Wonder

SMB Influencers

Delivered November 19, 2019. Contributor: Benjamin H.

Goals

To obtain a list of influencers who have a reach and influence on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This research would be used to combine influencer marketing in a B2B marketing funnel.

Early Findings

According to EMERGE App, the following people are prominent influencers in the SMB space, especially when it comes to startup strategy: Martin Zwilling, Melinda Emerson, Gail Gardner, Jim Blasingame, and Tim Berry.
Martin ZwillingMartin Zwilling is a veteran startup mentor, angel investor, executive, tech professional, blogger, and author.
His works have published in famous publications like Forbes, Huffington Post, HBR, Gust, and much more. Zwilling is the founder of Start-up professional Inc., a platform that provides various resources and services to entrepreneurs.
He has 1 million followers on Twitter. His Twitter handle is @StartupPro.
Melinda EmersonMelinda Emerson is popularly known as "small biz lady". As of 2017, Emerson was rated "Forbes no. 1 influential woman for entrepreneurs". She wrote a best-selling book titled “Be your own boss in 12 months”.
On social media, she guides start-ups, coaching them on restructuring businesses and social media.
Her content has the most readership in the small business niche. Also, people engage in her Twitter chats and webinars. 
She can be found on Twitter as @SmallBizLady. Emerson has 302,000 followers on Twitter.

Proposed next steps:

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Within the first hour, we have identified a list of influencers in the SMB space; we have also provided information about some of the influencers. We recommend further research to provide a list of 20 influencers who have a reach and influence on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). For each influencer, we would provide the following: a brief profile/background, description of the market inside the SMB category where he/she has an influence, the influencer's most used/active digital asset (Newsletter/Twitter/YouTube/LinkedIn/Blog, etc), and the number of followers on social media.

Alternatively, we recommend further research to provide 10 influencers who have a reach and influence on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). For each influencer, we would provide the following: a brief profile/background, description of the market inside the SMB category where he/she has an influence, the influencer's most used/active digital asset (Newsletter/Twitter/YouTube/LinkedIn/Blog, etc), and the number of followers on social media.

Also, we recommend further research to provide 2-3 case studies of influencers who have helped SMBs to succeed. For each case study, we would provide the following: i) a brief profile/background of the influencer (including professional experience, active social media accounts, and the market inside the SMB category where he/she has an influence) ii) how the influencer assisted an SMB (or SMBs) to become successful.