At the beginning of November, Eventex officially announced the list of the 100 most influential people in the event industry for 2021. In this edition, more than 20,000 votes were cast for who would be included in this prestigious list. The top 100 presents event professionals from 27 countries, including my humble person.
Who are the people on Eventex`s eventprofs list? Without a doubt, these individuals can also be referred to as influencers in the B2B segment, more precisely influencers in the MICE industry. These people can influence the opinions and decision-making of others (choice of hotel, congress centre, service provider, online event platform or MICE destination for the next congress).
But wait a moment …
Why word influencer has a negative meaning?
I must also mention that the word influencer has increasing negative connotations as well. Mainly due to the various dramas, crisises caused by influencers in the B2C segment.
Among other things, it is about how “influential” people communicate on social media, the quality of content they publish and how they run advertising campaigns. The biggest sins of B2C influencers are:
- misleading influencer marketing campaigns and techniques
- selling or promoting poor-quality products
- harming the reputation of brands
- scandals and inappropriate behaviour
- low-quality content (sometimes)
For those interested in this topic, I recommend REVO’s channel on Youtube, which discusses campaigns and activities of B2C influencers in Poland.
What is also worth mentioning, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in Poland (UOKiK) has observed the unethical behaviour of B2C influencers. UOKiK has started the process of monitoring whether sponsored content on blogs, Instagram or Youtube is properly tagged.
The sudden increase in the use of the hashtag #advertising #ad in social media shows that these measures are having their first positive effects. As a result followers and consumers will be more aware when making a choice. Remember, these principles are also valid and obligatory in the B2B segment.
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For the UK and US markets, I can highly recommend Rupa Shah. If you’re an ambitious content creator, looking for sponsorship from big brands and you want to follow the advertising standards & regulations you should contact Rupa. Her company Hashtag Ad Consulting provides advertising regulation guidance for social media influencers, marketing agencies and brands.
All mentioned negative situations are reasons why serious influencers shift away from the term influencer and want to be called in a different way. How? The content creator is one example.
Influencer marketing in the MICE industry
Despite some negative aspects, influencer marketing continues to grow in popularity, both among consumers and B2B and B2C brands. This in turn affects traditional marketing and advertising methods. Social media is (still) one of the most powerful tools of our time. So it’s no surprise that
the influencer marketing industry is expected to become worth over $15 billion by 2022.
There needs to be a clear separation between B2C influencer marketing and B2B influencer marketing. For the MICE industry a more appropriate word instead of influencer would be:
- industry expert
- brand ambassador
- key opinion leader
- destination ambassador
- or MICE industry thought leader
Another distinction is what kind of content can MICE influencers create for the purpose of the campaign. These people can use words such as MICE vlogger, MICE blogger, or MICE podcaster in their bios or social media descriptions, or hashtags.
Currently, there are so many ways to create engaging content and influence others on social media. When I worked for Word of MICE we recorded and created this podcast about influencer marketing.
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How to become a B2B influencer?
Do you have to be active on social media profiles or write a blog, create vlogs on Youtube or run a podcast to be an influencer in the B2B industry?
Who is an influencer?
Am I an influencer? You may ask this question yourself. Every one of us, everyone whose opinion others count on when making decisions. Even without actively running platforms on social media, we influence others through our conversations.
However, it seems that in the MICE industry, having a personal profile on Linkedin (or company page), and your own website with a blog (or Youtube channel/podcast channel) should be a mandatory minimum. Not only does it allow to promote business, but it is also an important part of personal branding.
Read also on my blog:
- Eventprofs Stand with Ukraine
- How eventprofs & content creators can save one day a week
- Convention Bureau on social media – best practices
- The challenge for influencers and content creators in the meetings industry
- Twitter for event professionals
How do find the right influencers in the MICE industry?
Marketing professionals planning B2B campaigns pay too much attention to the number of followers and do not delve into the type of content created and the community that the influencer has created. Of course, influencer marketing is an investment and, as in any case, the ROI is important.
It is also worth knowing that there are different types of influencers in influencer marketing because of the possibility of reaching the audience. This terminology is used for Instagram, but not only:
- Mega influencers: 1 million + followers
- Macro influencers: 100,000 – 1 million followers
- Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 – 100,000
- Micro-influencers: 10,000 – 100,000 followers
- Nano-influencers: 10,000 followers or less
You don’t have to have hundreds of thousands of followers to collaborate on campaigns or work on other projects. For example, the most popular type of influencer on Instagram today is the micro-influencer. What distinguishes micro-influencers from macro-influencer, is their smaller reach. However, micro-influencers are more specialised than macro-influencers and are therefore more trusted by an extremely loyal, highly engaged and relevant audience.
Meet nano-influencers
In the B2B industry, nano-influencers have an even greater role to play. Although their reach can be low, their influence on a small but tight-knit community of people is potentially large. They may know most of their followers personally, and this level of familiarity can be a huge benefit to the relevant brand or campaign.
So in the case of our industry, the selection of people we plan to work with is not always based on hard and big numbers. Sometimes the greater value will come not from size and social power, but from the more difficult-to-measure-qualitative aspects.
I hope you found this article helpful. Are you a B2B influencer, or creative content creator with an engaged community? We are looking for you.
Do you manage Instagram accounts or run your private IG profile? You need to read this article Make Instagram Instagram Again.