The Credibility Code: B2B Authenticity with Vita Molis

In this episode, Meredith sits down with Vita Molis, Head of Editorial at the B2B Institute (LinkedIn), live at the B2B Marketing Expo in Miami. They dig into "The Credibility Code" — new research on why B2B marketers don't have a reach problem, they have a credibility problem. Vita breaks down the credibility stack, the rise of B2B influencers, why executives and founders may be the most underrated creators in B2B, and how brands can build "bounded authenticity" without sacrificing brand safety. The conversation wraps with Vita's best advice for marketers: embrace a growth mindset and take small, safe risks to learn faster.

0:00 — Introduction
0:42 — The Credibility Code
1:28 — Why B2B Buying Is Changing
4:46 — Creators and the Rise of B2B Influencers
5:44 — Executives as B2B Creators
7:45 — Bounded Authenticity and Brand Safety
11:32 — Authenticity as Coherence
15:11 — Advice for B2B Marketers
17:28 — Closing Thoughts

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Connect with Meredith on LinkedIn

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Contact Meredith: info@compressionmarketing.co

Connect with Meredith on LinkedIn

Follow Compression Marketing on Instagram

Contact Meredith: info@compressionmarketing.co

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

I'm so excited that you're here. Um we are live at the B2B Marketing Expo in Miami. Um and I'd love to start off our conversation just by having you introduce yourself, tell our audience um what you do and where you're from, and maybe a little bit about what you're um sharing at the expo this week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Well, thank you for having me on. Um so I'm Vita Mollis, I'm the head of editorial at the B2B Institute. We're a small think tank within LinkedIn, focused on the advertising business. And we're really, you know, I say we're obsessed with helping B2B marketers, bro. Love that. Um and we're here to debut a new piece of work that's called the credibility code. Um so we unpacked all this the stack, the credibility stack in all those layers. Um and we also double-clicked on creators as really a core part of that stack.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

And then that is fantastic. I love what you're saying about credibility because it's so important in the B2B buying cycle. As you know, it is rarely only one person making a decision when it comes to those purchase choices. Um, can you share just a little bit more about what that credibility index means um and what people are sort of paying attention to when it comes to making the right impression with the right people? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Um, so absolutely. The the so B2B buying is changing and it's getting more complicated, right? And so, like what inspired this study was looking at B2B journeys. They're 272 days, they're really long. They involve 10 stakeholders, sometimes as many as 22. Um, and actually there's more millennials and Gen Zs involved now. So a recent Forrester study found that 71% of B2B decision makers are um millennials or Gen Z. So the dynamics are changing, the expectations are changing. And what we learned last year is that actually B2B marketers don't have a reach problem, they have a credibility problem. It's really about building that trust and building that coherence of message that especially Gen Z and millennials are looking for. Um, so our research unpacks that credibility stack. So it it brand, it starts with brands, right? Brand has to have a point of view and a messaging, but also there's opportunities to trickle that message through employees because employees have huge reach, but they also have really strong engagement by bringing their stories um, you know, specifically to their audiences. They know their audience, they know their friends and their peers um that are on the platform. And of course, like customer advocates and peers play a role, but creators really create this compounding effect and and drive that message holistically in the marketplace, especially in B2B, where we see niche um subverticals and communities where you expect like a sense of like technical expertise and really specific um credible signals.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah. I love I love that you were able to share some of those statistics about just how long these sales cycles are and just how many touch points that requires. Right. We know that in general, people have very short attention spans and that it requires a high volume of touch points and contact points to build that value and tell that story. And as soon as you compound that across a buy-in committee, yeah, the the exponential nature of it becomes almost impossible to comprehend. Very overwhelming. And so the very nature of we have to connect with how many people? How many places do we want it you've you start to understand why so many B2B organizations do feel this sense of overwhelm? Yeah. Um, and it's it's really impressive to hear it quantified because we feel it. Um, our our team here at Compression Marketing works a lot with B2B organizations, particularly in those regulated spaces, and they have a very complicated story to tell, and they need to tell it. Uh, but it often takes far more effort than they realize. Um and what you're sharing, I think, just reinforces how evident that is for a target audience and how much you have to invest in making that happen. Absolutely. Do you see, um, especially in the creator side of things, I think this is this is something I hear asked a lot from clients is um the sort of concept of a B2B influencer. And this concept being something that people haven't really thought about much. Um, do you all uh sort of expose yourself to some of that discussion? And and if you if you do, where do you sort of play a role?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, so uh I didn't mention in my background, so I actually was at TikTok a couple of years ago, and so I was right in the you know, beginning of creators exploding and and thinking about what role they play. Um and we're really seeing that same kind of pattern when it comes to B2B. Um and more specifically, like so what we did in this study that we unveiled, we looked at lots of different creator archetypes or like profiles of like where do you start? Um and there were two, a lot of them were very strong, but there were two in particular that helps to drive long-term brand building. So one of them has to do with like this edutainment archetype, right? Okay. So there's um entertainment value, certainly interest. You want to get interest, you want to have a, you know, a hook again, you want people to be invested in the content, but also educational value and like giving getting that like utility, like something useful that you can learn. But the other profile, which I where I think the gold actually is for B2B, is executives and founders. Um, executives and founders have not only are they able to drive long-term sales, they're also long-term brand building, they're also able to drive short-term sales. And um, when we look at how uh engagement happens on the platform on LinkedIn, um, actually people are really engaged in C-suite content. They're four times more engaged in C-suite content than than other content. And I think this is my hot take, I think that executives are breaking that glass ceiling when it comes to B2B creators because there's such an easy way to drive like you know, tests in an organic kind of fashion and then drive to like a more paid motion once you get a piece of content that looks viable via engagement and impression levels um with thought leader ads. So I think that the executive and founder cannot understate that as an opportunity and an easy one to start with with organic.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

That is a wonderful, wonderful piece of advice. I think there are there is a sort of a it's almost like it's a sleeper version of something, right? I feel like executives maybe don't realize that they can have that kind of an impact. And it takes folks that are working in maybe a Marcom department or in PR to help them understand that audiences are very receptive to hearing your voice and your authentic take and producing content in that way. Um, I think it's one of those things that the more founders that begin to take advantage of that, the more that's only going to highlight how impactful it can be.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, we talk about that as like we talk about creating bounded authenticity, is how to bring that to life. So we don't, you know, when it comes to video, you know, you don't want it to be completely staged. Right. Right. And so how do you create from a brand safety, like I could just hear the internal conversation?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Right. Compliance and legal department is already getting their red pen out.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah. Um, so like how do you create those bounded authentic moments that are brand safe? And with executives, there's lots of ways to do that as they go to events like this, right? Like this is a great example of bounded authenticity. You know, us sitting down and having a chat. You have the branding already here. You've got a lot of things that are um on site, and there are ways to create that kind of content that then can be leveraged for months, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Absolutely. Yeah, we have found that these conversations at events like this are some of the most valuable discussions that we have because they're real time, they're unscripted, um, they are just opportunities to talk about what's working, what's not working, um, what people are observing and experiencing. Um, and they're just a lot of fun at the same time. Yeah. Um, it's a great way to get connected with audiences, but also learn from each other. And I I think that's that's sort of a theme that I've heard from a lot of people that I've been talking to at the expo is this eagerness to learn. It's a lot of question and a lot of QA, question and answering going on, which I love to see. Um and the networking seems to be for those purposes of like, I really want to connect with someone and understand and get new knowledge and new information, and I love to see that. Um, and that's sort of the I feel like that's sort of the new expectation for in-person events too. People really want to have a different kind of connection point and experience. And so it's fun to bring that to life. A hundred percent. Uh one of the things that um that I've always sort of talked about with customers and with clients is the importance of authenticity. And in B2B in particular, I feel like we've always B2B has always sort of been polished and produced and corporate speak, right? We have a lot of jargon that we like to put into things. It has never felt unvarnished, maybe like some B2C materials might standard issue sound. Um what are you all, what are you sort of seeing and experiencing from that B2B lens when it comes to stripping away a little bit of the polish?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So um we launched this year our 2026 Trends for the Contrarian Marketer. Um and the name on the tin does not match uh what it is. So it's not trends from a content perspective. It's actually like principles that we believe marketers should be thinking about this year. Might be old is new again. It might be this is a new thing that's coming up. One of our trends was um the authenticity tightrope because we do feel like in B2B, it feels like a tightrope that you have to walk with, you know, all the compliance and yet all of the, you know, Gen Z and millennial stakeholders that you want to try to get in through the real relevance. So um what we found is that actually most B2B decision makers don't find advertising and don't find content in B2B to feel authentic. Yet B2B marketers, I think that's sad is like 92% of B2B marketers feel that they are producing authentic content. Only like 50 something. That's quite the mismatch. There's a big mismatch. There's like universally authentic, only 50% of people are like, yeah, maybe that's a big mismatch. We there's something that we as B2B marketers need to learn from that. Um so we found this to be really interesting. And I think that part of the conversation as we talk about like credibility and the credibility stack and all of that, like all of those voices kind of speaking in the same not speaking in the same language, but like driving the same message. Um we think about authenticity as coherence. So what I think, so I did one of the first studies on authenticity at TikTok um a long time ago when marketers were saying to me, Well, what what is even authenticity? How do you express it? Um and now it's become a buzzword. But in B2B, I think it has more to do with coherence rather than authenticity. I'm able to validate that what you're telling me is actually, you know, true, is is uh being repeated in other ways through my peer from my peers, from customers who are actually, you know, leveraging this whatever tech platform, right? From creators, from the whole stack, right? So it's that coherence, and in order to create that coherence, I think there needs to be some, you know, unstructured, unfiltered, but also in a brand safe environment. And that's what we mean when we say, you know, um bounded authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really interesting point, too, around when you talk about brand compliance or you talk about um complicated things that you are trying to explain with authority and with expertise, but without talking down to people or anything of that nature, right? It is it can be very complicated to be working in an environment where you do have something that is really, really specific and you have to talk about it in a certain way while you have a core audience that is begging you to just talk to them like a normal person. Yeah. Um, and that is a very interesting bridge to try and and cross um when you're talking about I I love what you're saying about coherence, and it's not meaning that it's not just something I'm saying, but it's something that the industry is echoing. And that can add that legitimacy and that accuracy component that I sort of hear you talking about around resonance and and that continuity. Um I think it's one of those things that B2B is consistently trying to navigate and and get better at because as you pointed out with the shifting demographics in who sits in those decision maker seats, um, the way that they're motivated and the way they consume information and what they trust are very different than a generation ago. Absolutely. And we're we're in a place where we're having to learn how to bridge that, which is fascinating work to do.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

It is.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I mean, you said it, we're we're having to learn every day. And I think that's the the most exciting part of being in marketing now is that we're constantly evolving and learning and trying, trying new things to see what sticks.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

We're never bored. We have we never have an excuse to be bored. Um, we're often the first to adopt and play with and break things and and yeah and try things, which is good. I think it's good that we have a propensity to try and experiment. That's how we learn, that's how we get better. Um and I hope that uh I hope that B2B marketers in general will continue to test and try and um learn from our peers that that are doing it well. Um that'll be important for our continued growth trajectory, regardless of what the future of advertising tech looks like. We still have to communicate our value props correctly and authentically and accurately um within the confines of what those definitions are. You mentioned uh the definition of authenticity sort of changing a little bit. Um neither of us okay. What is it what is something that from your experiences, not just at uh within the think tank experience, but also based on TikTok? Like what are what are maybe your best tips and tricks or the most important advice that you would want someone working in a B2B company to really take away when they're thinking about some of the things that we've been talking about today?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, I mean it's it's um to me, it comes down to growth mindset. And you can't be in a growth mindset all the time. It's not like a personality trait, right? Um and you know, there's attacks to being in that learning mindset, but I do wholeheartedly believe that if we keep taking small steps, small experiments, small trials, and and getting like lessons out of that, you will be surprised how far that comes. I mean, the test and learn environment in in all of the tech at tech platforms is really where we've seen a lot of the gains and a lot of the learnings. And so, you know, as what I would say to B2B marketers is try, you know, take some safe risks and learn from them and look at them as an opportunity to gain an insight um versus like hit a target, like again, safe with places.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I like I really I like what you're saying too about the safe, like the safe risk. It's almost I um I use like the science example, like have a hypothesis that you're trying to test and explain that these are the steps you're going to take to test this hypothesis. And hopefully that gives you some of the footing that you need with a compliance team or with a legal team to have the space to test it, to try it. Yeah, um, and to get those results back. Because no matter what, the information you get back is important and useful. You're you're going to learn something that's going to move the needle one way or the other. So I love that you're sharing that advice to try things, to test things and to take those risks. Cause I think that that is very important in marketing in general. But I think B2B in particular needs to remember that there's value in taking those risks. So I I love that advice. That's so, so sharp.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Um thank you so much for joining us. This was this is a super fun conversation. And thank you for sharing about the importance of sort of that authenticity uh component and what that is evolving into, especially for B2B organizations. Um, I've just really, really enjoyed our conversation.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah.