# Workfluencer Marketing: The Rising Marketing Strategy in Business - URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/blog/workfluencer-marketing-rising-b2b-strategy/ - Published: 2023-10-02 - Updated: 2026-09-29 - Category: Marketing and distribution - Publisher: Girişimci Kafası In London in 1754, a cabinet-maker in his mid-thirties put the secrets of his trade into a book. Thomas Chippendale had been born in the small Yorkshire town of Otley and had come to London to set up a workshop. The book's title was long but its claim was clear: *The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director*, a guide for the gentleman and the cabinet-maker. It contained 160 engraved plates: household furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and "modern" styles. At the front was a section on the five orders of architecture and the rules of perspective, with the dimensions of every design. In the preface, Chippendale wrote plainly that the book had two different readers: it was meant to help one in choosing and the other in making. The gentleman would choose the furniture he wanted; the craftsman would learn how to make it. The list of subscribers at the front of the book is surprising even today. Alongside aristocrats and wealthy gentlemen are dozens of cabinet-makers, carvers, joiners and upholsterers. In other words, Chippendale's fellow craftsmen, even his rivals. A craftsman was selling what he knew to his competitors too. The result was something no advertisement could have achieved. In the words of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Chippendale's designs were so influential in Britain, Europe and America that "Chippendale" became shorthand for any furniture resembling them. People even imitated the book's title: in 1770 the architect John Crunden published a pocket guide called *The Joyner and Cabinet-Maker's Darling, or Pocket Director*. Chippendale's workshop, meanwhile, began making furniture for great houses such as Harewood House, Nostell Priory and Dumfries House. ## What is a workfluencer? Today we have a name for what Chippendale did. Professionals who talk about their work while doing it, and earn trust by sharing what they know, are called workfluencers. The word is formed from "work" and "influencer". A workfluencer is someone people listen to not because they're famous but because they know their job well. They might be an engineer at a software company, a nurse in a hospital or a strategy director at a consultancy. Their follower count often isn't large, but their audience is well defined: people who do the same job and face the same problems. A business influencer, by contrast, is a content creator who talks to a wider audience about business, leadership and careers. The two often overlap. The difference is that one speaks mostly from the shop floor, the other mostly from the podium. ## What is workfluencer marketing? Workfluencer marketing is when a brand reaches its target audience through these professionals. Sometimes that means partnerships with outside experts; sometimes it means making the company's own employees' voices visible. It's a particularly powerful channel for B2B brands that sell to companies, because in this space decision-makers listen more readily to someone who knows their job than to an advert. ## How do you put workfluencer marketing into practice? ### Look at expertise, not followers The right person is someone whose audience overlaps with your customers and who genuinely knows their subject. Chippendale's book didn't speak to everyone, only to those who would commission furniture and those who would make it. First get clear on who you want to reach, then look at whom those people listen to. ### Knowledge first, product second Chippendale's book was a catalogue, but first it was a handbook. Workfluencer content, too, should teach the reader something first. The product should appear as a natural part of the knowledge being shared, not like an advert squeezed in between. ### Don't forget your own employees The most credible workfluencers are often already inside the company. Rather than pushing your employees to post, offer those who want to time, training and a clear framework. Nobody wants to read a corporate press release on a person's account. ### Be transparent If there's a paid partnership, say so clearly. A workfluencer's only capital is trust; a hidden deal burns that trust, and the brand along with it. ### Measure the right thing The number of likes on its own doesn't tell you much. Look at who is talking in the comments, at profile visits and at incoming meeting requests. You can find out how these partnerships are set up on LinkedIn in our article on [influencer marketing on LinkedIn](https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/blog/linkedin-influencer-marketing/). ## Influence was a power that flowed from the stars The word "influence" entered English in the late 14th century as a term from astrology. Medieval Latin "influentia", an inflow, came from the verb "influere": to flow in. According to the belief of the time, an invisible force flowed from the stars and shaped people's character and destiny. In the 1580s the word began to describe the invisible effect people have on one another. The modern sense of "influencer" took hold in advertising language in the 2000s, and online around 2010. The source of influence has come down from the heavens to earth, but how it works is still largely invisible. In a study published in 1951, psychologists Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss presented the same message to participants, attributing it to different sources. When the message was said to come from a trustworthy source, it persuaded more people at the first measurement than when it was said to come from an untrustworthy one. This is called source credibility. That's where a workfluencer's power comes from. They didn't learn what they say from a book but while doing their own job, and their audience knows it. ## A final word In the "Rhetoric", when Aristotle lists the means of persuasion, he gives the speaker's character a place of its own. In his view, this trust should arise from what the speaker says, not from what people already thought of them. And he adds: > "His character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses." Chippendale's name became the name of a style not through a slogan but through the knowledge he shared. So how many people in your company would the industry listen to if they shared what they know, and are you making room for them to do it?