B2B Doesn’t Need More Influencers. It Needs Genuine Experts.

Originally published by Janine Pares on B2B Growth Series.

Much of the conversation coming out of Cannes over the past week has been about creators, creativity and the changing role of influence.

Not just creativity in the traditional advertising sense, and not just creators with big personalities and huge social followings.

The bigger theme, at least for me, is that brands are trying to work out how to earn attention and trust in a market where everyone can produce more content, faster than ever.

AI has made content easier to create. But it also means channels have become more crowded, buyers are more distracted, and brand trust is more difficult to earn. So it makes sense that creators are getting so much attention. They bring personality, judgement, audience understanding and a more human way of communicating.

The creator economy and B2B growth

I think there’s an interesting question for B2B here. What does the creator economy actually mean for B2B growth?

Because, in my view, the answer isn’t for every B2B brand to start chasing influencers or trying to make their relevant experts dance on TikTok.

Please don’t…

But I do think B2B has something important to learn from the creator economy. People trust people. They want to hear from people who understand the problem, have a point of view, and can explain things in a way that feels useful rather than manufactured.

Edelman’s Trust Barometer has consistently shown the importance of trusted voices, and in recent years “my employer” has remained one of the most trusted institutions. That matters in B2B, because buyers are often looking for genuine confidence, not just claims.

The thing is, in B2B, many of the most trusted voices already exist inside the business.

They’re the consultants, solution architects, product specialists, technical experts, customer success leads, researchers, strategists and operators who speak to customers every day. They understand the nuance. They know the questions buyers are really asking. They can see where the market is moving before it turns into a polished campaign theme.

But too often, those voices are hidden behind brand copy. We take rich expertise and flatten it into safe, approved, (boring) corporate language. We turn strong opinions into neutral content. We polish away the specificity that made the insight useful in the first place.

Then we wonder why the content doesn’t cut through.

This is where I think B2B needs to shift its thinking. The opportunity is not to turn every expert into an “influencer”. That language doesn’t always fit B2B, and frankly it can make the whole idea feel a bit uncomfortable. The opportunity is to make expertise more visible, useful and commercially connected.

That’s a different thing entirely.

How do we help experts become influential?

Becoming influential means helping the people inside your organisation show up with a clear point of view. It means turning what they know into content buyers actually want to spend time with. It means creating space for more human, more specific, more credible voices to support the brand story.

Because the brand still matters. But in complex B2B decisions, the brand is often strengthened by the people behind it. This is especially true when buyers are trying to reduce risk.

If I’m evaluating a complex technology platform, a consulting partner, a cyber solution, a financial infrastructure provider or any other serious B2B purchase, I don’t just want claims. I want confidence.

I want to know there are people behind the brand who understand the problem properly. I want to see how they think. I want to hear how they explain trade-offs, trends, risks and opportunities. I want evidence that they’re not just repeating category language, but actually have a useful perspective.

That’s where expert voices can do something brand content often struggles to do on its own. They can make the business feel more credible, more current and more relevant. There’s also a practical growth point here.

The shift from more to better

Many B2B teams are under pressure to create more content, across more channels, with more personalisation, and now with more AI in the mix. But more content is not necessarily the same as more influence.

To stand out, brands need to do more than produce the most content. They require clear thinking, strong points of view and trusted voices. That’s where internal experts become incredibly valuable. Not as a content engine to be exploited, but as a source of market intelligence, credibility and perspective.

The solution architect who hears the same implementation concern again and again probably has a better content idea than the generic “top trends” blog on the calendar. The customer success lead who knows where clients get stuck can likely explain the problem more clearly than a polished campaign line. And the consultant who sees patterns across client conversations can no doubt speak to market change with more credibility than the brand account alone.

But this doesn’t happen automatically.

Marketing teams need to lead this shift

Most experts are not sitting around waiting (or wanting) to become content creators. They’re busy. They may not see their own knowledge as content-worthy. They may not know how to shape a point of view for LinkedIn, a webinar, a podcast, a video, a newsletter or a sales conversation.

That’s where marketing has an important role to play. Not just as the team that asks experts for “a few comments” at the end of the process. But as the team that helps extract, shape and amplify expertise in a way that supports growth.

We’ve seen this work in practice with clients through expert-led content formats, from the Adobe Answers series that make specialist knowledge easier to access, to SME-led video content for complex technology and government audiences. The value isn’t just that the content feels more human. It’s that the expertise becomes easier for buyers to find, trust and use.

That might mean interviewing SMEs regularly to uncover market patterns. It might mean building content series around recurring customer questions. It might mean helping senior specialists develop a clearer personal voice on LinkedIn. Or it might mean pairing internal experts with external creators, analysts, podcast hosts or industry voices who already have buyer attention.

External creators can absolutely have a role too, but the point is not reach for the sake of reach.

It’s relevance. That’s what B2B can learn from the creator economy without losing what makes B2B different.

Creators understand audience trust, and experts understand buyer complexity. Marketing’s job is to bring those things together in a way that creates commercial value.

Creativity matters too

Of course, creativity matters here too, because expertise on its own isn’t enough. Creativity is what helps turn expertise into something people notice, understand and remember.

That could be a sharper analogy, a clearer story, a more useful framework, a stronger headline, a better visual, a more direct point of view, or a format that makes complex thinking easier to engage with.

This is where I’d love to see more B2B brands go. Less polished sameness. More expert-led creativity.

The creator conversation coming out of Cannes is important, but I don’t think B2B should interpret it too literally. This isn’t about copying consumer creator marketing. It’s about recognising that attention and trust are increasingly built through people, perspective and useful creativity.

And most B2B organisations already have more of that than they realise. The question is whether they’re making it visible enough.

I’d be interested to know how others are thinking about this. Are B2B brands doing enough to unlock the expert voices inside their business, or are we still hiding too much of the good thinking behind the brand?