How to Find B2B Influencers

Finding the right person to champion your brand in the B2B world feels less like marketing and more like searching for a needle in a haystack. But finding and collaborating with the right experts - the ones your customers actually trust - can be one of the most powerful ways to build credibility and reach new audiences. This guide breaks down exactly how to find those B2B influencers, vet their expertise, and lay the foundation for a successful partnership.

What "B2B Influencer" Actually Means

First, let's recalibrate what we mean by "influencer" in a business-to-business context. Tossing out the typical image of a consumer influencer with millions of followers is the first step. For B2B, the game isn't about follower count, it's about niche authority, credibility, and relevance.

Your ideal partner might have 5,000 highly engaged followers in your specific niche, not 500,000 general followers. These individuals aren't just content creators, they are active and engaged members of the communities you want to reach. Think of them in these distinct camps:

• The Subject Matter Expert (SME): This is the engineer who built an open-source tool, the cybersecurity analyst who writes detailed technical teardowns, or the marketing ops pro who lives inside Salesforce every day. They have deep, practical knowledge from years of experience.
• The Industry Analyst or Journalist: These pros have a bird's-eye view of your industry. They spend their days talking to vendors, tracking trends, and publishing reports or articles. An endorsement from them carries significant weight and builds trust.
• The Trusted Practitioner: This is a person in the exact role of your ideal customer. They aren't a high-level thought leader, but they are a respected manager or director sharing real-world advice on platforms like LinkedIn. Their peers listen because they’re authentic and relatable.
• The Thought Leader: Often founders, executives, or established speakers, thought leaders set the narrative for their industry. They have a loyal, established following that hangs on their every word, and they’re good at building both personal and professional brands.

The common thread? All these individuals built their audience through authentic expertise, not just by being popular. Targeting them requires a different mindset - one focused on finding a respected peer, not just a broadcaster.

Start with a Persona: Define Your Ideal Collaborator

You wouldn't start a marketing campaign without an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and you shouldn’t start searching for influencers without an Ideal Influencer Profile (IIP). If you just blindly search for anyone with "marketing" in their title, you'll end up with a list of thousands and no way to narrow it down. Take 15 minutes to roadmap exactly who you're looking for.

Build Your Influencer Scorecard

Answer these questions to create a clear profile of your perfect collaborator. This scorecard will be your North Star during the search process.

• Location: Where are they based? Regional targeting can be very effective in B2B.
• Industry & Niche: Be specific. Not just "tech," but "DevOps for fintech startups" or "e-commerce logistics." The more niche, the better.
• Role & Job Title: Are you looking for VPs of Sales, Senior Software Engineers, or freelance designers? This defines the perspective they bring.
• Their Audience's Job Titles: Who follows and engages with them? If you sell to project managers, you want an influencer whose followers are also project managers.
• Primary Platform: Where do they invest their energy? Mastering LinkedIn requires different skills than building an X (Twitter) audience. Consider where your target audience spends their time.
• Content Format: Do they write long-form LinkedIn text posts, host a podcast, create short-form videos, or publish a newsletter? This helps match them to your campaign goals.
• Engagement Signals: Look beyond likes. Are followers asking thoughtful questions in the comments? Are discussions happening? This signals a truly engaged community.

Where and How to Find Top B2B Voices

With your influencer profile in hand, you're ready to start the search. Here’s a breakdown of the most effective channels and how to use them to find your future advocates.

LinkedIn: Your B2B Intelligence Hub

LinkedIn is the center of the B2B universe. It combines a professional directory with a content platform, making it the most direct path to finding industry experts. But don't just scroll your feed - be strategic.

1. Master the Content Search

Instead of just searching for people, search for content. If you're looking for an expert in sales enablement, search for the hashtag #salesenablement or the phrase "sales enablement strategies". Filter by "Posts" and sort by "Top Match." The people who show up repeatedly are the ones who are consistently creating valuable content on that topic. Watch who is creating insightful content and check out their profile.

2. Use Advanced Search and Boolean Operators

Use LinkedIn's search filters to your advantage. You can filter people by current company, industry, location, and keywords. Get even more specific by using Boolean search operators directly in the search bar. Use them to combine or exclude terms for laser-focused results.

For example:

• Searching for senior marketing leaders in SaaS: ("CMO" OR "VP Marketing" OR "Head of Marketing") AND "SaaS"
• Searching for cybersecurity experts outside of your competitors: ("Cybersecurity" OR "InfoSec") NOT ("Google" OR "Microsoft")

3. Check Out Industry Events & Webinars

Who is speaking at the top virtual summits, webinars, and conferences in your industry? The speaker list for these events is a ready-made directory of vetted experts. Browse the event pages on LinkedIn, look at past agendas, and see who is consistently being asked to share their perspective. If they are trusted to keynote an event, they are trusted by the community.

X (Twitter): The Real-Time Conversation Layer

While LinkedIn is buttoned-up and professional, X is where raw, real-time industry conversations happen. It's an excellent place to find practitioners and experts who share unfiltered insights.

1. Find People through Niche Lists

Many industry pros curate public Twitter Lists of experts on a given topic. For example, search for "SaaS marketing Twitter List" or "AI experts list." Subscribing to these lists gives you a handpicked feed of relevant voices without needing to follow hundreds of individual accounts.

2. Monitor Relevant Topics and Hashtags

Keep a running column in a tool like TweetDeck (now X Pro) monitoring industry keywords, hashtags (#fintech, #supplychain), and even brand mentions of complementary tools. Note who consistently shows up with helpful answers, smart questions, and well-researched opinions.

Going Deeper: Podcasts, Newsletters, and Communities

The most credible experts aren't just posting on social media. They're sharing their knowledge in deeper, more intentional formats. Finding them there is a great move you can make when conducting searches.

1. Become a Podcast Guest Detective

Find the Top 10 podcasts your target audience listens to. Then, go through their episode archives and look at their guests. Podcast hosts are fantastic curators - they’ve already done the hard work of finding and vetting experts for you. Use a tool like Listen Notes to search for topics across millions of episodes and see who appears as a guest most frequently.

2. Scout Industry Newsletters

Who is writing guest posts for the most trusted industry newsletters and publications? Subscribing to platforms like Substack or trade media newsletters in your niche gives you a direct line to writers and experts who have demonstrated their ability to share valuable content.

3. Participate in Private Communities

The best conversations often happen in closed environments like industry-specific Slack channels, private Discord servers, or paid communities. Become an active member of these groups - not to sell, but to listen. Identify the individuals who consistently give thoughtful advice, answer tough questions, and are respected by other members.

Vetting Your Shortlist: Beyond Follower Count

Once you have a list of potential collaborators, it’s time to separate the true experts from those who just have a big following. Your goal is to assess for resonance, relevance, and authenticity.

• Analyze Their Engagement Quality, Not Quantity: Click into the comment section of their posts. Are people leaving one-word replies ("Great post!") or are they starting real discussions? Are they asking follow-up questions? Does the influencer actually respond and engage with their community? Healthy discussion is a sign of a strong, connected audience.
• Read Their Bio and "About" Sections: Do they clearly state what they do and who they help? If someone appears to be an overnight expert on AI (with only 1-year experience), but previously pivoted from an unrelated topic just a month ago, approach with caution. Look for a track record and consistency in their chosen field.
• Check for Audience Match: Scroll through their recent connections and followers. Do these people align with your ICP? If you sell to enterprise CFOs, but their audience is mostly made up of college students and interns, it's not a good fit, no matter how engaging their content is.
• Review Their Last 20 Posts: Is there a consistent theme? Or are they all over the place? True experts stick to their niche because it’s what they know best. See if their recent content aligns with your brand messaging and values. A sudden shift in tone or topic could be a red flag.

Final Thoughts

Finding the right B2B influencers is a process of curation, not just collection. It's about prioritizing niche authority over broad appeal and looking for genuine engagement instead of just vanity metrics. By building a clear profile, systematically searching the right channels, and carefully vetting your candidates, you can find authentic partners who resonate with your audience.

Once you've built these relationships, managing the content calendars and workflows across multiple platforms can quickly become chaotic. That's why we built Postbase - to create a single hub for planning, scheduling, and analyzing all your social media activity. By giving you a clear visual calendar and reliable scheduling for modern formats like short-form video, we make collaboration simpler, so you can focus on building outstanding campaigns with your new partners.