Key opinion leaders are individuals with expertise in specific industries such as publishing, sports, entertainment, and photography and whose opinion matters. There has been a rise in KOL’s use in marketing; however, it is not a new concept. Different industries have used KOL to grow their brands, market their products and services, and increase sales before the boom of social media.
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Benefits Offered by Key Opinion Leaders
Nielsen’s study indicates that 92% of the market trusts personal suggestions more than advertisements; this shows the importance of the human elements to campaigns. KOL takes time to engage a defined audience with particular interest hence helping you to generate leads or elevate awareness, find and gain your desired audience quickly. A partnership with a KOL with a large social media following can help you reach more people without spending a lot of resources.
Key-opinion leaders bring attention to new products, raise your brand awareness, and boost your sales; therefore, a KOL has tremendous power over your bottom line. Businesses can partner with KOL to develop products, improve products, and adjust their marketing strategies.
How to Identify KOLs
Social analytics tools help identify key opinion leaders as tracking keywords and hashtags leads to identifying people who are talking about your brand, what they are saying, and analyzing their sentiments and following. It is also essential to determine whether consumers take their recommendations seriously by looking into the individual’s networks. Furthermore, discover the effects it has on your page views, sales, brand, and even new business.
Before you launch a marketing campaign, it is best to seek and create a relationship with KOL beforehand. Doing so helps to develop a meaningful connection, and that will go a long way in motivating them to recommend your product or service to others. Early recruitment of KOLs gives you ample time to find the right individuals.
NetbaseQuid offers excellent tools that provide visualized accurate data to help you deliver actionable insights to grow your brand. With the right platform, you can find the right KOL, manage existing ones, capture the correct content, get external and internal reports, get competitive intelligence metrics, and develop and influencer benchmark.
The KOLs You Should Know
When looking into various key opinion leaders, you should check leaders in your industry, often reported, mentioned, or quoted on blog posts and news. It would help if you did not approach these individuals like you would others. Instead, take time to understand them and then provide corresponding adept sources or continuous systemic approaches to their posts.
You should also identify people mentioned most in conversations within your field and the emerging leaders in circular economy and sustainability. This is essential because the world moves towards reducing the impacts of our activities on earth, minimizing climate change, and healing the planet.
How to Get the Best of Your KOL Collaborations
If done correctly, your company can benefit significantly from working with a key opinion leader. Although a large social media following helps grow your audience, before you collaborate with a KOL, take time to analyze power they hold and whether it can influence consumers’ decisions. It would also be best to examine if the individual will be an excellent fit for your brand, so do not automatically go for a famous individual. Additionally, adopt efficient scaling, do not be afraid to be vulnerable and focus on KOL relationships over KOL marketing.
Due to the influence key opinion leaders have on the audience, they have the power to help your business grow. However, successful KOL collaborations come from choosing an excellent team, adopting great strategies, and investing in the best tools.