In an increasingly competitive AI space, IBM wanted to elevate their perception and be seen as an undisputable leader within the industry.
They briefed The Goat Agency to create a B2B influencer-led strategy for promoting Granite; their purpose-built Large Language Model (LLM).
The target audience were developers and C-Suite decision-makers, with Granite designed specifically for enterprise workloads. We needed to build a strategy that would tap into reputable voices in AI and B2B enterprise technology, and leverage their expertise and trust.
Goat identified 7 influencers with a strong reputation and following in this space; all either Developers or Tech/AI experts and a mix of male and female. Between them, the influencers had a combined following of over 5 million!
We briefed them to create two batches of creative. Both were based around a concept of showcasing a new project built using Granite, highlighting its unique benefits and showcasing its differences from general-purpose AI models.
We always ensure never to script our creators and influencers, but provide clear messages to land within the content. That way the creators can maintain their own tone of voice and style.
The first piece of creative needed to have the influencer preview their new project, explaining the use of Granite as part of it. The second needed to share the finished project, with notes on how Granite helped them achieve it.
In addition to driving traffic to IBM.com, some content drove to third-party sites such as Hugging Face, reflecting an audience first approach that allowed developers to explore Granite on the platforms they prefer.
This storytelling technique was particularly successful with the second round of content actually driving more engagement than the first as people were hooked in and then wanted to see the results.
In terms of the platforms, we wanted to focus on short-form video across a range of platforms. LinkedIn is obviously a massive B2B social network, but TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts are also increasingly destinations for technology and business content. By integrating all four, we ensured to reach their audience wherever they choose to consume content. We also used paid media to increase reach and target towards audiences interested in this type of content.
Overall, our 7 influencers created
This campaign was hugely successful, driving close to 43 million impressions and over 9 million engagements with the content. Showing intention and consideration, we also drove over 8,600 organic link clicks and over 59,000 paid link clicks.
Our commitment to having a mix of male and female influencers paid off. Despite 80% of developers in the US being male, we achieved better organic and paid engagement results on the content created by the female influencers, showing that we should not assume an identical influencer to primary audience.
The campaign has helped to position Granite as the preeminent LLM amongst US developers and enterprise c-suite!
As Ryan Bares, Global Lead for Influencer Marketing, IBM Corporate Affairs noted:
“This campaign demonstrated the power of authentic storytelling in showcasing IBM Granite’s enterprise AI capabilities. By combining an organic and paid social strategy, we amplified the reach and impact of our influencer partnerships—engaging developers and AI experts to build real-world projects using Granite. The two-batch content approach proved especially effective, with the second wave driving higher engagement and reinforcing IBM’s leadership in AI built for business. The results validated our strategy, showing that audiences not only connected with the creators but were genuinely interested in the technology itself.”
