Influencer marketing has been all the rage in B2B for the last three years. Yet I see the tide turning.
The best influencers are your customers. Full stop.
No offense to subject matter experts or your LinkedIn-style influencer. I'm sometimes one of them. lol
Customers usually hold the most credibility and trust than any other type of person.
Sure, they should disclose if they are getting a monetary incentive to post or share, just like anyone else.
But the mere fact that they are a customer, holds a lot of water.
There are two approaches. Activate customers to influence with an informal, non-paid partnership, or activate customers with a formal, paid partnership.
Both can work and I would recommend you actually try both.
They key to any influencer type partnership is one word, GENUINE.
They need to be genuine when promoting and sharing things about your product and company.
And you need to be a genuine partner with them.