What are KOLs?
First of all, let’s discuss what is mean by KOLs. It stands for key opinion leaders. If you are a marketer, you have heard the term “influencer” before. KOLs and influencers have many similarities in them, but these two terms cannot be uses as synonyms for each other. This term quite different from one another.
To know about what are KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS), we can begin with a real-life case; let’s suppose Jack is a gamer, and at the same time he is a You Tuber whose channel is primarily base on games. He considered an expert gamer because he has approximately 5 million YouTube subscribers and 7 million Instagram followers. One day suddenly appears a girl who wants an experienced gamer with a large fan following and can influence others. She saw randomly and found Jack’s YouTube channel. She checked his followers and tried to communicate with him. She discussed that she is a game developer, and she needs someone to promote her new game. Jack was perfect for her project after discussing further they both sign a deal.
So, in this case, that girl was looking for a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS), and Jack is a KOL. With this example, I hope you can understand what a KOL means.
KOLs vs Influencer:
Key Opinion Leader (KOLs)s and influencers are similar in size of their fan followings. Still, a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) targets a specific type of audience as in the mentioned example Jack was a gamer and as a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) he can only target a community that is interested in gaming. If he as a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) uses his capabilities in the way to promote makeup artists, then this example would completely change to become an example of an influencer. As a gamer, his fan relies on him as an authority figure in the gaming world.
Importance of KOLs:
A KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) considered as an expert in his field of a specific topic; they are regarded as trustworthy and authentic persons to rely on by their fans. This thing is beneficial, and they can change their opinions and preferences of their fans very quickly. In conclusion, partnering with KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) will help any brand related to a specific type of KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) to grow.
Things to keep in mind:
There are the following things you need to consider while using key opinion leaders (KOLs) advertising strategy for your business:
You need to know about how relevant a KOL is for marketing our business.
Reach of a key opinion leader (KOL). If a key opinion leader has a broad niche, then he will have a large volume of fan following or fans. If you are looking for a key opinion leader (KOL) or a specific narrow niche, he will have a limited amount of fan following or fans. So, you have to choose carefully.
You have to evaluate the engagement of KOL critically. You can determine this with the likes, comments, and shares of their posts. You can see how many people see posts of their KOLs worthy of sharing or of sharing within their circle.
Benefits of hiring KOLs:
There are the following three significant benefits of hiring KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) as a part of your marketing strategy for promoting your brand:
KOLs will help you to find and to target your audience:
Your brand needs a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) in every possible way. Either you want to promote your brand, or you are interested in boosting awareness in a particular topic or whether you want to generate leads, you need a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS).
Not only brands but NGOs, trusts, and any organization can use the help of KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) to get their desired results. A KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) is perfect for you in any way because he invested a large chunk of his time n a specific niche to build the trust of people for which you have made your products.
A KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) reduces all the hard work you need to do for the promotion of your product and to build the trust of people so you can blindly rely on them for the growth of your business.
KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) is a specific opportunity to approach your desired audience. For example, if you have a makeup product, you can use KOL, who is a makeup artist and have a massive fan following. Instead of posting ads on Face book or using Google ads for getting your targeted audience, you can use the help of a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS).
KOLs can help you to produce a large number of sales:
If you have a new product and no one knows about it except you and the makers, then you should find a perfect KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) of a specific niche related to the place of your product for introducing it. 82 % of consumers said that they had followed their influencer, which recommended them a particular product. So, from this, we can conclude that KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) could have a significant impact on your targeted audience.
You might collaborate with KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS), as a KOL is well aware of the industry and can help you to improve your products and suggests you the best advice from which you can succeed in your relative industry.
You can maximize your reach:
A KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) can help you to reach a massive percentage of consumers than you might not have got in any other possible way. Without significant investments, you can get millions of consumers through this while going towards the traditional advertising method. You will waste your money, time, will not get millions of consumers in a short time, and also you will not be able to target a specific audience through traditional advertisement methods. Partnership with a KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) provides you with the cheapest, quickest and effective way than other conventional methods for advertisements.
Where to find KOLs?
The easiest method to find a key opinion leader is to search a keyword related to your product or write a niche on which your work lies in the search bar of YouTube. Then after searching explore the most popular videos. The owners of those videos are your desired vital opinion leaders.
You can repeat the same method on Insta while searching hashtags for related niche and you can find the best Kos related to your product or described to your purpose concerning Insta users. You can easily influence Insta users with this technique of strategical KEY OPINION LEADER (KOLS) marketing to buy your brand’s product.
How to communicate with KOLs?
As crucial opinion leaders are busy people, they are not available all the time. It can be not accessible to some extent, to communicate with them. But you can try your best. As we all know, they are special people in their particular fields.
They will provide you with all the necessary information about your product and can tell you also if they like your work or completely a NO-NO for your product. But this is also not an invaluable discussion; they can suggest to you the best things they know about making improvements and amendments in their products or in their strategies to promote your product. Key opinion leaders understand the likings and disliking of their audience.
KOL marketing is strong specifically in china:
WE can see KOL marketing is prevalently more in the country named The Republic of China. Chinese social media is so different from the one that is present in Western countries like Europe, Switzerland, London, and many more countries like these.
In China, key opinion leaders (KOLs) marketing is more common than the other types of marketing. Key opinion leader (KOL) marketing gained more than a regular status in China than other influencers’ strategical marketing.
We can easily find Chinese key opinion leaders (KOLs) who have established their reputation as notable experts on the other hand; we will see fewer people as influencers on social media in the state of China.
Types of key opinion leaders (KOLs) in china:
We will find different types of key opinion leaders in the state of China. Virtually we can see a variety of key opinion leaders are emerging out from china in a variety of fields. Generally, we will find those KOLs in a specific area on which they are providing us with instructions and guidance over a range of specific topics. Some renowned key opinion leaders (KOLs) who have millions of followers or fan followings belong to the particular niche of mass interest.
These key opinion leaders (KOLs) are the ones who basically invested many years of their age in their specific fields to become specific experts and successfully became the choice of brands and other organizations.
Many people in China are suspicious of information that is provided to them through broadcasts using the traditional advertising mediums or means. Here comes the role of key opinion leaders (KOL) which give trust to their people, and the audience can influence easily and trust the broadcasters to provide them authentic and useful pieces of information. They not only listen to the broadcast because of key opinion leaders, but they believe in the news and use it according to the needs.
Common ways to promote anything in china:
There are the two most common ways in china to promote anything either it’s a brand, product, game, or promotion of a sewing blog. These two common ways include:
The first one is to encourage user-generated content which also based on key opinion leaders to review our product and give you suggestions for enhancement or improvement making in work. So, the selling rate of the product can become high, and people badly want to purchase those products. With the experience and knowledge of a key opinion leader (KOLs), they become the most suitable persons for this method.
The second one includes the method of partnering with a key opinion leader for promoting products on their channels or platforms to make people crazy for the products. In this case, also purchase increases by people.
Key opinion leaders (KOLs) don’t use public platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Insta, and other platforms like the platforms used by the people living in western countries. They instead use Chinese media to share information. These Chinese platforms include Weibo, WeChat, and Zhuihu.
Conclusion:
In this post, we informed you everything about key opinion leaders or KOLS. We tell you that these are the people who are very specific to their niche and they have invested a chunk of the most precious and vital time of their life in becoming a successful and renowned person in their fields.
We also told you the benefits of using key opinion leaders or KOLs marketing strategies for your business. As they are trustworthy people so, they can maximize the sale of your products of any type, i.e. a game, highlighter, or even if you have a sewing blog you can take the help of KOLs to promote your desired product or content.
Later we suggest the methods through which you can find the right key opinion leader or KOL for you. Then we discuss how to communicate with them, also things to keep in mind while selecting a key opinion leader.
Then we inform you that KOL marketing is at its peak in China. How Chinese people use these strategies and how they can communicate with each other while using their different means of public platforms. At last, how western countries are different from china in this method.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this post. Let us know your opinions in the comment section below.
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