Influencer Marketing 101: B2B Edition

If you’ve been working in any B2C industry for the past 10 years, you’ve now heard the term “influencer marketing” (and probably rolled your eyes) more times than you can count. The number of online influencers in every B2C industry, in every corner of the world, has skyrocketed – especially post-COVID, as more people started looking for ways to earn income remotely.

Luckily though, the B2B hospitality industry is one with very few online influencers, which has created a HUGE opportunity for anyone who wants to boost their visibility and credibility with potential hotel clients; if that speaks to you, then keep reading because I’m going to break down the value of becoming a B2B online influencer on LinkedIn and how to get started today.

First though, it’s important to understand what I mean when I speak about “influencer marketing” in the B2B sense, as it’s very different than what you picture when you think of B2C influencers.

This isn’t about brand partnerships or sponsored posts…

This isn’t about clickbait content…

This isn’t (only) about making sales…

In the B2B world, being an “influencer” is about building a personal brand for yourself (as a representative of your company), based on sharing your personal knowledge and expertise, plus a bit about who you are as a person. This combination of knowledge + expertise + personality is key, as it will help put a face to your company in the minds of potential customers, effectively personalizing your brand.

In the B2B sales world, people buy from people, not brands, so building this personal connection between potential clients and your company is key to your company’s ongoing success in our increasingly competitive and highly digital hospitality marketplace.

Let’s get started with a few FAQ about B2B influencer marketing…

Why is Linkedin the Best Channel for B2B Sales and Marketing Outreach?

Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn was designed for professional, B2B outreach and, in 2024, there were “more than 1.15 billion monthly active users worldwide,” giving your company access to many top prospects in the industry. According to the platform’s own statistics, “more than 65 million users are business decision-makers – and 80% have some influence on those decisions.“

LinkedIn is a highly effective channel for helping companies gain visibility and credibility in their industry and in converting sales; in fact, “50% of B2B buyers consider LinkedIn to be a trusted resource for making purchasing decisions,” making LinkedIn a VERY important and effective marketing channel for your hotel tech company.

Why Should I Build My Personal Brand if My End Goal is to a Technology Solution? Wouldn’t a Company Page Be More Effective?

A company page can be a valuable resource for B2B businesses but it’s not the most effective way to build visibility and, even more importantly, credibility with potential hotel clients.

Here’s why…

The power of LinkedIn is its ability to connect people with other people – not connect people with companies. A company page is a great way to share company information, news and updates but it’s not as effective at creating an emotional connection that results in action, as an employee sharing the same content through their personal profile would be; for example, an IBM study showed that “content shared by employees received 8 times more engagement than content shared through the brand’s official channels.”

That’s not to say that you can’t be successful using a company profile to generate leads. Generally, to be successful at generating leads using a company page alone, a company would need to create new thought leadership content consistently and, to maximize the content’s visibility, the company would need to invest heavily in paid LinkedIn advertising.

If you don’t have the resources to invest in consistently creating new thought leadership content or advertising to buy eyeballs on LinkedIn, building a personal brand on LinkedIn for someone in your leadership team is the perfect way to maximize your company’s visibility and credibility with potential B2B customers and generate more leads, without a huge marketing budget.

What About Tiktok and Instagram? Wouldn’t My B2B Business Also Benefit from Having A Presence on These Channels?

While you could devote time and resources to posting on these channels, there is no real benefit to doing so – and more importantly, there are many reasons NOT to. Here are two very important reasons NOT to invest in these B2C channels…

1. Many companies believe that they must post on the B2C channels because of the number of users on Insta(gram) and TikTok, across all demographics; however, companies who think this way are forgetting one very important fact: people are more likely to be interested in learning about work-related topics on a business-related social networking channel.

When people are scrolling TikTok, they want to be distracted and entertained by cute dog videos or memes, not to learn about operational technology for their hotel. When they’re ready to focus on work or if they are looking to buy an operational solution, LinkedIn will be the first social channel place that they will go to do research and start their buying journey, as “80% of B2B social media leads are generated through LinkedIn.”

2. In the back of your mind, you’re probably wondering: “Well, couldn’t I just cross-post my content from one channel to the other two? Isn’t that better than not having a presence on all the channels at all?!”

The answer is, quite simply, no. Cross-posting the same content across the different channels won’t result in success on any of them, as the users on each platform are looking for different types of content and are (often) from different demographics. To be effective, your strategy and content must be different for each channel, which means it will cost your company 3x as much (in terms of time and resources) to post on all three channels.

Alright, now that we’re all on the same page (yes, ONLY LinkedIn!), let’s get started looking at how to develop your personal brand on LinkedIn.

7 Tips to Launching Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

One of the most important things in effectively leveraging LinkedIn to build your personal brand (and, as a result, build your company’s visibility and credibility) is staying on top of the best practices in LinkedIn marketing, which can change very quickly as the algorithm is updated or changed.

That’s why I went straight to the LinkedIn expert who taught me everything that I know about the channel (and who I trust to handle all of the LinkedIn marketing work for JLNPR’s clients), Zoe Koumbouzi, to ask her advice on the 5 steps that you can take today to start building your personal brand on LinkedIn.

STEP 1: Figure Out Who You Are (or Who You Want to Communicate) on LinkedIn

A very important part of your LinkedIn strategy is having a profile that attracts attention from the right people, and that communicates messaging that will resonate with your target audience, inspiring them to take action.

To do this effectively, it’s important that you first decide what you want to be known for on LinkedIn, how you can offer the most value, and identify your goals and your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Answering these 6 questions will help you determine how best to position yourself:

1. What do you want to be known for professionally?
2. What are you comfortable being known for personally?
3. What are a handful of values that define you (3-4)?
4. What is your goal (are you looking for a new job seeker/selling a product or service/looking to develop your personal brand)?
5. Who is your ideal audience? Who are you speaking to?
6. What are their interests and concerns, and what can you provide to help them?

STEP 2: Identify Your Content Pillars

Next, decide on 3 to 5 content pillars (topics that you want to talk about on LinkedIn) that combine your professional area of expertise with what your ICP needs to hear and learn. Each pillar can have a few sub-pillars, if necessary.

The combination can be personal (20%) and professional (80%) but, combined, they should share a mosaic of who you are and lead back to the messaging and goals that you are attempting to achieve using LinkedIn.

Here are my content pillars, along with the sub-pillars that I use in my LinkedIn posts:

PILLAR 1: LinkedIn Marketing

• Thought leadership
• Profile/posting tips
• Tips for company pages
• LinkedIn Employee advocacy programs to maximize a company’s visibility on the channel

PILLAR 2: Travel and Hospitality Technology

• AI
• Trends
• News and information related to the industry

PILLAR 3: Personal Branding

• Trust and authenticity
• Brand building
• Micro-influencers
• In-house influencers

PILLAR 4: Personal Well-Being

• Gratefulness
• Tips and tricks to boost physical and mental health at work
• The importance of having an appropriate work-life balance

STEP 3: Optimize Your Profile

Once you’ve determined what you want to achieve, who your ICP is and decided on your content pillars, you should update your profile accordingly.

Your profile should tell a story of who you are. It should invite and encourage people to connect with you, follow you, find out more about your services…

Your profile is your calling card and needs to be kept up to date to ensure you’re always putting your best foot forward.

Here are some key profile elements that are important to review/update before starting on your outreach to maximize your ROI on LinkedIn:

• Photo: Ensure that your photo is recent and has a clear background. If you can’t get professional photos taken, a selfie will work too. Canva has a tool to remove the background from selfies so use this tool and replace a busy background with a color that represents your company’s brand to make your photo stand out.
• Title: This section of your profile should clearly outline what you want to be known for; the first 54 characters are seen everywhere so make them count! Include keywords that your ICP would search for when trying to find you/your solution, as this section is searchable and is a great way to attract potential clients. For example, my LinkedIn title reads: “LinkedIn for Travel & Hospitality | GAIN Advisor | Fractional CMO | Ethical Marketeer “When we are at our best, we do our best work.” DM me to get started.”

See how I used keywords that refer to or include elements of my content pillars? This helps reinforce my brand and will help people who are looking for the types of services that I offer to find my profile.

• Add a Custom Button or CTA Link: Share a link to your Calendly, direct visitors to your website or a sign-up form/landing page.
• About Section: Tell the reader what you do, what problem you solve and who would benefit most from your product/service. Use lots of white space to make it easier to read, include bulleted lists and include a clear call-to-action.
• Featured Section: Share snippets of who you are and what you offer. You can include documents, links, posts or even recommendations so choose what you feature strategically to help you accomplish your business goals.
• Work History: For each section in your work history, write one paragraph that tells a story about what you did, why and what you achieved in the role. For each, you can also include 3-5 bullets of key responsibilities/goals achieved. Add documents to support your work experience and expertise if possible.

STEP 4: Develop a Monthly Content Calendar

It’s a good idea to plan your content out in advance, both to make it quicker to post daily (and avoid reasons for why you “don’t have time to post” on a given day) and to ensure that you are sharing content from your pillars in the right ratio (personal/professional) and being consistent in your messaging.

Only share posts on topics that are part of your content pillars. You may worry that it will seem repetitive but not every one of your followers will read every post you publish so you need to be consistent with the subject areas you want to be known for so that you become recognized for them.

STEP 5: Post, Post & Post Again

Here are some best practices for planning and creating your posts:

• Determine how many days per week you want to post, and at what time, and stick with that schedule. Experiment with different days and times to see what resonates best with your ICP (don’t forget about time zones!).
• Depending on your daily schedule, you can schedule your posts in advance (directly through LinkedIn) or put together posts each day, according to your content calendar.
• The visuals that you share with each post can make or break the post’s success. A few important things to keep in mind when selecting visuals for your posts:
  • Video is a fantastic way to stand out on your followers’ feeds and tends to get higher engagement than images.
  • Don’t underestimate the power of your face in catching people’s attention. (It’s worth repeating… people want to buy from people, not companies, so show your potential customers who they will be buying from!)

STEP 6: Interact, Engage, Comment, Message… & Repeat

The LinkedIn algorithm prioritizes what content is viewed on your follower’s newsfeeds according to various criteria, including (but not limited to):

• How often you post – This is why it’s important to post regularly.
• The value that you offer in your posts – Content that receives higher views and engagement (likes, reposts, comments) will be prioritized by the algorithm, giving your posts more visibility.

These are both very important but one of the most important (and underused) ways to use the algorithm to your advantage is based on your ENGAGEMENT.

LinkedIn is all about making connections and building personal relationships so the algorithm prioritizes content from people who interact (liking AND commenting, messaging their connections regularly, following or connecting with new people, etc.) with others’ content.

Here’s the best way to make the algorithm work in your favor…

• Immediately before posting, spend 20 mins commenting and liking other people’s content. Leave thoughtful comments that offer value and start conversations.
• After you post, spend another 20 mins (or more) continuing to engage with other people’s content.
• Always respond to any comments on your post with both likes and replies as quickly as possible, especially in the 20-30 mins immediately after you post; the more conversation that happens in your post’s comments, the more visibility the post will earn with other followers. Don’t post & ghost!

As you can see, becoming a B2B LinkedIn influencer is a powerful way to build trust and strengthen relationships with potential hotel clients, and ensure that your company stands out in the highly competitive hospitality marketplace. The key is to focus on authenticity, partner with other experts who share your brand’s vision and offer real value; by doing so, your leads list will grow exponentially as your list of followers does!

Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.HotelExecutive.com.

Jennifer Nagy
President, JLNPR Inc.
+1.786.420.1160
JLNPR Inc.