Launching an influencer advertising program is not any small feat—particularly for B2B manufacturers.
But, influencers are the trendy technique to attain audiences, and their content material dramatically outperforms most content material that comes instantly from manufacturers. That’s why greater than half of entrepreneurs say they already depend on influencer advertising to extend model consciousness, viewers engagement, credibility and belief, and even income, per the Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.
The identical survey discovered that almost all manufacturers focus their partnerships on 10 influencers or fewer, and 59% plan to forge new partnerships in 2025. To develop and scale successfully, advertising groups should overcome widespread hurdles like unclear possession, funds constraints and inefficient processes.
Over the previous couple of years at Sprout Social, we reworked a handful of advert hoc influencer activations into a strong influencer advertising program that sits on the heart of our advertising technique. Fairly than inserting the duty solely on the social staff, we constructed a cross-functional influencer and creator advertising machine that spans many departments and features—and that has been one of many keys to our success.
The consequence: Partnerships with dozens of distinctive creators and a whole bunch of items of content material that drove greater than 400 million impressions, 100K+ engagements and a big quantity of leads.
To go from one-off partnerships to constructing a complicated influencer advertising technique that’s executed throughout the group, we would have liked to align our efforts with clear enterprise targets, outline and report on impactful metrics which might be tied to our core enterprise KPIs, and rebuild our whole course of from prime to backside. Let’s dive into how we applied these modifications, and steps you may observe to create a best-in-class influencer program of your individual.
The challenges of scaling an influencer advertising program
Inside stalemates can stunt influencer advertising packages from rising past the preliminary phases and delivering groundbreaking outcomes. These are a few of the commonest challenges when scaling up:
Price range is usually a main stumbling block. Regardless of 65% of entrepreneurs saying they’re very assured of their means to convey the worth of influencer advertising and that their leaders perceive the enterprise influence (Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey), they nonetheless wrestle to safe extra sources. Influencer ROI could be more difficult to articulate than different types of ROI, together with natural social—particularly if campaigns are centered on model consciousness or loyalty as an alternative of leads, conversions or income.
Inefficient processes gradual groups down. Based on the Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey, 39% of groups nonetheless depend on guide analysis to seek out the correct influencers for his or her enterprise. Counting on guide analysis and marketing campaign administration could be tedious and tends to convey momentum to a screeching halt.
Most manufacturers don’t have a devoted influencer advertising staff. The duty of managing influencer relationships and campaigns falls on the shoulders of already overtaxed social groups (or in some instances, paid and digital groups). Even once you unify advertising groups round influencer advertising, it could possibly introduce new collaborative challenges, like disparate influencer communication, and siloed planning and reporting.
It’s crucial to empower significant collaboration between groups and exterior stakeholders by clarifying roles and obligations, and utilizing the correct processes and instruments to cut back guide duties, promote visibility and unearth significant knowledge and insights upon which you’ll take motion.
Leveling up your influencer technique
In 2023, once we began, Sprout’s influencer advertising program was characterised by a couple of one-off activations and a comparatively small expertise pool. In 2024—recognizing the rising significance and advantages of creating a extra strong influencer technique—we matured this movement inside Sprout. We laid the muse for a constant and extremely efficient program we might scale.
Listed below are the steps you may take to scale your individual program:
Undertake a middle of excellence mannequin
Earlier than implementing a middle of excellence mannequin for influencer advertising efforts, our activations solely scratched the floor of what was doable. We didn’t have an organizational framework that linked influencer advertising to wider advertising and firm targets.
We deliberately pivoted from a siloed effort solely owned by the social staff to a broad program that touches virtually each space of the enterprise. Our influencer heart of excellence spans features—from social, PR and content material, to campaigns, demand, buyer advertising, discipline and channel. This method permits us to weave activations into social content material, webinar programming, gifting alternatives, in-person occasions and extra. It requires each staff to be all in, all collectively, supporting influencer advertising as a part of every staff’s core technique.
With so many groups introduced into the fold, it was necessary to delineate clear roles, obligations and relationship managers. Our roster of influencers and creators steadily multiplied (rising to incorporate European-based influencers) which meant we would have liked somebody on the helm who could lead on the cost. Our Senior Social Media Strategist, Greg Rokisky, stepped as much as fill that position and take our influencer technique to new heights. Our new heart of excellence centered on a core technique that permeated the advertising group by a extremely collaborative mannequin. With everybody working collectively, we have been capable of create a 360° influencer expertise—one thing we had by no means performed earlier than.
Apply it: As you scale your influencer program, adopting a cross-functional method might help overcome inefficient spend and fragmented influence. A middle of excellence mannequin consolidates strategic decision-making—making certain groups use data-driven insights to spend money on the correct influencer activations, handle influencer relationships in lockstep and optimize sources. By aligning your groups, you may remodel influencer advertising from a set of siloed techniques right into a high-performing machine to ship in your bigger enterprise targets (which, in our case, contains each attain and income).
Streamline influencer sourcing and relationship administration
There are an estimated 127 million influencers (and rising) on social media at present. Manually researching tens of millions of accounts to determine influencers who’re the correct match to your model isn’t solely inefficient, it’s downright unimaginable. Particularly when you think about how a lot extra time it takes to vet influencers for model security compliance.
The Sprout staff makes use of our personal Influencer Advertising and marketing platform to zero-in on the correct companions shortly. The software helps you discover the correct influencers, consider their content material and followers, and handle approvals and efficiency multi function place. For instance, we seek the advice of the newly-introduced Model Security Report and Model Match Rating to find the right matches to construct genuine brand-influencer relationships.
We additionally leverage the platform for relationship administration, from scaling outreach to managing and approving content material submissions. Influencer Advertising and marketing by Sprout Social allows our cross-functional staff to supply all stakeholders with visibility into ongoing activations.
Apply it: In case your staff nonetheless depends on guide processes for influencer discovery and administration, you’re falling behind and creating area to your rivals to swoop in. AI-driven options leverage knowledge to make sure partnerships drive actual influence and that groups collaborate successfully.
Assume past anticipated partnerships
At first of 2024, as a part of our efforts to be louder and prouder in our advertising, I challenged my staff to ship daring and sudden activations. This meant displaying up in locations and ways in which our rivals (and even our friends) weren’t—and this actually included our influencer advertising efforts. And wow, did they ship.
One of many activations I’m proudest of was Design Miami (Artwork Basel) 2024. We made an enormous splash throughout a serious cultural second that rippled throughout social. We have been truly the one tech firm on the occasion. Our on-site influencer activations—like with Maxine the Fluffy Corgi—introduced moments of shock and delight to attendees and our viewers on social. This influencer content material was a part of a a lot bigger play that additionally included a VIP buyer occasion that includes social and influencer advertising consultants, and a strong touchdown web page that surfaced real-time occasion insights and tendencies from our Influencer Advertising and marketing and Social Listening options.
From all that we did at Artwork Basel, to inviting Company Erin to affix a webinar, to asking Vin Matano to be our on-the-ground correspondent at Dreamforce, we took large swings final yr.
For all of those packages and extra, we relied on our Influencer Advertising and marketing platform to determine the influencers, who are usually not the creators usually tapped by B2B manufacturers. These unconventional partnerships helped us break by business echo chambers and attain untapped audiences.
Apply it: When a model approaches influencer advertising in a novel approach—whether or not it’s a finance influencer discussing magnificence spending habits or a health creator advocating for productiveness instruments—it alerts innovation and cultural relevance. For manufacturers centered on rising their program and reaching bigger enterprise targets, this technique not solely expands their attain but in addition fosters new client relationships, driving each demand and long-term model fairness.
Contextualize influencer efficiency metrics
Practically 83% of entrepreneurs say that sponsored influencer content material generates extra conversions than natural posts from their model account, per the Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey. Not simply attain and even engagements, however revenue-generating conversions.
At Sprout, we’ve used our platform to construct actionable social media reporting dashboards that elevate social insights to essential enterprise intelligence. In our reporting, we hone-in on key metrics linking social efforts to pipeline era—together with Earned Media Worth (EMV), Price Per Lead (CPL) and, after all, Leads Generated.
Contemplating the influence influencer advertising efforts have on these KPIs, it’s essential that they’re included into our reporting. With our Influencer Advertising and marketing platform, we’re capable of calculate attain, engagements, EMV, leads and extra.
Apply it: To measure influence past primary metrics, your staff wants to include influencer outcomes into the efficiency studies they generate for you and share them with cross-functional stakeholders. Monitoring these metrics not solely ties influencer advertising to core enterprise metrics like income, but in addition gives insights that inform future revenue-generation. By leveraging refined reporting options, groups can optimize their methods and drive enterprise development.
Scale influencer advertising right into a income driver
Scaling your influencer advertising program requires extra than simply rising the variety of partnerships.
By adopting a middle of excellence mannequin, leveraging AI-driven discovery instruments and integrating efficiency knowledge into enterprise reporting, manufacturers can remodel influencer advertising from a siloed set of techniques right into a revenue-generating powerhouse.
The bottom line is alignment—when groups collaborate successfully and spend money on the correct influencers, the influence extends far past social engagement. With the correct technique and instruments, your influencer program can develop into a essential driver of name consciousness, belief and measurable enterprise development.
Need extra sources to scale your technique? Obtain our influencer advertising toolkit to seek out the sources your staff wants to start, funds and construct a method for ROI.
