Why B2B influencers are an essential spend for marketers

Anna Ong never set out to become a B2B influencer. After a 15-year career as a banker, she took a break and stumbled across a storytelling event while on a trip to New York. On stage for the first time, she realised the ability to tell a story is the ability to own the room. Today, with more than 20,000 followers on LinkedIn, Ong helps leaders craft stories that build influence. 

"People are done with buzzwords and banner ads," says Ong. "They want a voice they trust. A face they know. A story that makes them feel something."

Ong believes the recent rise of B2B influencer marketing is being driven by one thing: connection. "The world is noisy. And when a human shows up—flaws, accent, awkward laugh and all—we pay attention. That’s the shift,” she says.

By sharing personal stories on LinkedIn, Ong's rise has coincided with B2B influencer marketing rapidly evolving from a nascent channel to a crucial component of marketing strategies.

"Great ideas don’t win, great storytellers do," says Ong. "Most professionals think data, credentials, or expertise will make them persuasive. It won’t. If your audience doesn’t feel something, they won’t remember you. And if they don’t remember you, they won’t buy from you, follow you, or promote you."

The shift is real. Ogilvy's recent research indicates that 75% of B2B marketers are already using influencers, with 93% planning to increase their influencer activities. Underlining this shift is the realisation that people buy into people and in the B2B space they want to buy into leaders, from operators, from insiders who’ve done the work and can wrap that in personality.

"This is especially true in markets like Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, where B2B buyers are younger, more digitally native, and allergic to corporate jargon and formal speak," says Anton Reyniers, head of strategy at We Are Social Singapore. "They follow insightful and valuable content from those who can engage with both competence and personality."

 

Carol Chan, founder of Comms8 x InfluenConnect, says that with technology clients, and with regional businesses looking to establish credibility amongst niche professional groups, she has witnessed a growth in demand for B2B creators in their marketing mix.  

 

"Much of this growth can be attributed to the changing behaviour of B2B prospects—who are not choosing to rely solely on white papers or sales presentations," says Chan. "Instead, they are looking for value through peer-led insights and authentic content to inform their more complicated buying decisions."
 

Relationships and trust are fundamental to B2B buyer decisions. In fact, Harvard Business Review found that 90% of B2B buyers go with a vendor from their day-one shortlist. So B2B influencers tend to have a greater influence than the organisations they’re associated with.

 

Collapsing the trust gap

This corresponds with what Reyniers says is the biggest benefit of using B2B influencers: they collapse the trust gap. 

"In a world oversaturated with whitepapers, webinars, and decks no one reads, a credible voice with reach, relevance and personality cuts through instantly. It humanises complexity," says Reyniers. "And in APAC especially, where relationships drive decisions, that’s a growth lever."

B2B influencer marketing can be hugely effective when it's authentic and feels real. Employee advocacy is another key factor. According to a survey by MSL Group, content that is shared by employees receives eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels, and employee advocacy can increase brand reach by 561%, highlighting the increased credibility and trust that employees bring to brand communications.

But it's not just greater reach and driving awareness that are the benefits of using B2B influencers.

"There's a general misconception that influencers are used mainly to drive awareness because they have access to large, ready-made communities," says James Baldwin, head of Influence, Asia-Pacific, Ogilvy PR. "The real truth of B2B influencers is that they can play a role all the way through the funnel.”

He quotes an Ogilvy study where 43% of CMOs were using influencers to drive sales in the lower funnel. Because influencers are able to have a two-way dialogue with their audiences, Baldwin adds that brands can build stronger, more authentic relationship with customers from these partnerships than they typically can themselves.

Caroline Coventry, deputy managing director of Nelson Bostock, says B2B influencers can help a brand achieve three things really well: relevance, credibility and reach.

"The tactic is particularly effective if the client is looking to gain traction in a new sector, or with a new product or service offering where they haven’t yet established a profile," says Coventry. "Aligning themselves with trusted voices that have a relevant audience following can really shortcut the journey to acceptance. We’re seeing campaigns that include B2B influencers performing up to 8x better than other brand campaign content."

As much for the much-touted benefits of B2B influencer marketing, at its current growth rate it does risk overcrowding and the very real prospect of 'influencer cosplay' where someone who’s never led or sold something positions themselves as the expert.

"The risk is overcrowding and ‘influencer theatre’, and when brands throw money at talking heads who lack substance we get B2B influencer wannabe soup," says Reyniers. "Like all social channels audiences are quickly adopting a radar to call BS on lots of B2B content. The winners will be the businesses who treat B2B influence like a part of their strategic media mix, not a short-term buy and therefore engaging the right agency partners to navigate this space is crucial."

 

For Jake Hird, chief strategy officer & founder of Grove B2B, the risk of overcrowding in the B2B influencer space creates hurdles to maintaining success. He says that authenticity is the most important factor because when businesses open the floodgates with generic or off-brand influencer partnerships, credibility could decline.

“Finding niche opportunity is connected to this, as while some industries like tech are seeing sharp rises in influencer activity, others like manufacturing or logistics are not as saturated (yet). Also, quality over quantity is key. The most effective B2B influence is found where there is deep expertise rather than just a large following,” he says.

Educate, don't sell

Ashley Dudarenok didn't intentionally set out to be a B2B influencer, but felt a strong need to educate and consult her B2B clients who were exploring opportunities in and with China. She started publishing insights on LinkedIn about eight years ago and has since grown her network to around 100,000 connections. 

She believes the 'business to humans' (B2H) approach is the most effective B2B influencer marketing strategy.

"At its core, every B2B decision is made by people, not companies, and tapping into their emotions, challenges, and aspirations is key," says Dudarenok. "Educate, don’t sell: B2B audiences respond to insights-driven, educational content that solves their problems. Influencers who focus on providing value rather than pushing products are the most effective."

But while B2B influencer marketing is effective when executed correctly, Dudarenok adds that it's not sensible to rely on influencers only.

"It might always be a smart strategy to build a KOE (key apportion employee), often the boss of the business who becomes a thought leader versus just paying someone else for promotions. Or do both. Do not rely on influencers only,” she advises.

Chan at InfluenConnect says that the most effective B2B influencer strategies apply a business to business to human (B2B2H) lens across paid, owned, and earned media—treating influencers not just as reach-drivers, but as trusted guides who can shape the conversation at every stage of the purchase journey. 

"We treat B2B influencer relationships as long-term collaborations, not one-off transactions," says Chan. "That means bringing influencers in early, co-creating meaningful content, and aligning incentives to business outcomes."

While there may be no single strategy that can boast the claim as the most effective when it comes to B2B influencers, the B2H approach is increasingly being optimised by influencers and their deep-rooted relationship with their communities. 

"One of the growing trends we’re developing at Ogilvy that guarantees shared values is activating your employees as your influencers," says Baldwin. "These are the people that know your business the best and some of our biggest clients recognise the untapped opportunity to utilise employees as content creators and thought leaders as well as tapping into their organic audiences." 

Put simply, Ong says the best B2B influencer strategy is to stop writing like a company PowerPoint and start sounding like a person with a pulse.

"Wherever you show up, speak like a human being," says Ong. "Tell stories about the scars (not open wounds), make one person feel seen, and forget going viral, go valuable."

The shift towards B2H is particularly pronounced in APAC, where younger, culturally aware buying committees have little patience for corporate jargon. Effective B2B influencer strategies go beyond merely reaching decision-makers; they secure repeated attention by offering a consistent stream of engaging content. 

"On LinkedIn, credibility, clarity and warmth win," says Reyniers. "The core idea? Don’t just market your content to job titles, that’s lazy. Instead, fully research the psychology of your audience and learn how to reach those on a platform which now ignores the robotic corporate approach."

Choosing the right B2B influencer

 

In B2B, the most effective influencers are often not professional creators but rather industry practitioners such as engineers, consultants, and analysts. These individuals possess deep domain knowledge and have earned the trust of their peers. 

 

"Identifying the right influencers starts by looking beyond follower counts, and focusing on domain credibility, audience relevance, and alignment with your brand’s expertise," says Chan. "In B2B, the sales journey is long, multi-touch, and trust-driven. So your influencer metrics need to reflect that reality. Value per lead, conversion quality, sales velocity, and cost efficiency are far more meaningful than impressions alone. When you structure influencer partnerships around these measures, you unlock not just awareness—but actual business growth."

 

Choosing the right B2B influencer isn’t about follower count, it’s about defining your criteria carefully and then hunting those that fit. 

 

 

"Do they have real and interesting insight? Do they post regularly? Do decision-makers listen when they speak? Are they shaping thinking, not just reposting others' content?," says Reyniers. "Long-term success comes when brands treat influencers like collaborators, not media placements. That means co-creating content, involving them upstream, and making sure their personal brand aligns with the business’s strategic ambition. And when it comes to measurement, don’t get distracted by just vanity metrics, look at deal velocity, lead quality, pipeline acceleration, even sentiment shift within niche communities. That’s where the real ROI lives."

 

Ong believes that the best way for brands to identify and partner with the right B2B influencers is to not look for people with the biggest megaphone. But instead look for the ones who speak in a way that makes you stop scrolling and start thinking.

 

"Do they have actual credibility—or just good lighting? Can they communicate your message without losing their voice? Do they care about your audience like it's their own?" says Ong. "Look past likes. I’d rather have 10 people message me saying 'That post punched me in the gut' than 1,000 likes from people who’ll never take action."