Inside Influence 10: Ryan Bares from IBM on Influence Inside B2B Brands with Employees

I have always believed that everyone is influential about something and that sentiment is certainly true within B2B companies. In the B2B marketing world, we’ve all come to understand that buyers trust individual voices more than formal marketing and advertising messages, so finding ways to optimize influence internally is becoming a key area of focus.

To drill down into the intersection of employee advocacy and influence, this 1oth episode of Inside Influence features my discussion with Ryan Bares, Global Social Programs Lead: Social Influencers & Employee Advocacy at IBM Systems.

Beyond hitting a few key findings from the The 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing report, Ryan and I covered a lot of ground including:

Increased focus on employees as influencers
Importance of senior B2B execs to grow their influence
Optimism about influencer marketing at IBM
The difference between B2B and B2C influencer marketing
How IBM Systems engages with B2B influencers
Advice on starting an influencer program at a B2B brand
Integrating influencer content with other marketing tactics
Opportunities for the future of influencer marketing

Below is a highlight transcription of our discussion with the full video interview embedded below.

Tell us about your role at IBM Systems and how you’ve been “blazing a trail” in the world of influencer marketing.

Ryan: Great question. I’ve been in the IBM Systems business group for the last five years and sort of started this influencer and employee advocacy program there. This was one of the first at IBM in general. We used to bring influential people who had great Twitter reach to our events, but we wouldn’t really talk to them for the next year. Then we realized that we needed something more consistent and about building relationships. So we changed our focus a little bit on building relationships and on employees: how do we get them involved and how do we get them to become influential themselves?

In the 2020 State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, you shared a prediction about an increased focus on employees as influencers. Can you share more about that?

Ryan: Yeah, I’m kind of in this interesting position of having a focus on both of these things which is great. I think when we started, roughly five years ago, the focus was really on the external influence or those people that are thought leaders with great reach on social that can connect with our target audience.

We realized that at IBM our employees are also great advocates for our brand. They understand the products and the offerings. @ryanbares

We still love those relationships and we still develop them, but I think over the last maybe year and a half, two years, we realized that at IBM our employees are also great advocates for our brand. They understand the products and the offerings at a really great level. So we’ve spent some time building training and enablement for those IBMers because it’s not natural for a lot of people to …read more

Source:: Top Rank Blog