Influencers and companies

Companies now have to start thinking about how they can integrate digital influencers effectively into their marketing activities. SAP is a best-practice example of B2B influencer marketing. The group had developed a new platform called Leonardo to enable customers to tap into the latest technology trends such as blockchain, machine learning and big data. The team in charge of the project was keen to showcase Leonardo at SAP’s SAPPHIRE conference. But it’s a massive event. How were they supposed to make the Leonardo platform rise above the flood of announcements and news to capture the right people’s attention?

The solution cropped up in the form of a trend that, until then, had been shaking up mainly the B2C world – influencers. SAP drummed up no fewer than 32 prominent B2B influencers in the technology sector. They were all tasked with describing the effects big data, machine learning and the like will have on our future. Their statements were posted online under the heading “The Path to Digital Innovation”, and the influencers shared the interactive website with their followers. In the end, the site notched up 21 million hits, reaching an enormous audience, the like of which could surely never have been topped by a straightforward talk at the SAPPHIRE conference. 

The simplest way to effectively implement B2B influencer marketing is actually for a company’s own staff to be influencers. However, this is difficult to stimulate artificially. “It’s not something you can insist on, as they have to do this of their own accord,” Pleil points out. It’s a long, drawn-out process. Home-grown influencers need to maintain an ongoing presence in social media and also be prepared to engage with their fans and followers. And the danger always lurks that ultimately something might slip out that doesn’t fit the image the company wants to convey. “Politics, for example, is always a prickly subject,” Pleil says. The concept of B2B influencers is still in its infancy, particularly in Germany. “In the USA, it’s far better established, but that’s also due to cultural reasons,” says Schmitt, adding that the technology sector is also already much further ahead in this respect than others. 

Enormous potential

The potential in Germany lies primarily in the highly specialised segments of mechanical engineering. They are usually small-scale, but for that reason the limited number of experts is already very well known and could certainly become future influencers. There have already been some initial attempts, albeit in a somewhat different form than imagined. “A drinks machine manufacturer set up a closed community for users of its equipment, which was then managed by an expert,” Pleil explains. “This already made him an influencer of a sort.”

In the long term, it’s likely that only a few companies will be able to get away without using marketing concepts like these at all. “I’m quite certain that the importance of B2B influencers will keep on growing,” Pleil says. German SMEs in particular still have great potential in this regard, with many of them serving small, specialised niches where they are absolute experts, such as manufacturers of screws or beverage dispensing machines. 

California-based Banafa allowed plenty of space for his influencer status to evolve – transitioning from a simple observer to a matchmaker in his field. “Just recently, I helped a group of South Koreans establish contacts in Silicon Valley,” he says. He doesn’t consider any of this a nuisance. “When you love doing something, you’re happy to do it – your whole life long.”

Read the column of Tijen Onaran regarding B2B Influencers here.