By Alex White

Reach. Engagement. Conversions. These are the key goals most often tied to B2B influencer marketing, and it’s been that way for a long time. This is no different from the early days of social media marketing, where platform capabilities and user behaviors created the perfect storm for connection and interaction.

Fast-forward to 2025, and we’ve learned that social media is not a siloed form of communication, but rather a shared gathering place where people spend their time discovering, consuming, and interacting with content.

Influencers are powerful conduits and catalysts within these networks. From a marketing context, influencer marketing is the ability to inspire action, and since virtually every person with a phone is empowered to publish, everyone has some degree of influence.

So, where does this broader view lead us when developing an influencer marketing strategy optimized to attract, engage, and convert? To help answer that question—and extend optimization to retention and advocacy—here are five stages of the customer journey and how influencer marketing can play a vital role in driving better results.

Attract

Contribution drives promotion. The key value here is that working with influencers on content can inspire them to promote it. Reaching the influencer’s audience with relevant, engaging, and credible content is highly valuable for brands looking to attract hard-to-reach customers.

Follow-the-leader-advocacy. Influencers who act like advocates often inspire other influencers and customers to advocate for the brand as well. 

Retargeting influencer interest. When an influencer’s followers match a specific customer profile, marketers can retarget those followers with more tailored content, offering more context than a typical web visitor. 

Source: LinkedIn

Did you catch Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2025 campaign? The brand enlisted 10  influencers, primarily on LinkedIn, to share photos featuring themselves holding comically oversized newspapers with the campaign’s headline on the front page. While the 10 paid influencers made an impact, the campaign quickly gained traction with additional organic influencers, causing it to go viral. Within just 24 hours, the campaign garnered 50 media mentions and over 5,000 engagements. Want to dive deeper into the details? Check out the full story in Adweek.

Engage

What drives interaction in the social media world? It’s simple: Creator talent. In the B2C space, charismatic creators are everywhere, each bringing something unique to the table to captivate and engage their audience. Their creativity, planning, and ability to promote breathe new life into what could otherwise be a tired marketing mix.

Authenticity is key to building engagement. When influencers align with …read more

Source:: Top Rank Blog

Author: Aaron