we now call it the creative economy, right, obviously, back in 2015, that didn't exist. But I think this is one of the challenges that people have with influencer marketing in general, when you think of a politician's influence. And when you think of a social media influence influence, it's at a different scale, but yet there is still influence. And going back to the b2b example, if that person is influencing really, really key people within an organization, maybe not in the millions or 10s of 1000s, or even 1000s even hundreds, there is still influence at play there. So I'd love to hear your your perspective on that. Yeah, I think it's a it's a major opportunity and still a problem with organizations. How do you define an influencer? In fact, I, I went, I went through London just interviewing random people that I stopped on the street saying, Who do you think an influencer is? And of course, everyone on the street says, oh, it's someone with an Instagram account with millions of followers because they think of the celebrity but of course, in b2b When people say influencers and people who are running influencer marketing programs talk to their senior management, saying sure

Tim Williams:

We get an influencer. It's too ambiguous. And I think a lot of people are struggling with that. So I think that, as you said, if you influence 10 people, and those 10 people influence another 100 people, and those 100 people influence other 200 people, maybe you are driving a lot of market share in your particular industry, it doesn't have to be your 10s of 1000s. But I also think what's at play here is actually trying to try and segment people or categorize people into terms that people understand. If you say, Should we bring some event speakers to talk about this wonderful topic? Everyone understands what you're saying? If you say there's an industry expert, who's here talking about the metaverse, like, would you like us to bring them in? For them to share their expertise? People understand that when you say, Hey, should we work with a social media influencer? Like no one knows what that is. People have more reference to a blogger, or someone who specializes in LinkedIn live. So I think there's a major problem. And I think technology and what we're trying to solve naturally is how to create a taxonomy how to create categories where people can say, oh, yeah, that's a perfect person for what we need. Because influencer marketing can be like you say, just trying to influence five people. Or you could need to influence, you know, a couple of million people. And so there are very many different influences. And I don't like the word macro or micro or nano, you know, I think it's a b2c Well, I personally hate those terms, because agreeable people are saying is, you know, people with large or, you know, large follower bases or small follower bases. And what we know, in b2b is, it's so much more nuanced than that. It's really intellectually stimulating to work in the industry. But it's much more simple if you're in b2c to say, drive this much engagement, as see how many product sales happen, but as we know, not buyers in b2b aren't always buying, you know, at any one time. And there can be 15 to 20 people who influence that, and it can be over a six to 12 month, maybe 18 to 24 month cycle. So it becomes really no one's really complex. So I think, I think, how do you define influence and your who is an influencer is still your massive challenge in the industry.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah. And when I read the age of influence, I tried to simplify that because we would be to see, and we could say content creators, it's social media content creators that have large followings. And then how large is their following how much impact they have, what's their niche, et cetera, et cetera. With b2b Though those terms like the events speaker, the tech blogger, the expert, you know, there's there still are expert journalists that's at certain media companies that that are still influential, right? And then obviously, the the employee the internal influencer, these are when I went to your event in London, everyone's like internal influence or external influencer. But when you think about it, and when I wrote the book and sort of connected the dots to my past, I realized that influencer marketing has always been part of b2b brands, b2b marketing, including the customer as influencer, right? Wouldn't it be great if we get this customer to speak at our event? Because we know that they're going to influence everyone in the crowd, for instance. So I think would be to be actually, once people understand what's at play, and how, why don't we create a program and really the topic of today is all about this b2b influencer program. If we can create a program that brings these people together in an always on fashion, not just because we have an event, but how can we sort of collaborate, I use the YouTube thumbnail, you know, b2b influencer clubs, because I wanted to paint it in the same picture. It is a collaboration, it has to be a win win for both parties. So I guess, Tim, why don't we start I sort of painted this broad and you had begun this, this, you know, canvas of painting this landscape, which I've tried to add to, when we think of b2b influencers, who should that include? What how far? Can we go in our definition? Why don't we begin there? Yeah, I

Tim Williams:

think when we work with brands, we, we start with, you know, events, speakers, industry experts that have the expertise, we also look at people who are customers, I think you've mentioned that, and that's a really, really key persona as well. Some brands like Cisco are doing amazing work, linking up customers and external influences, and really making it part of their customer advocacy program. So I think customers is a really key part. I think there's also sometimes brand employees, it could be people that work for professional service brands that are actually employed by them, but they also now doing speaking gigs or getting paid your Creator opportunities. So I think, you know, there's also people that working for large enterprise brands that would never call themselves influences your who are now you know, very, very expert and and can be leveraged. And then of course, there's your internal subject matter experts as well. So I would say that it helps to, to start there. You've obviously got the analysts and the journalists and what's really interesting is that, that there are more and more independence. And you know, Amis relations is coming over more and more to us of b2b influencer marketing, and so as PR as well, so I think a lot of the disciplines are sort of, you're blending and there's a few gray areas. I know that there's a lots of brands that you find that there's three different teams managing one particular influencer, because they're a journalist, they're an analyst. They're an influencer. And they have many different hats here. So I would say that your everything is, is blurring. And it's really important to reach out to individuals to find out your how they can help and to keep an open mind.

Neal Schaffer:

So because businesses have been doing this, without calling it influencer marketing, they have these aspects of influencer marketing in these activities across the organization. The ROI then, of these activities is very clear. And I suppose if you can bring them together under one umbrella, with a dedicated budget and dedicated measurement, you can now begin to really figure out and measure in more exact terms what that ROI is, is that a correct assumption to make?

Tim Williams:

Exactly and I think, when you look at ROI, some people look at leads and just talk about, you know, the the actual revenue you can generate from creators. And so if you're doing that, then you then we have seen results of up to up to five times demand gen, when you're looking at the kind of content, it could be a webinar, for example, to bring in external influences, and then you're looking at your how much more you're driving, you know, with influencers involved, or it could be some gated content. So it can be as simple as that. Or it can just be creating some quality content, but then you're trying to use that content, break it down into multiple social assets and, and build it into your existing demand gen activity. So that could be, say, an email marketing campaign that you're trying to drive leads from. So it can be leads, and a lot of people use it for top of the funnel awareness. And we're seeing up to 30 times, you know, awareness and engagement on social compared to brand generated content. So those are the two main ones. But I think what is fascinating about this kind of tactic is that there's lots of intrinsic value as well, because the actual content is just far more interesting. And then when brands produce this content, a lot of employees want to share it, because it's the most interesting content, because it's not necessarily talking about the brand is talking about the expertise and the thought leadership stuff. So you get, you get lots of kind of indirect benefits. And actually, it's more cost effective to create the content, I think gone are the days where you need to spend 30,000 or $40,000, on on lots of research, you can actually reach out to influencers and get their opinions in quotes and build the research, while you know, showcasing the influencers talent. And that's just a very different route to market. And I think the people that understand that the people that make the influencers or employees that the heroes of their content, can create much more cost effective content. So I think there's ROI to be had all the way throughout. But, of course, a lot of people are looking for leads, for example, or social awareness.

Neal Schaffer:

That's a great point about what in the b2c world we call UGC, user generated content that when you use user generated content throughout your marketing, whether it is on your organic social your paid advertisements, in your shopping cart, on your website, that it tends to have a greater ROI, it tends to really raise raise the boats of everything else in the ocean from a marketing perspective. And there is that cost, right? We know, you know, the Content Marketing Institute every year puts out these numbers, the amount of b2b marketing budget that is invested in content is I think, on average, what like 30 40% is a really, really big number. And I say the same thing would be to see, you could be potentially saving a lot of money and having better content. And then to your point, when you have better content and your employees want to share it that you really get this amazing exponential benefit from that. So just as when I talked to companies that might be a little bit you know, they're not they don't think they're ready for influencer marketing, like okay, well, let's look at influencer marketing for content creation for for generating user generated content, then I think companies look at it in a very, very different way. And they begin to see the ROI of it. So that's a really, really great point. And hopefully, I mean, I know we're going to talk about the San Francisco event at the end. But hopefully that's the point. I think in b2b influencer marketing that that content is something that really has not been brought up as much as it should as one of those benefits of the ROI.

Tim Williams:

I completely agree and And what's fascinating is when you go to events and you know when there's a you and I speaker events about b2b influence marketing, where it's normally introduces your this is a, this is one of the new go to market strategies. And I think, I think you hit the nail on the head by saying, you know, people have been doing this for decades, they just might have been doing it with one or two people. This is about how to create a program at scale. So how to create an army of content creators. Who is your community Who drives much better impact, better business impact? And that's looking internally at your employees who are your best assets but also externally, with your influences bringing them together having that community is a program at scale. And obviously to go from you know, leveraging one or two people not even knowing or thinking that you're doing influencer marketing to that particular community is quite a it's quite a big stretch. It might take you know, anything from six months to two or three years but I think that's where the real magic happens.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, I after I was pre selling the age of influence, I had a brand director from a big consumer CPG brand there APAC headquarters in Singapore, reached out to me so actually went down visited his company in Singapore met with the brand managers there and he said Neil, we have all of these he called them nano influencers sorry, but he you know, we have all these you know, smaller influencers in terms of follower count. And they're all they all love our brand. But you know what, they're not the best copywriters. They're not the best photographers, they're not the best videographers. What do you think of us bringing in an influencer? That's really good at copywriting at at photo video, what do you think of us bringing in an influencer to train these other influencers, and I thought that was just a fantastic idea. And I see the synergies that can be had when you bring together external and internal of all of the core expertise that people in that group have. And when they work together the synergy, and it's all related around the brand that brought them together, right? So you're not to be building more loyalty, and more advocacy. And and so when I talk about bringing people together, I'm sure you'd agree. There's just so many benefits that can be had, it seems counterintuitive. Why would I want my customers and my employees and external, you know, and why would I want them all together in one program, but have you seen him in, you know, working with many brands have, and I know that this is still relatively new idea. I don't know how many brands are doing this yet. And b2b, but have you seen examples of this inaction?

Tim Williams:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think when we've done research, you know, there's about 85% of b2b brands are doing a bit, but really, really do believe in this particular tactic. But less than less than 50% are actually doing something about it. I think there's a lot of brands needing to start but a like a wondering where to stop. And I think the interesting challenge that they have sometimes is, you they don't have the confidence to bring together that community around one topic, if they don't feel like they've got the best expertise, or all of their subject matter experts lined up. And what sometimes we say to them is is is that's okay, you know, you can, you can obviously have a stance on it, you can bring all these content creators, and you can, you can make them the heroes and obviously publish lots of content. And then you can go on that journey with them. But I think that's where some people, you're don't get that massive community together of employees, your influencers and customers. And the other part is really just having the the ability to bring all these programs together. The companies that we work with who have less than 5000 employees actually have a central team that is in charge of digital and social might be, you're able to contact the customer advocacy person that can kind of work across these particular silos. When you're a massive tech company that might have 100 to 300,000 people. Sometimes it's owned by different people, it's very hard to get that, that community and to be able to have the remit, you're globally to be able to achieve them. But yeah, we're seeing your wonderful brands like SAP, IBM, Ericsson, Cisco, many tech brands that are bringing communities together, and really looking at what the community is interested in is motivated by their feeding insights into the community, they do have some pay to play some ongoing retainers with some of the professional influences, the industry experts there, they're not on a pay to play basis, but they're obviously driving value for them. And some of them have communities of upwards of, you know, 80 to 100 people, a lot of the brands have maybe 10 to 25 or 10 to 30 that they've nurtured over the past one to two years. So it really differs in terms of the scale. And of course, it differs in terms of the regions because a lot of our US clients are doing us stroke global influences. But obviously when you're working with France or the UK or Germany or Spain, for example, it tends to be in that country that they focus on and they don't tend to activate the US influences if there's a US counterpart so I think at play here is also who owns the program internally. Because there's a lot of ownership when you when you're in a company and you make a name for yourself and influence marketing, and there might be sub 10 other people around the world that might be Doing influence marketing, then it's really important to collaborate. And I think you're we're just seeing your which companies are doing that better, or not just depending upon how they're set up.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm a proud Adobe Express ambassador and Adobe, under NDA, I can't give any details, but they're doing an amazing job of building a community, bringing the community together for physical events, and community members actually teaching each other, their, you know, their niche skill sets, just for community members. So it all just builds, like I said, more loyalty for that brand and more, more advocacy. So, so, Tim, based on everything you've been talking about, I want to get to this concept of b2b content creator, because this is something that when I saw you last in London, just four months ago, we I don't think anyone mentioned that word. But I think today, it's becoming more and more common. But before we get to the b2b content creator, we talked about internal and external, if a company is listening to this, and they've yet to get started with a formal program, and they had to choose internal, first, external first, is there a direction that you would recommend? All things being equal?

Tim Williams:

I've never been asked that question before, I love it. So I'm thinking on my feet, I think your best assets are your internal assets. So if you've got the subject matter experts, if you've got the internal influences, then I think leverage them first. Because you because you employ them, because they're really important to you. And they're going to be they're going to be so useful. I don't think it's tends to be an either or I think if you're looking internally, you can then connect up to a few external influences. So you could over index on your employee advocacy program, but then bring in one or two external influences. And that's probably how I would, how I would go for it, if your internal executives or subject matter experts are not really out on social and some need a lot of work. And I think you need that business impact, then I would go external first. And why I would do that is because the external influences have sometimes spent 10 to 15 years building up their engaged network. So they are experts in what they do, they got a very engaged audience. So if you connect them to an executive, who might not be on social media at all, and not have the confidence to be able to be on there, you can create a video interview just like this. And then you can break down the actual video into into multiple different quotes into social audio into into snippet video pieces, you could obviously go live on different platforms just like just like you do. And and you can actually sort of build up that executive through your external influence program. So I think you've really got to look at the objectives, you know, what do you need to achieve, and then look at your where your best assets are, if they're not internally go externally. And I think each of the programs can benefit the other. But we see that the larger the organization is, the more challenging it is to link up these two particular, you know, programs. And so I think the wonderful opportunities when you're a startup, SMB, when you've got 1000, and up to 1000 employees, it's a, it's an amazing opportunity to be able to do this much faster than a really large enterprise. And also, when you're a challenger brand, all the Challenger brands are trying to go much faster, trying to beat the competition get ahead of who's the market leader. And I think this kind of tactic, you're really serves a lot of benefit in trying to serve leapfrog your competitors. Because if they haven't got that community of content creators, you can quite soon get greater mindshare than the market leader. And then obviously, that should translate into market share thereafter.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, absolutely seen that that time and time again, the aggressive startups in everything they do. And you know, whether it's influencer marketing, content marketing. And yeah, I mean, I agree about going internal first, I always have this, this pyramid of brand affinity, right, always start with people that have the most like no interest of your brand. And obviously, those are going to be your employees. But if you already have existing existing external relationships as well, obviously, they already have that like no interest. So that's great advice. So we talked about the b2b concentrator, and if we're going external, we are basically working with b2b content creators. Well, customers may not be but a lot of external there might be bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, what have you, I want to talk about the internal b2b content creator, because most employees are not b2b content creators yet in order to really, you know, reap the benefits of a program, if somehow we can get our employees involved in the content creation. We know that it can be really, really powerful. I have seen Microsoft has something called an autonomous video booth, anybody any employee can walk into this booth, and it has video cameras, microphones, it you know, it has this automated system that leads you through and you can just tell your story, and you leave and you have a video that you can upload or that Microsoft can upload. And it's just this fantastic idea. I can't believe they started doing this right before COVID I've never heard Have any other b2b brand doing this? But how do you in a similar way? How do you foster this this culture? Or, you know, how do you help employees become b2b content creators? I guess is the question, knowing that that could really benefit any type of program.

Tim Williams:

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, we would segment employees, you know, first off, because I think there's so many different personas, and they, and they have different techniques to be able to sort of help them, you know, what, to leverage them to help them with their own personal brands, and to get them motivated to sharing content. So we break it down into executive leaders, they have intrinsic value, to your brand impact. And so they typically, either are on social media or should be or have people to manage their profiles. So that's one segment, then there's the salespeople, and a lot of people are involved in social selling. And you're obviously using LinkedIn and Sales Navigator and tools like that, to be able to contact prospects, and then you and then you have the subject matter experts, which are this kind of forgotten middle, where these are your internal thought leaders. And these are the people that are naturally your tends to be a sort of head of business unit, or your people that are talking about specific topics that that bubble up in the organization, I think that is the kind of magic segment we're talking about. And then of course, there's the other employees, and the other employees tend to be targeted by an employee advocacy tool. So you know, a lot of brand content is put into that industry content is put into that, and employees go through social training programs. And I think, I think those are great, and they work to a certain level. But as you say, like anything like Microsoft, creating that booth enables people to become content creators when they really don't feel like they are. So those other employees, I think are catered for your for the employee advocacy tool. But clearly, your being able to understand the employees and what they need, and to help them get to the next level is key, where we focus on and so what I can speak to is more of the executive leaders and the subject matter experts, I think that some of the subject matter experts are already out there, that they're differentiating themselves, and they just want help to become more influential with an external voice. Because quite often, they're getting lots of internal collaboration, and some external impact, but they're really looking to get to that next level. So being able to link them to external influences is a really motivating way for almost to have like a VIP program so that when they get to a certain level, you can connect them to people who are externally influential and can take them to the next level. I think they're, they're also executive leaders that are great one to one, you know, we're talking to people in the marketplace, but they're not confident on social. So I think that being able to create a program where executive leaders can do what they feel comfortable with, and then turn it into social media content is really, really key. So this is where the program managers or the executive comes, or assistants really need to, to be able to enable them to get to that next level. So for example, there could be a general manager of a really large company, doing a one to one video interview, and then getting help on how to break that down into a social media post. When they speak to 20,000 people on that social media post rather than the 100 people they'd spoken to the previous day, they suddenly have that light bulb moment, and they suddenly start investing more in social. There was one other example if I could give it a really wonderful example from Ericsson, where one of their evangelists who was really smashing on social media, spoke to another employee, and buddied up with him to say, just give me 20 seconds of your time and let's create a video together, asked him one or two questions, recorded that and then posted on social media and tagged him and then suddenly helped him build his following you through really having a sort of a buddy system on their kind of employee advocacy program. So now subject matter experts can start spreading their influence and helping other subject matter experts. So I think when you come to the exact same subject matter experts is no one size fits all. I think it's understanding the different personas, where people feel confident with what their motivations are, because it's more nuanced like that. It's quite hard to scale. But it requires a mix of executive coaching customer webinars elearning and also the right program culture to be able to encourage people to really go for it.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, that's an amazing thank you so much. You've you've basically created this architecture for what's the program, at least from an internal perspective should look like I love that dividing out of beginning with executives always said you know, when you look at who has the most to gain from an influencer marketing program, it's definitely With the executives, or maybe the salespeople because they can monetize their influence, in a weird way with b2b. But yeah, and then in between there, depending on, you know, the technology if you have employees that are speaking at events, about the technology, for instance, and obviously, those are subject matter experts that are already out there, how do we then convert them into becoming part of this program? You also mentioned for all of the other employees, employee advocacy. So in other words, they're not going to be so much b2b content creators, but how do we get them to participate? So I'm curious, before we livestream, you mentioned that, you know, one of the things you want to talk about is how to connect this influencer marketing program that you just described with an employee advocacy program. And I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on that.

Tim Williams:

Yeah. So when I talk about that, that tends to be more of a subject matter experts connecting that with the influencer marketing program. But if you're thinking about wider employees, then I do think that when you create influencer marketing content, and you've got these real, you know, amazing personal stories that influencers are telling, and is it really relatable content, I think making that available in the employee advocacy tool, but encouraging employees to put their own take on it is really, really key. Because, you know, I speak to executive leaders I speak to, as I put it, other employees, which, you know, is not a very nice term, but it could be anyone from marketing, it could be HR, it could be anyone from from any team that does doesn't fit into sales, or, or they're kind of subject matter experts. And all of them say that they don't want to just sell the company. They want to share content about social purpose. They want to share content that they're proud of. But they don't want to say your Microsoft is better than SAP or SAP is better than IBM or anything like that. Even even the sales leaders don't want to say that. Right? No one wants to no one wants to share that kind of content. So I think, how do you connect influencer marketing to the broader employee advocacy tool, I think it's about it's about repurposing that content into the tool and making it shareable. But you don't want 5000 people sharing exactly the same article, because then then they stopped doing it because you seem like the rest. So being able to encourage them to tell their own story to take certain people into to really enable you to reach different audiences, is the key component in in what an employee advocacy program manager needs to do to leverage the content.

Neal Schaffer:

Excellent advice, I want to switch gears a little bit, make sure we're obviously covering a lot of territory here. But I want to make sure that the listener just has all of their questions in their mind answer it. So we talked a lot about the internal, I want to ship it out to the external, you obviously, you're fostering your own community of external influencers, I'm part of your community, and anybody listening that is a b2b content creator should should definitely join onload of this community. And, and you can ping me or Tim afterwards to find out what that is. But what do I want to flip the script? So I'm, I'm a b2b brand. And it's a great, I already got the internal piece going, I want to invest more in the external piece we don't we've never really worked with external influencers. What are the things that external, you know, b2b content graders? What are the things that they look for? When a brand reaches out to them? In other words, how can brands be successful with external b2b influencers? How should they position? You know, what advice would you give, because I'm sure you've seen amazing success stories, and then horror stories that these influencers tell you when we meet up at a pub in London, when no one's listening, so, you know, what are sort of the best practices in reaching out to, to b2b, you know, creators understanding, you know, what their needs and wishes are?

Tim Williams:

Sure. And I can't share everything that we talked about in a pub in London, of course, so happens in London isn't London. Right? Exactly, exactly. So we did some research in 2020, to ask the influence community, what they look for when they when they're working for brands. And of course, the professional influences that do it are professional creators and they do it for a living, then they're not employed by anybody else, it is important for them to get monetary work. So that's clearly important. But even the professional influences your they said that you're 72% of them said that they would work with a brand without being paid a fee, if they believed in their in their product or their purpose. So it might be linked to a certain foundation that they're that they're associated with. And they also would be happy to work with a brand just to create the the initial relationship because they might not know each other. So it's not always about money, but which is, which is a misconception, especially in the States. And I think in Europe, it's sometimes been more organic and then paid, whereas in the states it's been much more so have paid straightaway. And then thinking that no one would work organically. So that extends the sort of question into your what other things might influences be interested in. And they're really interested in industry insights. So if they're topical experts, they want case studies, they want to speak to customers, they want access to senior exec. So a lot of the professional influences that see themselves as independent analysts. And also being linked to the analyst community means that they get paid more so interesting. That's another thing going on in the industry, about what they call themselves. So they're looking for insights as well, when it comes to reaching out to influencers. What creators or influencers really hate is when a brand says, Hey, we want you to say this, can you publish this on your social profile? Because I know you're influential 70% of the influencers who had input into the brief on what content they were creating, deem their campaigns to be extremely successful. And that's probably one of my best pieces of advice, that if you go to a creator or an influencer, sure, you can have a rough brief to say, hey, we're looking to sell some registrations for our event, I'd love to work with you, because I know you're an expert, you're in this particular field. But don't tell them, we want exactly this piece of content with exactly these 10 messages, because your no creator wants to work with you. On that basis.

Neal Schaffer:

It's so funny, because the reason why these people have influence is through the content that they create the message they know, they know how to craft a message that engages an audience. And when a brand just asked them not to use their own message, but to use the brand message, it totally goes against how they became influential in the first place. Right. And, you know, smart brands would say I want to tap into how that creator messages the community that's going to obviously provide more engagement. So I'm always fascinated to hear about brands that that just don't get that. And it just it just it's yeah, it just extremely counterintuitive.

Tim Williams:

I think it still goes on so much, because because the people who are running the programs get it, but the people who who they're speaking to internally, don't give them that, that creative freedom. And because they're there, maybe sometimes you're sold in as we're going to work with some influencers in inverted commas. And they don't know exactly what that is. Sometimes you'll get people say, Okay, well, I want to, I want to make sure that it's on message. And I want to make sure that it's, it's in line with all of the brand values. And sometimes I say to them, the great thing is that it doesn't have your voice. Yeah, it isn't, because you're when I was speaking to a global tech firm that was working with a tick tock her talking about how wonderful is it is to work with their brand, they could never have created the content that there's tick tock or dead. If they're given those brand guidelines, the Tick Tock or wouldn't have done it, it wouldn't have been successful. Now, of course, like don't necessarily go live straightaway with someone that you don't know or don't trust yet, of course, but the more creative like you're saying, the more creative you can be the more open to experimenting with this, I think the more impact you'll get.

Neal Schaffer:

And I give the analogy I give for this is, let's say you have an idea or a message, type that into chat GPT. And look at the amazing variations and the creative messages that you can make that you had never thought of before. And I look at working with influencers, it's the exact same way they're going to provide but their messaging is tested with their communities, though, which is even better. So when you think about it that way? Yeah, you don't you know, the more you control that message, actually, the fewer people you're going to be able to engage and the less successful you become. So it's just a very, very interesting a paradigm that we have out there. So I want to move on to I want to ask you a question based on what you were saying. So you're saying in Europe, you see a lot of organic moves into paid, but in the United States, you see it the opposite? And I'm just curious, I have my own theory about why that might be. But I'm curious as the role of the agency, in influencer marketing, especially in b2c. I believe that a lot of influencer marketing spend at the beginning was primarily done through agencies and I'm talking b2c as well. I'm curious from a b2b perspective, what you see, because b2b brands also work with agencies, right? I'm curious if if that has because agencies, they need to, you know, activate so many people for a campaign and therefore it sort of means that they almost have to pay to make sure that they hit those numbers and they deliver. Do you think that that has influenced influencer marketing and becoming more paid than it necessarily has to if the brand can directly have some communication with the influencer?

Tim Williams:

Yeah, I think I think that's a it's a fantastic point that is not talked about too much. who it is who asked the influencer, your to create some content dictates how the influencer answers if a if a student says Hey, could you create some content, then the influencer is not going to say, hey, $10,000 to be able to do this, if a global tech brand says, Hey, do you want to create some content, then a lot of the craters, the professional craters will think, Okay, well, how much can I charge for this? Because it's still a bit a bit like the Wild West, either we publish the compensation guide, but there's still people charging different amounts in the same even when working with the same company, you know, in different regions. So it tends to be, you know, still, it's not normalized. So I think when agencies reach out, I think it's always a paid opportunity. Always about opportunity. I think when brands reach out in house, when they're trying to build a community and the community is of high value, then they can engage organically, but it needs that investment into the program, you know, from the brand. So you're investing somewhere, right? You know, whether it's in directly in the individual or in the program. If one of your subject matter experts reaches out to a professional influence and says, Hey, you're we're going to create some great content next Wednesday, would you be part of the conversation? It's not a it's not a hey, I'm gonna charge you some money. It's like, what I like to be part of that conversation. So I think, yeah, I think agencies are your have a place, but I think it does power that, that pay to play. And I think what is interesting in terms of our resourcing, and a lot of the tech layoffs recently, is that when there's minimal resources in house, my fear is that more and more stuff goes through agencies or outsource and people just pay to play because it's easier, you know, I'll pay you $10,000. These are the messages they want, you know, I'll give you some creative freedom. But can you make sure that you deliver these kind of leads, and sometimes it doesn't have that sort of, in house creativity and community, we can link it up to other programs. So I think that is a very true statement. But actually, culturally, I just felt that especially six or seven years ago, when I was having this conversation, then everyone in Europe didn't want to pay influencers apart from your the people that were paying for event speakers or for other reels of premium professional influences. And everyone's speaking to in the US didn't believe that you can engage people organically.

Neal Schaffer:

Interesting, because of American culture, what have you. Yeah, it's it's definitely fascinating. And it brings another point that I want to ask you about. So I work with a lot of muscle fractional CMO, I tend to work more with like startups and small businesses. So they're not the Cisco's. They're not the saps they're not well known. And you made this point that it depends on who is reaching out to the influencer, that influences how they respond. And if they ask for money or not, and how much money they asked for. And I agree wholeheartedly, and I wrote in the age of influence, one of the final chapters is why your brand should try to become a more influential entity, because the more perceived influence your brand has, when you reach out to set influencer, if they've never heard of you, they're going to react differently. So you're the startup with, you know, 100 followers on Twitter reaching out to someone or you're the startup that has a little bit more following. You've already worked with other, you know, influencers you you have customers talking about, you're republishing user generated content. So I'm curious as to is that something that you when working with smaller businesses as well? Is this something that is talked about? Or that you consult with businesses on? Yeah,

Tim Williams:

it exactly is, and I would really relate it to my, to my own story, I mean, when when, when we first started, and no one knew who we were, then then obviously, you can't go out and say, Hey, would you like to create some content for me? Because nobody knows who you are? So why would they do that? So if you're starting out, and what we did is we just identified who were the who were the top 200 voices in the industry, and created content which promoted them. Because they of course, want to promote themselves individually. Once you get your 20 names on, on some great content, then they want to be part of that, because they because because there's FOMO in it, and they don't want to miss out. And so to start with, when you are a startup, you've either I think you've either got to pay if you don't have a brand, and to say, here's what we're trying to do, the influencers have to buy into that mission and that purpose. All you need to really start creating the community and start creating recognition content that that is valuable thought leadership materials. So maybe you're maybe you're great at creating social media content, or you're great at making people look good. And so you can combine some of this of secondary research out there to just create the best asset on the internet for whatever the topic is that you care about and the influences care about. And so you can find On your intersection, if you're an amazing brand that influencers just really want to work with, then they'll probably work with you organically for the first couple of times, because they want to get in there with your brand. So when we talk to professional creators, sometimes they say, I'm working with these 20 brands, but I'd really like to get into these five. And, and obviously, if those five brands knew that they were wanting to get into them, they could quite easily leverage those influences. So sometimes it's a matchmaking, exercise. But I think as a brand, you have to have something, you know, it could be money, but influencers obviously cares about the audience. So it's not just about the money. But I think some tech companies and some, you know, some companies that had Chinese HQ as well, you're, we're, we're paying your better money than that than some of the US tech companies. And I knew a lot of influences that just got flown over to lots of different events. And then were sort of tweeting in different languages just about what they saw. And they were writing a lot of money for that. And then they were building brand affinity while they were there. But they were there initially, because they got a big paycheck. So I'm not recommending that that's the best way to do it. And obviously, they they built that brand affinity over time. But it's either got to be money, it's got to be social purpose, or recognition content, or like you say, you got to build up that brand first, to earn the right to own with, to work with content creators. But I think that there's always an influencer for you, you just might not be able to access the premium influencer, when you're starting out, right. Yeah. So yeah. So building up to that, that stage.

Neal Schaffer:

I love that idea of recognition content. Because this is something I always say the easiest way to start on an influencer marketing journey, is curating the content of influencers. And if you can now include them as part of your content. You're now beginning this culture of, you know, of influencer marketing of always thinking, Who else can we include in the content are the external influencers? Are they executives, are they employees, right? And really start get everyone involved in a very, very easy and organic way. So I thought that was great advice. And yeah, for all those brands out there, it's like, same thing with, you know, my students in my class, for final product have to create an influencer marketing strategy. And I say, Look, you cannot pick more than one influencer, that they're all mainly b2c, you cannot pick more than one influencer that has over 100,000 followers. Because the fact of the matter is, you're going to try to reach out to all these celebrities, and no one's going to give me the time of day. And if they do, you're not going to have the budget. So there is a little bit of realism. But as you said, there is an influencer, every brand. And if you can't start externally, you can start internally, if you have a little bit of budget. And I think, you know, Tim, I wanted to really close the conversation with, you know, measuring success and ROI. And, you know, I would say just like social media 10 years ago, we were asking what the ROI was, we don't ask it anymore. This concept of you know, owned, paid and earn has been around, but I think earned really is that that influencer marketing piece, and when you put a budget behind it similar to have you have it paid and owned, and you're measuring the same things, you can begin to make sense, right, as to what you know, what you're gaining from it, how much you should be investing, but I'm also curious as to and therefore we don't ask any more about the ROI of influencer marketing something that's always on something that we do. And I'm sure you know, companies that are that are sponsoring, you know, the next event like SAP truly understand that. But I'm curious, Tim, from your perspective, do you also see that evolution over time? Or do you think at the very beginning, companies just need to be able to measure, you know, every little sent every little activity in order to create a story that says, hey, this is something we should invest more in? What what's sort of the reality of the measurement today?

Tim Williams:

Yeah, a lot of a lot of companies are doing this and always on basis, I think when we, when we survey the b2b marketing professionals, then every single year, people are investing more money in influencer marketing. And I think, over the past 12 months, it's become something that people think is just what you need to do, rather than, you know, maybe a nice to have. So that really has changed over the past 12 months. So that's helped the ROI argument. Because, you know, I recall the what's the ROI of social media in 2006 2007? It was such an irritating question to get when you know, from that, because you just, you just realized that the person didn't have a clue what the power was, it was just, you know, almost like if you don't get it, then there's just speak to people that are that are moving with the times.

Neal Schaffer:

It's sort of like the congressional hearings and tick tock and some of the things you hear come out of that but anyway, I digress. Sorry about that. But I think

Tim Williams:

it's, it's a very good question because people are still trying to measure influencer marketing and figure out how to do it and a lot of people are doing it in likes or comments and say I work with that influencer, you know, they got 100 likes or some comments, you know, is this a good return on that? on that, on that investment. And I think if you're just creating one piece of content with one or two posts, and you're looking at likes and comments and budget, then I don't think you're really capturing the true essence of what an influencer marketing program is. So some companies that start off very, very small and they activate one or two influences create this typically is a video interview or, or you know, some kind of hero content that they repurpose the content as well. You're there's some kind of impact there. But if you're able to create that and to create different assets, and to build it into, you're always on marketing activity, then it can drive lots of different impact, and you'll get a much greater ROI. So I think there's still a lot of maturity needed for the conversation. But I think in, in b2b Tech and professional services, especially there's, there's a lot more mature conversations there. I think with the heavily regulated industries, sometimes it's, it's hard to get the multiple social assets out, sometimes you're creating one or two social assets. And they're saying, You did that do anything, you're for me as a brand, you're as this of marketing spokesperson. And I think that that's where the culture and the senior management really need to your try and evolve to be able to support programs, so that they're not just seen on like a three month ROI, I give ivanti, you know, one of our one of our customers, as an example here, Jeff Abbott, the CEO, they're really evangelizes, this kind of activity, he's very, very social, he's on social media, you're driving engagement with employees, he really gets it. And so they're able to do really cool stuff without having to sort of drive that ROI in terms of leads all the time. Now, of course, I've got your ROI metrics, like brand share a voice in there, and they're sort of tracking that, to see how that's driving your demand gen in some capacity. But there's not that too much pressure on you has this one piece of content achieved something in four weeks, which I think like b2c could operate like that, you know, we we activated 15 influences which one got us the most product sales, this one didn't do too much. So we're going to drop them. Next campaign. I think it's really important to not you fall into the same trap, and to look at this as a more of a longer term exercise.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I was on a sem rush webinar yesterday, it was like the CMO roundtable. And we were talking a recession coming and you know, people tightening marketing budgets and sort of the same conversation, I actually started my career in finance. I worked in finance for a semiconductor manufacturer in Kyoto, Japan, go figure. But every year we have these hearings, and we grilled every department as to what did they spend last year? What do they plan to spend this year? And why does every yen matter? And I think it's that same mindset and with marketing, whether it's influenced or content, or social or digital, there are still companies, I did a speech or workshop for one of these big pharmaceutical companies. And I'm like, Well, no one asked, what's the ROI of a website, right? And someone raised their hand said, No, my boss actually asked, what is the ROI of our website development. So, you know, at the end of the day, everything has to have a role in that customer that prospects journey. And if it influence whether it's top or middle, or bottom, whatever number you use, if you can architect your program, and this is, you know, the way that I think you'd be successful on this, as you know, if you architect your program in a way that makes it easy to measure, and what you're trying to get at is what you're trying to do with every other marketing program, you have, that it becomes just very natural that you're going to be able to measure it, and you're gonna be able to talk about the ROI. So I think that too many companies have the siloed approach, instead of a very holistic approach, right? Because it's just one other way of moving the needle forward on everything else you're doing in marketing. Right?

Tim Williams:

Exactly. So pick 123 metrics, but the mature customers are really connecting some of those metrics to the other business outcomes that they care about internally. So I think you're, I think you're totally right. But you got to pick some metrics, which you can use to appraise your other activities as well. So that you're, you're good example of looking at influence marketing as earned. And then looking at how you, you invest in owned and paid and also how you create content in terms of research or your brand generated content. I think that's a really good way to to measure the effectiveness of a very simple tactic is to is to look at the audience of your brand channels and look at the audience of your employee channels and just see which one is greater. Which one's driving most engagement. And sometimes simple things like that are the ones that convinced the senior management because they they totally get it.

Neal Schaffer:

And this has been an amazing conversation, Tim so we're we are talking now this is going out in a podcast but The reason I want to include this information in the podcast obviously for those that are listening right away, they have the ability to act. But even in the future, I know that your your marketing is always on and I know that you'll be back again, and you'll be doing more of these events. But one of the things I love Tim about Analytica is, you know, for those that are listening, it's like, well, you know, if I really want to get involved in this, if I want to represent my brand, and really get going and b2b influencer marketing, where do I start is that now, Tim, you've launched these events, and you're bringing together experts, both external experts, internal experts, people that are running these programs. I was honored to be part of your event in London. And I know just next month, and I'll throw up Ashley's comment here, that you're going to be doing this again in San Francisco. So I'll be actually driving up from Orange County, California, if anyone wants to carpool karaoke video session in San Francisco, let me know I'm gonna challenge. But Tim, I want to give you a chance to just sort of introduce, you know, this event. I mean, why did you do it? That first one in London, and then what's going on in San Francisco in April?

Tim Williams:

Yeah, it's just about community. I mean, I talked about community at the beginning of this. We want to practice what we preach, you know, our influences our you know, our customers, industry experts influences and also that they need to know each other, right? They spend a lot of time talking to us say, we'd love to meet your content creators, and we'd love to speak to peers and network with other people. There aren't too many events, you focus on b2b influence marketing, there are your parts, you have other events or b2b marketing that are dedicated to influence marketing. But we just wanted to, to be that community that brought everyone together. So typically, there are anywhere from like 50 to 150 people. And there's always an amazing caliber of person, we have a great time and a lot of learnings and, and funds so so it's a pleasure for us to be able to bring everyone together. And we definitely learn a lot from it, as well.

Neal Schaffer:

So once again, to make this completely accessible, it'll be in the show notes the link, but if you're listening and it's like I want to get to San Francisco, I want to be part of this event. It is coming up April 19. Go to this URL Analytica, you should know how to spell it. But just in case o n a l yt, ica.com/b2b-influencer-marketing-summit. I will be there Tim will be there. A lot of really amazing folks are going to be there. There's already this buzz that I see in LinkedIn comments of people really excited for this event. And it's only a half day event. Obviously there'll be networking before and after. But it really is going to be an incredible opportunity to learn at an even deeper level, get connected, whether it is with other industry experts or even begin relationships with external influencers. It is going to be the center of the b2b influencer marketing universe. So make sure that you're there, Tim, outside of that event, where else can people go and find out more about you and unlocker?

Tim Williams:

Please find me on LinkedIn or Twitter. I'm on Twitter, it's at Williams, Tim. LinkedIn if you just put in Tim Williams Analytica, that's the best way you can find me since Williams is a very common surname. So don't don't just put in Tim Williams otherwise, you'll never find me. On our website, obviously. analytical.com There's a lot of thought leadership material there. It's been a pleasure speaking to you, too, you know, and thank you so much. And I'm pumped to see you next month, at our event,

Neal Schaffer:

in my apologies to like this live stream and everybody who listens to my podcast know, it's something I only recently started doing. So I'm giving a one minute like really passionate talk. And the video is just full screen, Tim. So my apologies there. You're probably wondering what's going on? Yeah, my bad, but it's all good. And actually those bloopers become the best content out there.

Tim Williams:

All right, becomes much more real. Indeed, indeed.

Neal Schaffer:

Authenticity. All right. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did. If you are new here. I do half interviews, half solo episodes, all about digital content, influencer social media marketing, there is a lot to cover. As your digital marketing coach, it is my responsibility to cover this and to provide you when and where I see the best advice is, if you've been a listener, would you do me a favor and well, I assume you already subscribed me but go into your podcast app. You know, a five star little comment little thumbs up anything you can do to help share this podcast with the world would mean the world to me. All right, everybody. That's it for another exciting episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand, see you next time on your digital marketing coach.