With the increase and improvement on technology in this modern world, marketing has evolved into new innovation designed to make things easier both for marketers and target audience – the digital marketing. Many businesses hire digital marketers to do SEO services and other services to grow their business through digital marketing. Now with the growth of social media influence, businesses also partner up with social media influencers and key opinion leaders (KOLs). Wait, what? You may often hear social media influencers but not KOLs. KOL is key opinion leader and it’s similar to an influencer in terms of follower size. However, what makes them different than influencers is that KOL is more focused on target audience with specific expertise on certain topics. Let’s take a real life example. Jaclyn Hill is a makeup artist and a YouTuber that focuses primarily on beauty products. She has at least 5.8 million YouTube subscribers and at least 6.2 million followers on Instagram. She is the expert on makeup and beauty.
In 2015, Becca Cosmetics partnered with her to create a limited-edition highlighter called “Champagne Pop.” The product was very successful and even broke Sephora’s record for most-purchased product just on its first day of release. Becca Cosmetics could have chosen other influencer to collaborate with, but the brand knew Hill was the perfect choice because she had a specific niche community that was suitable with the brand.
So, instead of choosing random influencers on social media, consider adding KOL into your marketing strategy. Why and how?
A KOL can help you target your ideal audience
If you are a company that sells beauty cosmetics, it is better for you to choose a KOL that focuses on beauty cosmetics for her/his content instead of choosing random influencers who are only influencers because of their number of followers. Why? That’s because a KOL in beauty field has an expertise in choosing and recommending products based on their expert knowledge on beauty and its ingredients. They will find your real target audience because they know how to attract people who have the same enthusiasm for beauty products.
A KOL can help you sell your products
Well, I didn’t mean that a KOL will be the one who sells your products. What I meant was their presence. Some KOLs are highly influential that their presence alone is enough and most people would buy products just because it’s, well, “them”. Why? That’s because people trust the KOL so much that KOL’s opinions matter. Usually, the trusted KOLs are the ones who gave objective and honest reviews in their content. For example, a KOL that has expertise in mobile phone would give reviews on every mobile phone that just came out. Some KOL might receive product to give ‘good reviews’ just because they were paid to ‘promote’ it. However, there are KOLs who would give honest reviews even if the brand gave the product for free. These KOLs, my friend, are the trusted ones. Yes, I’m saying you should hire them for your business.
So, how do you find a KOL? It’s actually easy when it comes to finding a KOL in your industry; however, the tricky part is that it’s not easier to find the right one that ‘clicks’ with your brand. But first, just try searching keywords related to your product or service on YouTube, social media platforms and Google. Filter the search results and collect the notable names you could find. After that, conduct some research on them and choose the right one that you feel can work and get along well with you – the one that has the same values as yours.