There was a time when influencer marketing meant publishing pictures and videos on Instagram and TikTok promoting products to sell.

However, influencer marketing has evolved, and digital marketing influencers now have a more definitive approach to content creation.

Today, B2B marketers leverage influencer marketing to create brand awareness, establish thought leadership, and expand their professional network.

With over 1 billion members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, the LinkedIn platform is the best for influencer marketing for B2B brands. 

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network platform, with a B2B focus and a professional audience. It's a professional networking site where most business leaders are present.

By working with LinkedIn influencers, you can directly target decision-makers and thus elevate your company's brand visibility and improve sales. 

Data shows that 61% of B2B professionals trust thought leaders on LinkedIn and rely on their reviews during their buying journey.

So, it's no wonder that 89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation, and undoubtedly LinkedIn influencer marketing is a powerful strategy. 

If you're a B2B marketer looking to use LinkedIn as an influencer marketing platform, this is the ultimate guide to help you understand all the nuances and launch a successful LinkedIn influencer marketing campaign. 

What Makes LinkedIn Influencers Unique?

LinkedIn influencers are not like any other social media influencers. They are industry experts with deep knowledge and experience in their particular field.

They are respected individuals who have built a strong and sustainable follower base ( who are often decision-makers) through their valuable insights and engaging content. 

Some of the unique characteristics of LinkedIn influencers are:

• History of professional success
• Well-known in their industry
• Strong communication skill
• Deep industry knowledge that makes them the thought leaders
  
  

Benefits of LinkedIn Influencer Marketing in Digital Marketing

Collaborating with LinkedIn influencers can take your brand visibility to a new height. Some of the key benefits of LinkedIn influencer marketing include:

Boosting trust and credibility

When you partner with a respected and well-known influencer, it lends trust and credibility to your brand.

Their LinkedIn followers rely on their opinions and trust them when they speak positively about your brand.

Targeted audience reach

LinkedIn influencers have already built a rich audience base that is highly aligned with a specific industry or interest.

Their followers trust their opinions and are highly engaged with the influencer.

When you build relationships with such top influencers, you automatically get an opportunity to present your brand infront of this highly targeted audience.

Thus, brands can connect with decision-makers and potential customers more organically. 

Positioning as thought leaders

Partnering with industry expert influencers can position your company as a thought leader. Such associations can help open up new opportunities for your brand. 

Generating high-quality leads

LinkedIn is a B2B platform where most decision-makers are present. Influencer-driven campaigns can help you get the attention of the right audience.

Being a professional platform, most people are in a business growth mindset, which means they’re more open to new offerings when presented by an influencer they already follow and trust. 

How to Identify the Right LinkedIn Influencers for Your Campaign

Now that you’re thinking of doing LinkedIn influencer marketing for your brand, the next obvious question is how to find the right LinkedIn influencer for your campaign.

Who are the people who align with your brand value and have the same set of audiences as your target audience? Here are some tips to help you find the right LinkedIn influencers. 

Know your goals

Before anything else, you need to determine your campaign goals, which include achieving your target audience, creating the kind of content you want the influencer to create, and impacting the key metrics you want. 

Using tools like Phyllo to discover LinkedIn creators

Once you know your goals, you can scout LinkedIn manually to find the influencers who match your criteria.

You can join different industry groups to find influencers and look up the LinkedIn Top Voices in your industry, which LinkedIn already identifies as high-profile users.

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Since LinkedIn handpicks these people, you can rely on them as leading authorities in their areas of expertise. 

However, with tools like Phyllo, you can easily discover LinkedIn creators.

With Phyllo, you can easily access the creator’s data, such as content relevance, engagement, and audience demographics, so that you can shortlist the right creator. 

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Finding and partnering with the right creator is super important because it lets you create brand awareness and spark meaningful conversations.

For example, #MyWorkFromAnywhere by Buffer was one of the most successful LinkedIn influencer marketing campaigns.

This campaign created brand awareness and associated Buffer with a remote work culture.

In this campaign, Buffer partnered with influencers who showcased their work from anywhere, including inspiring stories and useful tips.

The campaign strikes a chord with business professionals to whom work-life balance matters most. 

Crafting a Successful LinkedIn Influencer Marketing Campaign

A successful LinkedIn influencer marketing campaign requires thorough planning, or else it can fall flat. If you’re doing it for the first time, here are some useful tips to help you get started.

Know your goal

Like any other campaign, your influencer marketing campaign needs a clear goal. Write down what you want to achieve and what metrics you want to impact through this campaign.

A clear goal will help you align your campaign with the company objective.

Identify the influencer

Once you know your goal, it's time to shortlist the right influencer. Look for influencers who already have an audience that matches your ICP and aligns with your targeted market. Check how many followers they have. Don't forget to verify their LinkedIn profile.

Phyllo’s Creator Search API can help you find the right influencer quickly.

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Strategies for collaboration

Next, you need to create your content strategy and decide on the type of content you want the influencer to create that aligns with your goal. This could be:

• Sponsored posts.
• Guest articles or LinkedIn newsletters.
• Webinars or live events.

Ensuring alignment with brand values and voice

Rather than a one-off engagement, consider building a long-term partnership with the influencer. You can collaborate with the right influencer who aligns with your brand values and voice. 

Measuring the ROI of LinkedIn Influencer Campaigns

Running an influencer marketing campaign on LinkedIn is not enough. You need to measure the key metrics and ROI to analyze if the campaign is on the right track. 

Here are some key metrics to track:

Conversion rate: This metric allows you to gauge how many leads were converted into customers.

Click-through rate: This percentage measures the number of viewers who click on links within the content.

Engagement rate: One of the most crucial metrics that measure different engagements for a post, such as comments, likes, shares, reposts, etc. 

Reach and impression: This metric measures how many unique users have viewed the content. 

Lead generation: This is another key metric that tracks the number of leads generated from each piece of content produced by the influencer. 

Best Practices for LinkedIn Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing can be a successful initiative if you strategize it right. Here are some best practices to follow: 

Building long-term relationships with influencers

A long-term relationship is always advisable over a one-off engagement because the influencer gets time to familiarize themselves with your offering and can create content that aligns well with your business.

On the other hand, you don't need to spend time scouting influencers every time you need to run a campaign. 

Respecting their creative freedom while maintaining brand alignment

Allowing creators to have their creative freedom for content creation will not only help maintain brand alignment but will also allow you to connect to the audience in a more authentic way.

So, while you may want to share a high-level outline with the creator for your next campaign, consider leaving the creativity freedom to them for maximum results. 

Avoiding common mistakes 

While sponsored content can fetch you results (sign-ups, sales, etc. ), creating overly promotional content is a big no-no.

Also, be sure to adhere to LinkedIn’s content guidelines regarding sponsored content and influencer collaboration.

Finally, keep the collaboration authentic so that it doesn't damage the reputation of your business and the personal brand of the influencer. Forceful collaboration can be perceived as inauthentic and damage the brand image. 

Case Studies: Successful LinkedIn Influencer Marketing

Here are a few examples of successful LinkedIn influencer marketing. 

Product launch of a SaaS company through influencer marketing

A SaaS company recently partnered with niche influencers to launch their new product. The campaign created quite a buzz on the platform.

So much so that on their launch day, the product was already at #1 on Product Hunt with 450+ upvotes and 125+ comments!

Employee advocacy program 

A global consultancy firm adopted an employee advocacy program to share insights about the company. This campaign saw a huge success. Here are the results:

• 200% increase in content reach
• 35% boost in website traffic from LinkedIn
• Improved employee satisfaction and retention rates

Tools and Resources for LinkedIn Influencer Marketing

From finding the LinkedIn influencers to measuring the campaign's analytics, various tools and resources can be leveraged to efficiently run the LinkedIn influencer marketing campaign. Here are some examples of tools that you may find useful:

Canva: For creating eye-catching posts

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Phyllo’s engagement analytics: For detailed information on audience interaction and campaign effectiveness

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Phyllo’s creator search API: For identifying potential influencers for collaboration

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LinkedIn analytics: For comprehensive insight into your campaign performance

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Future Trends in LinkedIn Influencer Marketing

Based on the current trend, we can only expect to see the rise of more micro influencers and nano influencers on LinkedIn. While macro-influencers have already found their place, micro and nano-influencers are getting more recognition.

As a result, most small to medium-sized brands will prefer to collaborate more with micro and nano influencers in the coming days.

One of the key reasons these individuals are getting more traction on their LinkedIn content is because of their specific niche knowledge and a highly engaging community. Collaborating with these influencers wouldn't burn a hole in your marketing budget. 

The future of LinkedIn influencer marketing will see more impact on authentic, data-driven content. Partnering with thought leaders will only help your brand reach your targeted audience faster. 

As technology evolves, AI and automation will reshape the influencer discovery and campaign management program by making it more streamlined and accurate.

This will only encourage more brands to incorporate influencer marketing as part of their go-to marketing strategy. 

Key Takeaway

LinkedIn influencer marketing is a proven way for B2B brands to organically present their brand infront of the decision-makers and their targeted audience. Partnering with the right LinkedIn influencers, you can drive revenue growth.

By strategically partnering with the right influencer, brands can easily reach their targeted ICPs. However, to get the best out of your LinkedIn influencer marketing campaign, ensure the following:

• You find the right influencers
• Develop valuable content that resonates with the ICP
• Use native LinkedIn tools and third-party tools to drive the campaign efficiently
• Measure the results and tweak the campaign as needed
• Do not forget to keep an eye on emerging industry trends to create more relevant collaborative content

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