Word of mouth has always influenced B2B decisions. What’s changed is where that word of mouth lives—and who’s creating it.
B2B buyers are increasingly turning to creators to help them make sense of complex categories, evaluate options and form opinions before they ever engage a vendor. According to Demand Gen Report, nearly 80% of B2B buyers engage with creator content at least monthly, and 82% say it influences their decisions. That’s not a niche behavior anymore. That’s a buying habit.
Creators are the new trusted voices
B2B creators are industry experts, analysts, executives, customers and employees who publish independent content buyers trust. I’m not talking about a lifestyle influencer. These are people with lived experience and genuine points of view. Their influencer content resonates precisely because it doesn’t read like a brand brochure.
This matters because trust is increasingly fragile in B2B marketing. Research from LinkedIn found that 75% of decision-makers consider thought leadership content a more trustworthy way to assess a company’s capabilities than its product sheets or marketing materials. Buyers aren’t dismissing brand content outright, but they’re cross-checking it against voices they already trust.
What content formats do B2B buyers prefer now?
It’s not just who buyers are listening to. It’s how they’re consuming content. B2B creators are driving a significant surge in short-form video on LinkedIn. Demand Gen Report shows video uploads rising 34% year-over-year and 63% of buyers saying the format influences their decisions. That’s a meaningful shift for an audience that marketers have long assumed preferred long-form whitepapers and formal reports.
The implication is straightforward: Meeting buyers where they are increasingly means showing up in formats and through voices they’ve chosen to follow—not just channels your brand controls.
How do creators reach hidden B2B stakeholders?
The creator conversation also intersects with a harder challenge for B2B marketers: reaching the people who influence deals but never raise their hands. More than 40% of B2B deals stall due to internal misalignment within buying groups, often because stakeholders who quietly shape decisions—finance, legal, operations—were never part of the conversation. Research shows that 95% of these harder-to-reach stakeholders say strong thought leadership makes them more open to outreach.
Creators reach them in ways traditional marketing doesn’t. Because these stakeholders are actively seeking outside perspectives rather than waiting to be marketed to, the independent voices they follow carry disproportionate weight.
Key takeaways for B2B influencer and creator marketing
It’s time to think beyond producing more content and consider how you can build an ecosystem of credible voices that reinforce their positioning across channels. That means thinking beyond your own publishing calendar and asking who else is saying things your buyers trust, and how your brand shows up in those conversations.
How to get started
- Audit the voices your buyers already trust. Before producing more content, find out which creators, analysts and experts your buyers actually follow. Your brand is already part of those conversations, whether you’re shaping them or not.
- Activate the creators inside your walls. Employees, executives and customers carry the lived experience buyers are looking for. They’re often more credible than anything published under the brand logo.
- Shift formats, not just channels. Short-form video is influencing decisions for 63% of buyers. If your content plan still leads with whitepapers, you’re optimizing for how buyers used to behave.
- Build for the stakeholders who never raise their hands. Finance, legal and operations are shaping deals from the sidelines, and they’re seeking out independent voices on their own. Make sure the perspectives they find include yours.
The creator era in B2B is already here. Get creators into your strategy now, or keep building content for an audience that’s moved on.
