For years now, one business-to-business, or B2B, marketing tactic has been to build executives of the company up as thought leaders. Reframing that purpose you could argue what B2B companies have been doing for years is building their executives up as influencers in their industries.
Carter Hostelley and his team at LeadTail have been building thought leadership for B2B clients for years, but with the longer-term play in mind of turning them into B2B influencers. He joined me on Winfluence to talk about the emerging trends he sees from what his clients are asking for and going, how executives as influencers has evolved to be a primary strategy today and what the different types of B2B influencers are and where the fall in your marketing funnel activities.
Hostelley actually first wrote about B2B influencer marketing in 2014, which was well before most people were even connecting those two terms. His experience and thought leadership of his own are worth a listen.
Carter Hostelley can be found on LinkedIn. LeadTail, his B2B social media firm is online at LeadTail.com.
Winfluence Transcript – Carter Hostelley – Talking Influence
Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. We’ve had some really good conversations here on the show about b2b influence marketing. Surprisingly, I’ve had a couple of people even say to me, they didn’t realize influence marketing even touched the b2b space until they heard us talking about it here on the show. My answer, of course was what do you think those talking heads on software webinars are?
Jason Falls
Nonetheless b2b influence marketing is not just part of business today. It’s a big part of b2b marketing. Now, if you’ve been following along I’ve also talked to a couple of people about Onalytica’s re-categorization of the types of influencers from a few months ago. One of the new categories of influencers they defined are people who are influential because of where they work. I touched on that in our talk with Rani Mani of Adobe. She would very likely be an influencer in the tech space regardless of where she worked. But because she’s at Adobe, she carries a bit more clout.
Jason Falls
Company based influencers stand out in the b2b space perhaps more so than they do with b2c companies. And Carter Hostelley not only understands that but knows how to build those company based influencers. Carter leads things at LeadTail, a b2b social media agency based in Portland, Oregon. One area he says is growing for his clients is building executive thought leadership with the longer term destination of developing those executives as influencers.
Jason Falls
Carter and I dive into the other emerging trends he’s seeing from b2b clients. We talk a lot about the company-driven influencer, and how b2b influencer marketing is emerging as its own niche industry. You’ll love his breakdown of the different types of b2b influencers, and where in the funnel their activity belongs. And yes, there are different types, even of b2b influencers. Get your notepads out, folks, this is good stuff.
Jason Falls
Carter actually first wrote about b2b influence marketing in 2014, which was well before most people were ever connecting those two terms. He and his team do smart work for b2b clients and have for quite some time. He’s got a lot of experience in the space and has some great things to say. Carter Hostelley and b2b influence marketing next on Winfluence.
Jason Falls
From your perspective, what what kind of questions or problems are clients bringing to the table now that they didn’t three or four years ago, not necessarily relative to relevant to influence marketing, but certainly I think that’s probably something that has grown in that amount of time? I would, I would imagine, right?
Carter Hostelley
Yes. And I would say Jason is, you know, my agency LeadTail is a b2b social media agency. And what’s really been interesting and thinking about the last few years, is I would say that there’s really five things that have really bubbled up. Number one, no surprises, social advertising. The b2b folks are starting to understand that this needs to be a key component of their their sort of media approach. The other thing I’d say, and this is this is another interesting one, because it’s not necessarily intuitive is executive social. And we work with a lot of tech clients. And I’ve sort of been banging the drum for a while that. Hey, if you’re, if you’re pitching, how innovative your company is, but your C-suite executives don’t even have their pictures on LinkedIn, there’s a disconnect, right? So I think that they’re starting to understand that this notion of thought leadership goes beyond them, having a ghostwritten Forbes Council post, and truly has to reflect them, you know, having some presence on LinkedIn, some on Twitter and having some strategy around that beyond, again, the simple extensions of PR.
Carter Hostelley
Another thing that’s sort of popped up and it’s interesting, you will reflect on this back in the day, you know, social media training was the thing for a little while, and it seemed to die off. But it seems to be coming back and I view this both as part of the executive social piece, but also there seems to be a real embracing now over the last couple years of social selling. And, and so we find that we’re really spending a fair amount of time now. Working with the clients, broadly with exact teams, and now there’s sales teams around that. No surprise here, especially the last, you know, little period, a lot of interest and activity around how to leverage social media for all the virtual events everyone’s having. Right? Right. So that’s, you know, social has always been a, as, you know, a big thing with the offline events, but but there’s just two question around virtual as people sort of stumble their way through it and, and how to social, you know, play potentially even a bigger role now.
Carter Hostelley
And, and you know, why we’re talking today — influencers. I’ve been evangelizing influencers for a long time, I’ll tell you it’s kind of funny for this. You know, for this conversation today, I actually went and double checked. And I wrote my first article about b2b influencer marketing, and it was published on CMS Wire in May of 2014. Wow. And the article was called five types of influencer. influencers, b2b marketers need to engage now. So I kind of feel like I was five years ahead of the curve. They thought, based on the inbound interest, we’re sort of getting today around around influencer marketing, so so those are the things that are really starting to hit my radar. And in you know, we’re thinking a lot about.
Jason Falls
Let’s go back a minute to the executive social, because I mean, obviously, that I’m glad to hear that that is something that companies and your clients are asking questions about, and starting to really, you know, put a little concentrated effort around, because I don’t know if you saw this, but not too long ago, on Analytica actually sort of came out one of the software platforms came out and redefined the categories of influencers. And one of them was the influencers that are influential because they are at a company, which is almost a direct point at executive teams. And, and, and even, you know, middle management folks at, you know, companies and the influence that the that being an insider within that company brings with them certainly adds to their cachet. I would think that with most b2b companies, because the b2b lead-gen cycle is typically very long, and typically involves a lot of research online, maybe on the company’s website, but maybe not on the company’s website, I would think you would almost prioritize, hey, the executives at this company need to be influencers in this space. And then here’s how we build that strategies out with that, that’d be safe to say,
Carter Hostelley
I would agree with that. Um, you know, I tend to look at things from a stage kind of mindset. So I think about because I introduce a lot of new concepts to clients, because, because because Jason, our whole thing is, how do we start doing tomorrow’s best practices today, we fundamentally believe you cannot win by doing today’s best practices. So this drives me to have a lot of conversations about, you know, things that I think we need to do, even though they’re not sort of standard playbook today. And And what I’d say is we’re so when I think about these stages, I think about stage one is evangelizing stage two is educating, right, you know, stage three is recommending and then stage four is implementing. Okay, so the executive social, we are still at the evangelizing stage. Right? Okay. A lot of the hang up is literally not to be at death’s. But literally, many of the C suite executives are not comfortable with social church. Okay. And because especially for our enterprise clients, they have got a marketing team and PR team wrapped around them in thick blankets. Everything has to go through this process be approved, be I mean, it’s so so it’s, it’s a challenge to implement now, when I talk to them about the need. I start with the notion of thought leadership, because they’re all embracing that. Sure. I and then I really say, Hey, we want to extend further over time to starting to think about influence, and then moving beyond influence for these CEOs is, is their notion of one day being a celebrity CEO sort of thing, right? Sure. So So her her progression, but you know, conceptually, they they pick it up, but but truthfully, it is it is it is very much still a challenge to get them to even understand what if what influence means from the standpoint of them thinking about social and it’s a struggle they have, you know, it’s like, gosh, you know, they’re nursing on Twitter or LinkedIn, or gee, someone will see what I put it, you know, so, and I think PR doesn’t help Truthfully, I think I think PR just over magnifies if it isn’t perfect if it isn’t approved, etc. And and I have to come back and say Hey, remember socials conversation through a process like approving a press release for every post?
Jason Falls
Well, I love the fact that you You said you start with the you know, the thought leadership concept. Because if you really think about it, and I’m an old PR guy, I don’t disagree with you on the PR stands, by the way, but I’m an old PR guy when I think of influence today, it for executives anyway, it’s thought leadership. That’s what it is thought leadership is building influence within the category. Now I agree with you that there are some constraints that come along with thought leadership, because that term is a little bit more familiar to more I guess, traditionally trained marketers, public relations Corp comms people, and thought leadership comes with those layers of filters and editing and everything has to be perfect, you know, perfect and whatnot. You know, a lot of content for CEOs are is ghostwritten at that point. But I really, I love the way you start out with thought leadership, because it’s not it doesn’t take a full turn of the of the focal aperture, if you will, to make thought leadership influence.
Carter Hostelley
That’s it. That’s exactly right. And they understand thought leadership, you know, I always tell people we are brought into a company, when they are starting to move from the notion of product marketing to brand marketing. And I know this really well, because in those first few conversations, they keep talking about thought leadership. Okay, so that’s how I anchor, you know, one of the things I always think about with this stuff is I go you got a, you got to sell them the vision, but you got to feed them, what is whatever’s practical to get done is the starting point. But the anchor really well on thought leadership. So yes, I really say thought leadership, and then over time, we’re going to get you to start to be influential. And I literally have to kind of put it in a way that again, is practical, I say, so we’re gonna start with LinkedIn and get your really good there. And over time, we’re going to introduce you into Twitter, their PR person sort of blanches at me and I go over time, right, is that truthfully, Jason, this is where we are on, you know, we deal with, you know, enterprise public company, executives, and this is where we are.
Jason Falls
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting how we haven’t evolved, at least that segment of the the marketplace hasn’t evolved with everybody else, because it almost seems like, you know, for b2b anyway, Twitter, and LinkedIn is kind of a standard practice for most companies these days. And I know you deal with a lot of software companies, I think the problems probably even worse in the, you know, non software, as a service companies in the b2b space, logistics and equipment and construction and all that good stuff. I would think those folks are another decade behind, wouldn’t you?
Carter Hostelley
Well, it’s really interesting. So So I sort of think about tech companies, which, you know, I mean, their whole thing is software will lead the world, right. So and then the other side, I call Business Services, okay. And these can range from lawyers, accountants, whatever, all the way to what you’re talking about manufacturing, Field Services, etc. And, and I believe it’s funny, I had this conversation with with one of our clients that that is in this sort of industry, business services and tip historically sold through Field Sales, but now they can’t go show up anymore, right. So they’re pushing their digital, and, and it’s really going to be the leading edge of these folks, I believe, over the next 18 to 24 months are going to trickle in, and I’m going to start having more conversations with these folks. But I agree with you, it’s at least five to seven years away, for sort of the heart of it. And and, you know, so much of this is just patterns, right? I always say there’s two types of wisdom. One wisdom is simply understanding the pattern. And the other wisdom is understanding when the pattern is about to change. Hmm. Okay, that’s right. So we’re looking at the world. So if I think about the existing pattern, you know, the manufacturing and non tech companies were, by and large, the slowest to to, you know, adapt to having a website, you know, and, and these other fundamental sort of things along the path. And even you know, with retail, it’s so amazing to me that some of them still are grappling with the notion of e commerce. Right? And look how far in curve we are on all of this stuff. And now it’s an existential threat to them. Right? So I absolutely believe so. If you say to me, Well, who were the first of these are non software, non tech companies? What are the characteristics of them? I would say, well, they fundamentally understand digital and have some sense of the power of digital content marketing, right? And understand and understand that marketing is sort of shifted, they understand the value of PR. And, and, sort of, at least if they’re doing some of this stuff, then I can get a foot low a foothold with them and talking about or thinking about, sort of at the evangelizing sort of level and maybe even for the really early adopters, the the sort of educate level, okay, if they don’t have a good foothold in one or more of these Then they’re not going to get it. And they’re going to be really hung up on ROI. And it’s just going to be a non starter, if that all makes sense.
Jason Falls
Yeah, sure does. So let’s talk a little bit more broadly about b2b influence marketing. Okay, let’s do it for you know, quite a few brands and whatnot. What would you say to it to a layperson who doesn’t necessarily work a lot in the b2b space? And when they think of influencers, they think of, you know, what I call duck face p signs, people on, you know, YouTube and Instagram. What makes b2b influencers different from what people might conceive as an influencer?
Carter Hostelley
I would say, you know, there’s a few things so. So number one, we touched on this before, there are different types of b2b influencers, okay, on the b2c side, you know, and to some degree, you’re doing some form of glorified product placement, whether it’s on YouTube, Instagram, you know, frickin movies, whatever, right? But on the b2b side, you sort of start to you first have to understand, well, is this b2b influencer, you know, a traditional journalist ramblings? Are they, you know, like, Vala Afshar and executive at a major company, and, and the fact that that’s a really cool sexy company is why they’re an influencer. Right? Are they a, an emerging media type person, you know, blogger podcaster, YouTuber, right. Okay. Are they a domain expert? Because Because I really feel it’s we’re shifting from what I call the amplification stage of b2b marketing to the domain expert stage, right? Are they are they someone in the weeds that really does the stuff and, and has built up a loyal following based on that, because, you know, so So knowing the different types means that you’re going to think about them differently. So that’s number one, they’re different types.
Carter Hostelley
Number two, is you can’t just give me a paycheck and help them to see these things about your product. Okay? They’re, they’re not going to do that. Okay. They, they really want to be able to, you know, they really want to not pimp out the reputation. Okay, so you’re working with the CIO, influencer, they’re a former CIO, they do with a lot of other technology leaders. So the last thing they’re going to do for some paycheck, is to talk about a product that they don’t stand behind, believe in, etc. So they’re, they’re very, you know, concerned about their reputation. Okay. So so you sort of have to think about that. And then and then the other thing is, it’s, you know, it’s it’s not as broad base category wise, like b2c can be where if you can get up, you know, Mom, blogger, and you’ve got sort of a parenting product, right, that you want. It’s, it’s, it’s much more specific, because even if I use the example of a CIO influencer? Well, I don’t know. I mean, are they influential around cybersecurity? Ai is digital transformation, the thing they really talk about? Is it is it really the operational aspects they talk about. So you also have to understand how your product or service intersects with what they care and talk about, since you can’t just write a check for them to get them to say whatever you want. So there’s definitely some fundamental differences that that say you need to take an extra moment identifying who are the right influencers for you? What is the right way to collaborate? And how best to engage with them such a bit, build a good longer term relationship versus make it all about a transaction? Make sense?
Jason Falls
Yeah, absolutely. And and to kind of further explain that to folks who may or may not quite understand it, think of the the influential CEO of another company, that it doesn’t matter what company it is, if they are not the CEO of your company, and they’re not, you know, the CEO of a competitor of yours. So they’re the so they’re open territory, if you will, to to work with, they have no motivation whatsoever. And probably financial is not an motivation for them, either. to endorse your product or do something with you, what you’ve got to figure out is okay, how can I tap into that particular influential person’s expertise, which is where inviting them to be on a seminar or a webinar or, you know, quote, in a report or white paper comes in? And so that’s where you, you have to kind of align who they are, what type of influencer they are, with how you can leverage their influence now whether or not they’re going to turn around and then completely go crazy, saying, you know, hey, check out this report that I was quoted in. That’s kind of a different level of conversation, but that’s what you got to kind of hope for, am I getting that kind of right?
Carter Hostelley
I couldn’t, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I’ll even make it more fundamental. The first question you have to ask is, what is in it for them? Yep. The first question everyone asked is, what do I want them to do? And those are fundamentally structurally different questions.
Jason Falls
Yeah, absolutely.
Carter Hostelley
So this is the heart of it. Now. You can Do cheats? Hey, they just they just released a new book. Okay, cool. We can get them on our podcast and get them talking about our book. Hey, yeah. And then we can so so that’s where you’ve got to understand what is their passion? What is their? What are they on their platform talking about? And how do we intersect it in a way? That makes sense for everyone? So, so absolutely correct.
Jason Falls
So, I’ve had several conversations with, you know, people both on this podcast and in other conversations as well, about the role of b2b influencers, and I’ve almost come up with almost a universal answer, that the role for influencers in b2b space is in really top of funnel activities, and maybe mid funnel activities with the education, you know, sort of role, but not bottom of the funnel, the b2b influencers are not going to convert for you. Would you agree with that? Or is that pretty much just the case?
Carter Hostelley
I don’t agree with it. Okay, good. So let me let me go back to my statement before, which is you’ve got different types of influencers. Mm hmm. Okay, so let me start with the one that traditionally people understand analysts. Yep. So if a gardener analyst says something good about my product, or service or company, guess what that’s going to drive sales through instead. Instead, what I think about is I think about the different types of influencers. Now, I made a comment a moment ago, that I believe the curve is shifting from the large sort of b2b amplifiers, Tamara McCleary, Evan Kirstel are two good examples of that. And starting to move to what I would call domain experts. This is a Tim Crawford and Isaac Saclic in the world of CIOs, literally people that had sat in the seat. And all day long. They’re talking to other CIOs, for example, and guess what those other CIOs are asking them. Right? Hey, what do you think of this company? What do you think of this product? Right? There’s like, each of us has our buddy that’s our car guy our electronics guy ever got cuz cuz we were influencer marketing dovetails with something that a lot of us aren’t talking about anymore. But you know what? Boy, I remember 10 years ago, we talked about it a lot, which is how to leverage social to drive word of mouth marketing. Mm hmm. And I feel so dated even saying that.
Jason Falls
I wouldn’t, because I don’t think most businesses b2b or b2c, understand what word of mouth even is. Yeah, nor nor do they know how to how to create it.
Carter Hostelley
Well, guess what, this is an example of it. Because we identify influencers on the digital and social side, because we think about their digital footprint and, and all the platforms they have. And of course, they’re speaking in all the virtual events, etc, etc. But Jason, they’re like you and I, and everyone that’s going to listen to this podcast. Okay? They’re real people that have real real conversations. Yep. Right? And who do we talk to when we’re thinking about investing in a new marketing automation software, a new whatever, cuz at some point, our head spins, and then we reach out to the folks in our network and say, right, so so I absolutely believe that this is bottom of the funnel stuff. Now, the way I would structure it in a way that’s very simplistic is to say, in influencers that are amplifiers, definitely top of funnel Yep. influencers that may be more domain experts that get you into the consideration, set it funnel, and then those influencers that have a close relationship with a buyer or are in a role, my example of a gardener analyst, okay, definitely will help make your product over the edge versus the other one that was right there with you. Make sense?
Jason Falls
Absolutely. Let me let me ask you a question about the the analyst role of influence. I think that the hesitation or when I when I’ve mentioned an analyst as an influencer before, to people within the b2b space, they almost look like you know, they give me the sad puppy look, because they think an influencer is someone that I can partner with and or pay and or develop a relationship with who is going to help me positively, you know, amplify my product or service. And then when I say to someone in the b2b space, well, let’s talk about Industry analysts. They give me the sad puppy face because they think Well, yeah, but these people can’t be bought. They don’t have a job or credibility, if they don’t speak honestly about products or services. How do you penetrate that hesitation and say, It’s okay, that they are like that. What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to figure out how to get them to look at your product in an honest way. will reflect well upon your potential sales?
Carter Hostelley
Well, I would I would respond to this in two ways. So one way would be to say, Well, what you just described about an analyst is the same with every b2b influencer, you cannot give them a check and tell them, it’s a nice thing about your product. And they will do that. So that was, I think the first thing I said that’s different about b2b influencers. Yep. The second statement, I would I would make is, I can’t tell you how often I have been with a marketing team, where they find out they did not land in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. And the immediate joke is we didn’t pay them enough. Right. Okay. Now, obviously, I’m being sarcastic, but obviously, within sarcasm is a bit of truth. Sure. Okay. The last thing I’ll say on this is, everything is relationship driven. Clearly, whether it’s an analyst, a, you know, industry speaker, whatever, you know, you spend time with them, and you build a relationship with them, they will be favorably inclined. And that’s all you can ask them to be as favorably inclined. Okay, if your product sucks, if your service sucks, if, you know, NPS I mean, you know, right, but but you’ll want to get favorably inclined, and then you still got to do your part of the equation. Right, right.
Jason Falls
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s you’ve you’ve touched on the fact that there are different types of b2b influencers, and obviously, understanding their role and how, you know, what you are trying to accomplish, intersects with what’s in it for them, is is important. So there’s not one quick, easy packaged way, then I would imagine to measure all this, how do you typically measure success with clients? What are the different sort of variations that you look at, so that people can understand what they’re getting out of influence marketing activities?
Carter Hostelley
Well, we look at measurement in two ways. So number one is as part of identifying who the right influencers are. And I really want to highlight that, because if you don’t start with the right influencers, you’ve already you’ve already mentioned, this is not plug and play, you’re gonna invest a lot of time and effort, and they’re the wrong books. And as I’ve highlighted, if you want an influencer to help pimp out your virtual summit, and an amplifier may be awesome. If you want someone to have credibility, around a piece of content, you’re collaborating on whether you want domain expertise, right, right. Oh, so measuring who, and using using tools to help identify, you know, who the right person is, is a key piece of this and what to measure to understand that is a key piece. The other part of measurement, which, which is what I think you were sort of alluding to, is sort of, you know, how do you how do you measure sort of the impact of them? Whether this is part of the identification stage, or, or, you know, whatever campaign or you programs you’ve been running? Right, right. And on the measurements side there, there’s a number of emerging tools. So you mentioned Onalytica who who’s been around for a while now, another one that I would recommend people check out is SparkToro, I think folks are becoming aware of that coming from the founder of Moz. And bust BuzzSumo has been around for a while, especially if you’re coming at influencer from sort of the content topic side of things. For example, SparkToro, may be very good for coming up with the podcasters. I believe that podcasters are the next wave of influencers. I believe in and talking pushing clients a lot around the concept of podcasts and webcasts. By the way, I’m very big on video content are the new blog post.
Carter Hostelley
Okay, again, this goes under the repeating patterns, right? We learned all this 15 years ago in the blogging with Chris Brogan, and, you know, that group, right, it’s, it’s here again, now, but of course, our clients were like, you know, I’m going to be resistant. So, but I think these tools are good. Also, a lot of times we’re doing influencer programs through the comms PR side of things, and they love big numbers. Right? So we use a social listening enterprise social listening platform called Brandwatch. Yep. And they obviously there’s a lot of them out there. One of things we like about Brandwatch is it can provide you the historical data, because because folks like to compare past the present. And, and look at sort of who drove most of the volume of, of impressions based on a keyword or topic or article, and hence you start to get, you know, a list of influencers, or you measure the impact of them. And it was like brandwatch. You know, Jason, you know, I think you’d agree with this are in particular really good if you’re leveraging influencers around something like a virtual event, or you’re really trying to the main goal is some form of sort of amplification and big numbers. Yep. So so we’re always looking and my colleague Carrie Carlson is really knee deep in this. We have our own set of tools that we built way back in the day when we realize all the social listening platforms We’re focused on conversations not focused on who is having the conversation. So on and identify stage we, we measure and look at using our own tools. Since we’re b2b, we also do a deep dive into LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you have to do that. And then as I mentioned, third party tools, like we’re now investigating SparkToro as an example.
Jason Falls
Sure, I’ve heard spark Toro has been brought up to me more than on more than one occasion lately, and I haven’t had a chance to dive into it yet. So it’s on my list. Yeah. Anything Rand Fishkin does seems really good. So
Carter Hostelley
the net of this, the net of this is, you know, for each, you know, you’re gonna end up having a few different tools for different objectives, I guess, is the net of it.
Jason Falls
Right? Absolutely. So if I’d love for you to take us through a really good case study to kind of show people how a b2b activation might work, something that you guys have done that a client has been successful with, what do you got?
Carter Hostelley
Yes, well, I would come at this, you know, sort of two ways. We, we did a project a while back that was and this client sold into cIose. And really, and by the way, now’s a great time of the year to do it, we reached out to a number of CIO influencers and got their take around the concept of digital transformation where things were going to be in the future. And this was done about 18 months ago. And they gave us you know, 300 plus words. And it was packaged up very nicely into turned into a white paper. And of course, we had the CEO of the client had sort of the intro, right. And we were able to then with the client really, really leverage that and amplify that. And the client ended up giving a quote in a Forbes article that that said, that was the best performing white paper, really anything and I think it did multiple orders of magnitude better. From from purely an organic side, not to mention, was a great avenue to build relationships with all the influence the CIO influencers, I think we had five of them that sort of submitted in. And and I want to throw this in as a little bit of a sidebar, because we didn’t touch on it. One of the biggest mistakes I see b2b companies make with influencers is when the pain is done. This, they’re like done with it. They’re going on. Yep. I mean, it’s not me. So of course, the real value that came out of this over time, is not just the performance of this one content piece is a very simple example, that that works really well for all types of content is is the ability to keep the conversation going and truly build relationships. Right, so that any time there was a new piece of news from this client, all I had to do was tag that influencer, and they would share. Yeah, and the beauty of all of this, because we remarketing the paper, and it was a way to make the influencer look good. Because guess what, that’s what they care about. Eat their own platform, we spent zero dollars on getting the influencers to do the submissions, etc, etc. That’s great. Okay,
Jason Falls
That’s a great case study, for sure.
Carter Hostelley
And it’s really simple. Anyone can do it, identify the right influencers, make sure you reach out in a way that they understand, you’re really gonna, you know, send this out to your email list, you’re gonna push it, and it’s all about them, package it up and out the door. And of course, it also established the CEO back to our prior comment as a thought leader influencer because the CEO section was in with these other top influencers.
Jason Falls
Yep, guilt by association. Exactly.
Carter Hostelley
Now want to bring up another one that we probably have seven or eight clients doing now. And it’s really easy, and I think this will work really, really well. To your comment about non tax, just b2b manufacturing services, etc. Okay, is, you know, one of our theme attics is every piece of content should have another voice. Okay, we all learn this, you know, this is an OPR hand, you can’t do a press release not have a quote in there, right? We don’t really get that yet at the white paper blog post. We don’t understand that. Right? So So and guess what, that that voice can be an influencer. It can be an employee, it can be a partner and one years, we’re really pushing hard for a separate podcast, we can talk about this a social APM. It can be an executive and target account. But putting aside all of that, what we’re telling folks is to start to slant their blog post to be more thought leadership and about other people is to put together q&a posts. Yeah. And the q&a post. You just reach out via social to the influencer and say, Hey, we’re launching a new thought leadership blog series that is going to showcase industry executives and influencers Have a great perspective on the industry. And you reach out to them. And they say, Sure, I’m interested you send them six, seven questions. And it is easy as pie and guess what? It costs nothing for the influencer, you don’t need to pay the influencers. And and they will respond. Yeah. So we’re doing this first, you know, and guess what, every single time we share it on social and tagged the influencer, guess what happens?
Jason Falls
They share it as well.
Carter Hostelley
And here’s another here’s a here’s it. We didn’t do the dirty secrets version of influencer marketing, so we can also save that for another conversation. Uh, one of the dirty secrets is they all know each other. Yeah, they’re all speaking on the same panels and they’re all they’re all show. It’s very incestuous. So if one of them shares it, guess what happened? The others die then. I love playing this game. It’s It’s literally watch what happens.
Jason Falls
That’s fantastic. I love it. So Carter, where can people find you and more about LeadTail on the interwebs
Unknown Speaker
Yes, so it’s easy to find us. We’re at www.leadtail.com or for those of you that are less marketing oriented leadtail.com both those work you can reach me on Twitter at Carter Hostelley or definitely look me up on LinkedIn. Both of those will work really well you can also lob in and email at [email protected] and and it’ll find its way to me too.
Jason Falls
Carter thanks so much for the expertise of the time this is great stuff and I know people are gonna get a lot out of it.
Carter Hostelley
Absolutely. My pleasure, Jason I so appreciate you chatting with me today.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Transcribed by otter.ai
The Winfluence theme music is “One More Look” featuring Jacquire King and Stephan Sharp by The K Club found on Facebook Sound Collection.