There’s been an evolution in business-to-business (B2B) influence marketing lately. Both software companies and agencies are pushing the idea of brands creating influencers out of company executives. Mel Carson was an early company-based influencer, long before we were talking about all this. He was a digital evangelist at Microsoft in the mid-2000s whose whole job was to become known in the marketing and technology circles as a company spokesperson of sorts. 

Carson moved on from Microsoft to create his own agency that builds influence for its clients in a variety of ways, including executive thought leadership and personal branding. But it’s more than just the CEO, it’s building influencers within a company throughout leadership and management positions. 

He is creating this newly defined category of company-based influencer after having been one of the first of that kind. 

Carson joined Winfluence recently to talk about his journey from that evangelist role at one of the world’s largest companies to creating positions of influence for other leaders in the B2B space. We also talked about the perspective that B2B influence marketing is more sophisticated than most B2C approaches. Mel even explains he doesn’t typically pay influencers for the programs he develops, either, thanks to the long-term relationship building with value exchange at the core. 

Lots of great ideas and inspiration in today’s episode. Do give it a listen and share it with someone you know who might find it useful as well.

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