Over the past decade or less, influencer marketing has become a successful brand strategy for companies looking to catch the eye of a targeted audience across social media platforms. All marketers have heard the term “influencer”, but many may not be familiar with a key opinion leader or KOL. These KOLs offer great insight into understanding your audience so you can effectively run campaigns to gather additional consumer data.
A key opinion leader is like an online influencer regarding the number of followers but KOLs have a much more targeted audience. In other words, KOLs are viewed by their audience as an authority figure on a specific subject and are therefore authentic and trustworthy. For instance, one KOL could have a dedicated beauty channel on YouTube but posting cooking videos would lose that KOL credibility with followers.
There are pretty much KOLs for every type of category in life. Finding a key opinion leader within your specific industry is quite easy. By simply searching for keywords related to your product on YouTube, you will see countless accounts that appear in the results. Another option is to search hashtags on Instagram to find a key opinion leader for a specific field. Depending on your industry, watching what a KOL is promoting or against will help you better understand the interests, requirements, and experiences of your target demographic.
How to Run a KOL-Based Campaign
To work with a KOL in conjunction with your brand marketing strategy, you must reach out to them directly. Everyone will have dissimilar inclinations as to how they wish to be contacted. Some influencers share contact information via their social media profiles while others have terms for working with them on their website. In some cases, you may not be able to work with them directly as they may have a team that can help set up the campaign and associated terms. There are also influencer marketing consultants who can help select a KOL for your brand.
A KOL can be integrated into your marketing campaigns and overall strategy by relying on them to promote brand awareness. This is achieved through some or all the following points:
- Being a spokesperson for the brand.
- Featuring your products on their social media account or blog.
- Holding social media takeovers.
- Interviewing you for their vlog or podcast.
- Reviewing your brand or products in a video and promoting them to their followers.
- Running giveaways and contests of your products.
KOL Data Tools
The influencer and KOL representatives have become big business as various other related industries have emerged as a result. There are a variety of software tools on the market that can help gather and analyze KOL data. For instance, there are influence marketing tools that help brands find a specific digital ambassador within their industry to aid with decision-making. These platforms include the ability to search for an influencer, create a contact, and activate an entire campaign around this individual. Another helpful tool is called BuzzStream which lets you research influencer blogs while browsing. The software allows you to find influencers related to your niche using keywords, add them to a list and send out personalized emails with automated follow-ups to those individuals.
NinjaOutreach is a full-service cloud-based research tool that allows you to filter bloggers, companies, influencers, and individual articles from over 25 million websites. The software also has an option for searching Instagram and Twitter. Prospects can be added to a sortable list with tags and you can send an automated email to each person on that list. Finally, Awario is a social media and web monitoring tool where you can search for KOLs who have mentioned your products, brand, or related topics.
About NetBase Quid
As a trusted partner of American Airlines, Coca-Cola, Hyundai, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and The New York Times, NetBase Quid is a consumer and market intelligence platform that provides companies of all sizes and across all industries with business trends, competitive analysis, and the ability to better connect with consumers. The platform utilizes innovative artificial intelligence to process billions of resources across structured and unstructured data.
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