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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics?
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.
Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.
Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every year, people around the world ring in January 1 with the goal of getting in shape. However, this almost cliché resolution has a new twist in the 2020s. Internet users can now ask LLM models, like ChatGPT and Google AI Overview, which digital tools can best help them get fit.

For marketers, this is part of an important shift: LLMs are reshaping the customer journey. Understanding how they interpret authority and user intent to generate recommendations consumers trust is now a must-have capability for competitive brands. 

So, what are these AI-powered helpers telling consumers? We used GenAI Lens, Meltwater’s industry-first LLM tracker, to find out. 

Our analysis of the top LLM recommendations for fitness apps during two critical weeks — the end of 2025 and start of 2026 — focuses on how this new facet of brand discovery is influencing the customer journey. Read on to discover the brands, sources, keywords, and more that dominated this year’s New Year’s resolution season.

Note: The data below comes from our GenAI Lens analysis of responses from nine LLM models — Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Deepseek, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Perplexity, and xAI Grok— from December 24, 2025, to January 7, 2026. Click here to learn more about how GenAI Lens helps major global brands decode, monitor, and impact their LLM visibility.

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that Strava was the most visible brand in LLM recommendations for effective fitness apps. 

From December 24, 2025, to January 7, 2026, LLMs mentioned Strava 138 times in response to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” Additionally, Strava achieved a GenAI Lens Prevalence Score of 70%, meaning it appeared in 70% of the resulting responses. Those metrics along with an analysis of prominence within answers resulted in a 77% Visibility Score for the popular running app.

MyFitnessPal was Strava’s closest competitor, with a higher volume of mentions but lower prevalence, resulting in a Visibility Score of 71%. Meanwhile, Fitbod and Nike Training Club, or NTC, followed with Prevalence Scores of 61% and 55%, respectively.

Takeaway: LLM visibility doesn’t only rest on how many times your brand is mentioned. Prevalence, or how widespread your mentions are, can make or break your standing against competitors.

How Does User Intent Impact LLM Recommendations?

The language LLMs used in their responses to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” highlights how their interpretation of effectiveness prioritized strength-building, approach, and progress tracking. For example, the keyword "strength" (75% visibility) appeared more often than other qualities related to effectiveness, like “stamina” or “endurance”, which were absent. 

"Equipment", a key factor in deciding on which workouts to try, also achieved relatively high visibility at 45%. Finally, keywords more generally related to advancement, like "progress" (38% visibility), also appeared.

Together, the top keywords highlight how the LLM models relate fitness app effectiveness to strength. But what if the user has other qualities, like efficiency, in mind when on the hunt for the best fitness app? 

To learn more about how LLM recommendations vary as user intent changes, we also analyzed responses to the prompt “What are the best fitness apps for quick routines?”

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that FitOn was the top brand in LLM recommendations for fitness apps for quick workouts, with a Visibility Score of 76%. NTC was the second-ranked fitness app recommended for quick routines with an average Visibility Score of 53%. Meanwhile, the top fitness app for effectiveness, Strava — which many users love for showing off long runs — understandably sank to 35th place with only 10% visibility. 

Contrasting with LLM recommendations for effective fitness apps, "equipment" (185 mentions) was the top keyword in responses to our prompt for quick routines. Meanwhile, "strength" (128 mentions) dropped to third place after "quick routines" (169 mentions).

Takeaway: User intent shapes how LLMs recommend and talk about brands. For marketers, this means understanding LLMs portray your brand generally and in relation to specific consumer needs. Tools like GenAI Lens let you monitor prompt variations and responses at scale, giving you a dynamic, panoramic view of your brand’s LLM presence.

How Do LLM Responses Differ from One Another?

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that fitness app visibility varies drastically between LLM models.
In AI-generated recommendations for effective fitness apps, Strava was the most consistently visible brand, with a 77% Visibility Score overall. However, that score dipped as low as 17% on Google Gemini and as high as 99% on Google AI Overviews. 

Fitbod (which ranked third in overall visibility) scored higher than any other app on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, two top targets for many consumer brands. And notably, most of the brands that appeared in responses from the top LLMs were nowhere to be found on Meta Llama. 

Takeaway: While high visibility across all of the top LLMs is ideal, refining strategies to target specific models can help brands more effectively reach their target audiences. GenAI Lens breaks down visibility by channel, allowing marketers to zero in on new opportunities and identify low-hanging fruit. 

Garage Gym Reviews was the top source cited in LLM recommendations of effective fitness apps, according to GenAI Lens. Its dedicated, site-wide focus on comparative fitness reviews helped make it a highly influential LLM source on the topic of fitness apps. Top URLs referenced were best-workout-apps (88 mentions), best-free-workout-apps (27 mentions), and best-personal-training-apps (17 mentions), highlighting AI’s reliance on authoritative, ranking-style content when surfacing recommendations.

Interestingly, the second-ranked source, Die Ringe, was the only fitness app brand website to make the list. The website for the German calisthenics app was mentioned 55 times in LLM recommendations, seemingly stemming from the prominence of self-referencing, user-generated reviews on its homepage. However, that visibility did not translate into LLMs recommending the app itself. 

Finally, YouTube and Reddit came in third and fourth, respectively, powered by the kind of unfiltered, peer reviews that LLMs lean on. For example, the most referenced Reddit thread was “What’s the best automated workout app?”, posted in the r/bodyweightfitness subreddit in June 2023. Its 663 engagement actions in a highly active community likely pushed LLM models to favor it as an authoritative source, even despite its age.

Takeaway: Niche websites and digital communities with high authority and engagement can have outsized impacts on LLM recommendations. Meanwhile, brands that host authentic user reviews prominently on their own websites can also become trusted sources for generative AI models. 

What Fitness Brands Need to Know About LLM Recommendations

Our GenAI Lens analysis of AI recommendations for fitness apps revealed both the dominant brands, as well as the forces behind their visibility. In a nutshell:

Brand visibility in LLM recommendations depends on both volume and prevalence of brand mentions.

Look at user intent, as expressed through subtle shifts in language, for a fuller picture of how your brand is portrayed to audiences as they go on their “prompt journeys”.

Brands with high visibility on one LLM can be completely absent on another. Understanding LLM response variations is key to building strategies that focus on reaching your target audiences where they are. 

LLMs rely on sources with both expert and peer-led expertise, even if they are old. Generally, comparative reviews, like ranking lists, and UGC, like starred reviews, are paramount. 

LLM recommendations are key aspects of the shopping experience for high-intent buyers. Brands across consumer sectors must monitor and analyze them rigorously to remain competitive, but doing so is impossible without the right tools. GenAI Lens is here to help. Fill out the form below to request a sneak peek at how this industry-leading technology can take your brand’s LLM strategy to new heights.

Which fitness apps were most recommended by LLMs for effectiveness in early 2026?

According to GenAI Lens data, Strava ranked first with a 77% Visibility Score. MyFitnessPal followed with a 71% Visibility Score, despite higher mention volume but lower prevalence. Fitbod and Nike Training Club ranked next with 61% and 55% prevalence, respectively.

What workout qualities do LLMs associate with “effective” fitness apps?

A GenAI Lens analysis of LLM responses to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” found that they mentioned “strength” most, followed by “workouts”, “apps”, “equipment”, and “progress”. 

How do LLM recommendations change when users ask for quick workouts instead?

Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of responses to “best fitness apps for quick routines” found that FitOn ranked first with a 76% Visibility Score, while Nike Training Club ranked second at 53% visibility. Strava dropped to 35th place with just 10% visibility, despite being recommended most in prompts for effective fitness apps, illustrating how shifts in user intent drastically reshape AI recommendations.

Do AI-generated recommendations vary across LLM models?

Yes. A Meltwater GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations found that Strava’s overall 77% Visibility Score ranged from 99% on Google AI Overviews to just 17% on Google Gemini. Fitbod achieved its highest visibility on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, while several top-ranking brands were completely absent from Meta Llama responses.

Which sources most influence LLM fitness app recommendations?

Meltwater GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations found that Garage Gym Reviews ranked as the most cited source, with 88 mentions of its best-workout-apps page, 27 mentions of best-free-workout-apps, and 17 mentions of best-personal-training-apps. Other top sources included PC Mag, Wired, Tom’s Guide, YouTube, and Reddit.

Does old content impact LLM recommendations?

Yes. In Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations, the most referenced Reddit thread — “What’s the best automated workout app?” from June 2023 — accumulated 663 engagement actions in the r/bodyweightfitness subreddit. Despite being over two years old, its engagement and community authority elevated it as a trusted LLM source.

Can brand websites influence LLM responses?

Yes. In Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations, Die Ringe, a German calisthenics app, ranked second among cited sources with 55 mentions, driven by prominent self-hosted user reviews. However, despite high source visibility, the app itself was not consistently recommended, underscoring the difference between source authority and brand recommendation.

How does GenAI Lens help brands improve LLM visibility?

Meltwater’s  GenAI Lens tracks mention volume, prevalence, visibility score, keyword associations, source citations, and LLM-specific performance across models. This enables brands to identify gaps — such as low visibility on ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews — and optimize content, reviews, and PR strategies accordingly.

Fitness Apps Brand AI Visibility Index

You run social for a B2B brand. Your team launches a new feature, you schedule the posts, and you wait for traction. Surprisingly, the real lift doesn’t come from your own channels. 

It comes when a trusted industry expert on LinkedIn breaks down why that feature matters, when someone posts “we tried this, here’s what changed,” and a niche creator includes your update in their newsletter.

B2B influencer marketing helps you tap into the voices your buyers already trust, including the operators, consultants, analysts, and creators who explain problems clearly and share what actually works. 

Learn what B2B influencer marketing really is, why it works so well for long sales cycles, and how your team can build a strategy that connects with your target persona, drives brand awareness, builds authority in the industry, and generates demand for your product. 

Why Do Brands Use B2B Influencer Marketing?

Who Are B2B Influencers? (and How to Find the Right Ones)

How to Build a B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy That Delivers

What to Look for in a B2B Influencer Marketing Tool

The Future of B2B Influencing: How AI Is Redefining Relationships

B2B influencer marketing involves partnering with industry experts, analysts, practitioners, and industry leaders who already have your target buyers’ trust. You can leverage their authority to shape consumer awareness, perception, and purchase decisions.

Unlike B2C influencer marketing, which often relies on lifestyle appeal or entertainment value, B2B influencer marketing educates buyers. Influencers break down complex topics, explain how a solution fits into workflows, and de-risk decisions by showing real examples and outcomes.

These are the people your customers follow to stay ahead: cybersecurity analysts, RevOps leaders, fintech founders, marketing strategists, supply-chain consultants, and data scientists.

For instance, if you run a cybersecurity company, your audience won’t trust a celebrity or macro-creator.

The security engineer on LinkedIn who breaks down new breaches

The CISO who shares lessons from real incidents

The YouTuber who explains zero-trust architecture in plain English

These industry experts influence your buyers long before sales come into play.

Here’s how the two influencer marketing models differ in practice:

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Aspect</td>
      <td>B2B Influencer Marketing</td>
      <td>B2C Influencer Marketing</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Influencer Type</td>
      <td>Industry experts, practitioners, analysts, consultants, and founders</td>
      <td>Creators, celebrities, and lifestyle influencers</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Audience</td>
      <td>Decision-makers, buyers, executives, and operators</td>
      <td>Mass consumers</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Goal</td>
      <td>Education, trust-building, reducing risk, and thought leadership</td>
      <td>Awareness, aspiration, entertainment, and impulse buying</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Content Format</td>
      <td>Webinars, whitepapers, LinkedIn posts, product walkthroughs, conference talks, and case studies</td>
      <td>Reels, unboxings, aesthetic content, and lifestyle imagery</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sales Cycle</td>
      <td>Long, multi-stakeholder</td>
      <td>Short, emotional, and individual</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Impact Measurement</td>
      <td>Pipeline influence, lead quality, share of voice, analyst mentions, and category perception</td>
      <td>Engagement, reach, clicks, and conversions</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Platforms</td>
      <td>LinkedIn, X, YouTube, podcasts, webinars, and newsletters</td>
      <td>Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

According to Sprout Social, 67% of B2B brands use influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, and 54% use it to build brand credibility and trust. Simply put, brands use B2B influencer marketing to reach buyers through people they already trust. 

Decision-makers rarely learn about new products from ads anymore. Instead, they turn to practitioners, consultants, analysts, and niche creators who share honest, experience-based opinions. This established trust is the main reason B2B companies invest in influencer partnerships. 

Instead of broadcasting to everyone, B2B influencers give brands access to specific professional circles, including:

Private LinkedIn communities of engineers, operators, or CMOs

Tight networks around analysts, consultants, and independent experts

Slack and Discord groups where teams trade advice

Take the Top of the Funnel Slack community. Thousands of B2B marketers and RevOps leaders share tactics, compare tools, and often ask questions like, “Which product are you using for X?” or “Is anyone else seeing this?” 

Slack message discussing sudden keyword drops with attached Ahrefs keyword graphs (Source)

In these moments, a reply from a trusted practitioner influences how the community views SEO tools, Google updates, or content tactics. 

Authority is another major reason brands rely on B2B influencers. When an expert introduces your product or idea, your brand immediately inherits their credibility. This is critical in long, high-risk buying cycles, where buyers want reassurance before committing. 

Brands also benefit from content co-creation. For internal teams that struggle to produce content that feels fresh, practical, and grounded in real-world use, influencers fill that gap by creating authentic, peer-to-peer content that professionals respond to. 

Here are some content formats brands can benefit from:

Teardown posts (“here’s what this tool actually fixes”)

Side-by-side comparisons or honest pros/cons

These formats perform exceptionally well on channels like LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasts, and industry communities that matter most to B2B.

B2B influencers are people your buyers already listen to. They’re the practitioners, consultants, analysts, and niche creators who make complicated topics easier to understand and share their real-world experiences. 

B2B influencer marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Think of it as a spectrum featuring the following influencer types:

Practitioners: These include engineers, PMs, data analysts, marketers, RevOps managers, and security professionals. Buyers trust the people who face the same problems they do.

Consultants and advisors: These are independent experts who have seen patterns across many companies. Their opinions often shape industry best practices.

Analysts and researchers: Think of Gartner, Forrester, IDC, or independent analysts on LinkedIn and YouTube. Their reports and category evaluations matter because many enterprise teams won’t even consider a vendor unless it appears in key analyst reports such as the Gartner Magic Quadrant or the Forrester Wave Report.

Niche creators: YouTubers, newsletter writers, podcasters, and LinkedIn creators who explain tools, trends, and workflows. For example, Corey Quinn, a cloud-cost expert, regularly posts breakdowns and AWS commentary on Twitter, YouTube, and podcasts, influencing how engineering teams think about cloud spending.

Halloween is here, and I&#39;m reflecting on the real monsters in our industry 🎃

You know what&#39;s truly terrifying?

Getting your AWS bill and realizing you&#39;ve been charged $47,000 for data transfer… | Corey Quinn

Founders and operators: People operating in the space who openly share what they’re testing or struggling with. “Operator-to-operator” advice carries enormous weight in technical and startup markets.

Community leaders: Members everyone tags in Slack groups, forums, Discords, subreddits, or industry communities. One comment from them can quietly shift the perception of a tool or tactic. 

Not every creator with followers can influence a B2B buying decision. To evaluate whether someone is a good fit, look for the following: 

Relevance: Do they talk about the exact problems your buyers deal with? Someone who posts daily about cloud cost issues offers more value to AWS-heavy teams than someone with 100k general followers.

Credibility: Do people trust their experience? Look for thoughtful comments, peer tags asking questions, and posts that pertain to real work.

Quality of engagement (not quantity): Are people asking for advice? Are there honest conversations happening in replies? High-signal comments matter more than likes.

Clarity of content: Can they explain complex things simply? Corey Quinn is a perfect example of this, turning something as highly specialized as AWS billing into clear, relatable posts. 

Tone and brand fit: Ensure their communication style aligns with how you want your product represented.

As effective as B2B influencer marketing is, most B2B influencers aren’t on flashy consumer platforms. You’ll find them where professionals learn, troubleshoot, and trade advice. 

Here are some reliable places to find experts and build your influencer marketing strategy:

LinkedIn: Search by topic (SOC 2, RevOps, cloud cost, demand gen). Look for creators who consistently attract comments from practitioners, not random engagement.

YouTube: Target technical explainers covering topics like cloud, cybersecurity, data, finance, RevOps, and engineering. Niche creators wield strong influence here.

Industry communities: Monitor Slack and Discord groups like Top of the Funnel, Superpath, RevOps Co-op, Analytics Engineers, etc. These spaces reveal the experts people go to for help.

Podcasts and newsletters: Hosts covering specific topics (e.g., product, AI, cybersecurity, marketing, cloud, etc.) often shape how teams think. For example, podcast host Lenny Rachitsky regularly discusses product decisions, tool choices, and workflows with product leaders and growth experts. Since many PMs and founders follow these conversations, hosts like him influence what teams try next.

Lenny’s Podcast page showing a playlist of recent episodes, including their cover art (Source)

Influencer marketing tools: Modern influencer marketing platforms like Meltwater’s influencer marketing suite simplify discovery. Find the right B2B influencers by searching for creators by topic, analyzing their audience makeup, and checking engagement quality to assess whether they’re a good fit. Instead of manually hunting across platforms, you can filter by expertise, review real audience data, and shortlist credible creators. 

Meltwater’s influencer search interface showing creator profiles filtered by the topic yoga (Source)

A good B2B influencer program doesn’t start with “Who should we work with?” It starts with “What do we want to achieve?” Here’s a simple way to build an effective influencer marketing strategy that drives results.

Before contacting anyone, decide what your team needs the influencer marketing program to do. 

Here are some goals companies frequently have:

Brand awareness: Get in front of the people you want to sell to, whether they’re product managers, security leads, RevOps managers, or founders. If they’ve never heard of you, influencer content helps put your brand in their daily feed and community spaces.

Trust and credibility: Gain validation from people your buyers respect. Have a practitioner or expert validate your approach, explain how your product works, or share why it solved a real problem for them.

Demand generation: Drive specific actions such as webinars and trial signups, newsletter subscriptions, and demo requests. Influencers who create helpful walkthroughs or share honest experiences usually bring in higher-quality interest because their audience trusts their recommendations. 

Thought leadership: Shape market perception of you and your product by co-creating explainers, frameworks, teardown posts, or practical insights with experts. This helps your brand become known as “the one that teaches,” not “the one that sells.”

For example, Notion often partners with well-known creators like Marie Poulin to break down real workflows, templates, and productivity systems. These videos and guides teach people how to work better, positioning Notion as the default tool people think of when they need to organize their work.

Using the PARA method with Notion

Don’t choose influencers based on follower count. In B2B, a big audience means nothing if the people you want to reach aren’t following. Verify that the influencers’ followers look like your buyers—PMs, security leads, data teams, and RevOps managers—instead of students or general tech enthusiasts. 

Credibility matters just as much. The best B2B influencers are trusted because they’ve actually done the work. You can verify this in how people respond to them. Look for tags asking for advice, posts sparking real conversations, and opinions showing up in Slack threads and LinkedIn discussions. These signals outweigh follower count.

Relevance: Do they discuss the problems your buyers face? For example, if you sell a security product, you need someone who regularly posts about breaches, audits, or SOC 2, not a general tech creator.

Expertise: Are they practitioners (engineers, PMs, analysts), consultants, or operators who’ve actually done the work?

Engagement quality: Are people asking them questions, tagging them for advice, or debating ideas in their comments? A creator with 2,000 engaged practitioners can outperform one with 20,000 passive followers.

Audience match: Who follows them? If their audience consists of students or general tech enthusiasts, they aren’t influencing enterprise buyers. If their followers are PMs, CMOs, RevOps leads, or security teams, that’s a strong signal.

Consistency: Do they show up regularly and share useful insights? Buyers follow people who reliably teach, troubleshoot, and explain—not sporadic posters.

Simplify the vetting process with tools like Meltwater’s influencer marketing suite to identify influencers your audience already trusts. 

Instead of manually vetting profiles, you can identify which experts appear in conversations about your category, analyze their audience, and measure content engagement across platforms and industry news. 

It basically takes the guesswork out of identifying credible voices in your niche and helps you avoid choosing someone just because they’re loud or popular.

B2B Influencer Marketing: What it is and Why it Works

In 2025, the global trade war saw major escalation, driven by new and revised tariffs instituted by the US and President Donald Trump. The first half of the year was marked by contentious negotiations and back and forth retaliatory tariffs that left consumers and businesses alike reeling. 

The question at the heart of the confusion — what do changing tariffs mean for brands and buyers — has no definitive answer. However, the global discussion so far offers some valuable insights for marketers as they prepare for the months ahead.

The Meltwater Blog

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