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Executive Influence: How B2B Leaders Become the Voices Buyers and AI Engines Trust
By Lee Odden At Cannes Lions this year, creators moved from a side rooftop to the main festival footprint with more than 250 creators participating, the most in the festival’s history.
At the same time, LinkedIn launched Creator Marketplace, a tool built directly into Campaign Manager intended to help B2B brands find and partner with trusted professional voices. LinkedIn’s 2026 Global B2B Marketing Outlook research with YouGov reinforces that investment:
82% of B2B marketers say creators increase credibility with decision-makers
83% say credibility now matters more than traditional brand messaging
56% of buyers rely on creator input in the final stage of a purchase decision.
LinkedIn told creators at a recent event that their numbers on the platform have doubled since 2021.
B2B buying decisions have always been influenced by trusted individual voices more than brands, but that level of influence is accelerating.
And that means increased investment which has a few effects worth noting. One of which is that with more demand for creators and influencers, the less available the top influencers become. Every person working with creators and influencers right now is already having a hard time getting creators to respond to opportunity pitches, even when lucrative and with well known brands.
So where should a B2B brand look first for voices its buyers will trust? The answer is something our B2B influencer marketing research has been covering over the past 4 years. B2B brands should definitely engage with industry influencers and creators, but where your competition isn’t focusing is elevating the visibility and influence of executives already inside the company. They hold the expertise, the customer relationships, and the credibility of the kind of lived experience that AI can’t replicate and camera savvy creators don’t have the depth for. What most B2B brands lack is a system for turning that credibility into content that drives visibility, credibility and decision confidence.
This post makes the case for investing in B2B executive influence, explains why the rise of AI search makes that investment even more important, and shares ten high impact strategies for building executive influence whether your leaders are naturals on social media or not.
What is executive influence in B2B marketing?
Executive influence is the practice of building the visibility, credibility, and audience of a company’s leaders so their expertise attracts, engages, and reassures buyers across the customer lifecycle. It combines thought leadership content, social engagement, influencer collaboration, and earned media into an ongoing program. The result? Executives becomes trusted voices that buyers seek out, and the brand inherits that trust.
What does the research say about executive influence?
The evidence has been building for years. In a TopRank Marketing B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, 65% of B2B marketers said internal executives had been very or extremely effective at increasing the influence of the brand. Not a single respondent rated them ineffective. 75% reported working with executives to build credibility with customers, and 63% did so specifically to improve sales conversations.
The appetite was already near universal: over 60% of marketers worked with internal executives to grow thought leadership and influence, and another 23% …read more
Source:: Top Rank Blog
