2018 saw a continuous rise of influencer marketing’s power and scope in both B2C and B2B industries. This was a continuation of last year’s explosion of interest in the practice and with more practitioners than ever going all-in, influencer marketing has been a primary focus of what we have explored on our blog throughout the year.
We’re lucky to have some of the strongest and most successful B2B influencer marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank Marketing blog, including our CEO Lee Odden, Ashley Zeckman, Joshua Nite, Caitlin Burgess, Anne Leuman, Nick Nelson, Tiffani Allen, Debbie Friez, the author of this post, and Alexis Hall, among others.
As an industry approaching $10 billion annually, Influencer marketing is no longer a shiny new object to savvy marketers. The insight and expertise our team has acquired helping some of the top brands in the world including 3M, SAP, LinkedIn, and Oracle plan, implement and measure influencer marketing programs has often made it here to our blog. To help our blog community grow their influencer marketing knowledge, we’re thrilled to offer this list of our most popular influencer marketing posts of 2018.
Of course, collaborating with influencers is something we do daily for clients and ourselves. Influencer engagement has become even more central to our B2B content marketing solutions, alongside social media marketing, SEO, and online advertising.
The influencer marketing posts that proved to be our most popular of the year based on web analytics and social media data are listed below. Hopefully they will help you ask the right questions and — of course — provide truly best-answer solutions to some of the most important challenges we’ll be facing in 2019.
We give a huge thank you to Lee Odden, Ashley Zeckman, Josh Nite, Anne Leuman, and Caitlin Burgess for their work in advocating influencer marketing best practices.
In addition to the list below, we’ve published several popular influencer lists this year, and while we won’t place them on the list, we wanted to share them here as they’re a great way to find and follow some of the top digital marketing influencers.
- 2018 – 50 Top Social Media Marketing Influencers
- The Original List: 50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow into 2019
- 25 Influential Women in Digital Marketing Who Rocked and Inspired in 2018
- 50 B2B Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow Into 2019
Our Most Popular Influencer Marketing Posts in 2018:
1. 7 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Rule 2018 — Anne Leuman
Our Content Strategist Anne Leuman wrote the most popular influencer marketing post of 2018 on our blog, exploring some of the most important and relevant trends of the year. Highlighting the power of great tools including Onalytica, Traackr, and BuzzSumo, the move by brands to become both bolder and different, an increased focus on business results, the rise of brand ambassadors, and more higher-budget campaigns, Anne accurately accounted for many of the influencer marketing trends that rocketed to the top in 2018. Check out all of Anne’s posts here.
2. Death of Facebook Organic Reach = New Opportunities for Influencer Marketing — Caitlin Burgess
It was our Senior Content Marketing Manager Caitlin Burgess who wrote our second most popular influencer marketing post of the year, as she took a close look at the effects Facebook’s major news-feed changes had on digital marketing campaigns, and how to use them as an advantage through influencer marketing. Caitlin deftly showed that the time was right for getting into the influencer marketing game, with numerous ways to capitalize on the opportunity Facebook’s move brought front and center. Check out all of Caitlin’s posts here.
3. 3 Reasons B2B Marketers Need Optimized & Influencer Activated Content — Lee Odden
Our CEO Lee Odden penned the third most popular influencer marketing piece on our blog this year, with a surprising and take-away-filled look at how optimized and influencer-activated B2B content can succeed in the wake of diminished organic social media sharing. Lee showed how keyword topics are King and influence is Queen when it comes to driving confidence, engagement, and action, along with sharing just what savvy marketers need to know to activate influencers and optimize for search. Check out all of Lee’s 2,592 posts here.
4. Beyond the Hype Cycle: It’s Time to Redefine Influencer Marketing — Joshua Nite
In the fourth most popular influencer marketing post of 2018, our Content Marketing Manager Josh examined the importance of making influencer marketing a trusted part of your integrated strategy, and how to do it best by redefining influence, compensation, and measurement, along with an in-depth look at the Gartner hype cycle. Check out all of Josh’s posts here.
5. Just Getting Started with Influencer Marketing? 6 Things You Should Know — Lee Odden
Lee holds another spot on our top influencer marketing posts of the year list, with an extremely helpful guide for anyone just getting started in influencer marketing. Lee shares six things you should know to anticipate challenges, avoid short-term thinking, follow improvement opportunities, build relationships that drive ROI, utilize platforms and AI, and gain an understanding of B2B best practices — no wonder it’s one of the year’s most popular pieces.
6. Digital Marketing Spotlight: An Interview With Ursula Ringham, Head of Global Influencer Marketing, SAP — Caitlin Burgess
Caitlin also earned the honor of having a second spot on our top influencer marketing posts of 2018 list, as her insightful interview with SAP’s Ursula Ringham struck a chord with our readers. Caitlin dove deep and got many helpful insights from Ringham, including her own universal truths in social media, a collection of favorite influencer marketing tools, and much advice, such as “In marketing, story is everything.”
7. From Basic to Advanced, the B2B Influencer Marketing Software You Need to Succeed — Lee Odden
What are some of the best B2B influencer marketing tools available? In our seventh most popular influencer marketing post of the year, Lee offers a vast and helpful collection of both basic and advanced tools to identify, engage, and measure B2B influencer relationships.
8. Enterprise B2B Influencer Marketing Interview: Luciana Moran, Dun & Bradstreet — Lee Odden
TopRank Marketing has interviewed an impressive array of B2B influencer marketing leaders throughout the year, and another that makes our list of the top for 2018 is Lee’s in-depth conversation with Luciana Moran of Dun & Bradstreet. Lucy shared her own unique story on entering digital marketing, and her expert insights on favorite platforms, top campaign structures, various compliance tactics, plus her look at future trends.
9. 6 Top Marketing Challenges Solved by Influencer Content — Lee Odden
Overcoming difficult marketing challenges is never easy, but Lee has earned another entry on our top list of the year by offering solutions to no fewer than six major obstacles that influencer marketing can conquer. Offering real-world answers for combating ad-blocking, dealing with information overload, making SEO useful even to Google, increasing buyer trust in brands, scaling content, and overcoming lessened organic social reach, Lee’s answers have proven to be helpful throughout the year, and will likely see continued bookmarkable success long into 2019 and beyond.
10. How the Confluence Equation Can Help Marketers Get Better Influencer Marketing Results — Ashley Zeckman
Our Senior Digital Strategy Director Ashley rounds out our list of the top influencer marketing posts of 2018, taking a well-written and helpful look at a number of influencer marketing trends gathered from Lee’s presentation during the Social Media Marketing World conference. Chief among Ashley’s insights is how influencer marketing can help solve common marketing challenges using Lee’s “Attract, Engage, Convert, Retain, and Advocate” model. Check out all of Ashley’s posts here.
Thanks TopRank Marketing Writers & Readers
There you have it — a truly stellar group of 10 of our top influencer marketing posts for 2018. We give many thanks to each of you who read our blog, and to all of you who comment on and share our posts on the TopRank Marketing social media channels.
We published dozens of posts this year specifically about influencer marketing, and we plan to bring you even more in 2019, so stay tuned.
Please let us know which influencer marketing topics and ideas you’d like to see us focus on for 2019 — we’d love to hear your suggestions. If you’d like to get a handle on influencer marketing trends, be sure to check out Ashley Zeckman’s post.
