After years of development, KOL marketing has been expanding. At the same time, many brands working with agencies or MCNs in China are given large lists of influencers to choose from. Sometimes this can become overwhelming as there are many options.
Brands often have a hard time understanding who the best influencers to work with to accomplish a particular goal are. How to choose the right KOLs and reaching users in depth has become challenging in marketing.
In this article you’ll learn…
Select KOLs from various categories to reach more consumers
Previously, a brand would often go to vertical KOLs for cooperation. In this context, the vertical KOL is favored by brands because of its deeper professionalism and refined fan quality. Currently, the popular KOLs - especially the KOLs in a vertical field - are the "experts" with products, as they have accumulated certain professional authority in their fields.
However, a growing number of brands are no longer limited to the vertical type of KOLs, but are more likely to have a comprehensive strategy, in which case, they would work with both vertical and non-vertical KOLs.
The audience of a brand should feel connected to the products at hand. With both product power and brand power, we can build a widespread influence, obtain higher visibility and increase sales.
When consumers feel the value that a brand provides through its products, it is easier to stimulate their purchase behavior. Therefore, it is necessary to put a lot of effort into the marketing content. It is necessary to find KOLs in different fields to create relevant content that reaches consumers with different objectives and needs. The content types include those that are vertical to the brand category and those that are situational.
Multi-Platform Coverage - Harness The Advantages of Different Platforms
When a brand is marketing online, it would be beneficial if the mainstream social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Wechat, Kuaishou, and Douyin (the Chinese version of Tiktok) are covered simultaneously. This is to ensure that the audience can be fully covered through the differentiated characteristics of each platform.
Each platform has its own unique positioning, identification, and highlights. For example, although Weibo, Douyin and Kuaishou are all pan-entertainment content platforms; Weibo is more concentrated on celebrities and news, while Douyin attracts groups of all ages with entertainment videos. Celebrities on Weibo accounted for 23.6%, Video-games on Bilibili accounted for 23.1%, beauty on Xiaohongshu accounted for 20.0% and Wechat public accounts focus on news and knowledge sharing.
According to the characteristics of each social platform, brands can specifically look for vertical or non-vertical KOL creation or implant-related content of brand products. Read more about KOL Campaigns in China here 👇
How Beauty Brands Expand Their Audience By Selecting KOLs From Various Categories
Take beauty brands for example. Generally speaking, the first thing that comes to mind is the beauty KOLs. Their vertical degree is high and they can reach target users more accurately. Then, the KOLs mainly recommend the products to the audience through professional evaluation of the product ingredients, which can quickly create a reputation for brands. However, you can also choose some KOLs who share their lifestyles and fashion styles, or those who shoot vlogs of their daily life. Through the combination of various scenes, you can show the delicacy and atmosphere of beauty products and reach users who pursue different aesthetic feelings in different scenes.
For instance, PMPM, a new beauty brand, also integrated with the theme of travel, which positioned the brand in a concept of bringing distant lifestyles and attitudes to consumers through global exploration. At the same time, the outlook of the express box was transformed into the appearance of the travel box, so that consumers would be more willing to post on social media. In terms of content marketing, PMPM is also worth learning from.
Xiaohongshu was the primary promotion platform for PMPM. From the PARKLU by Launchmetrics data monitoring platform, we saw that in the past month PMPM had been mentioned 226 times by 190 KOLs on Xiaohongshu - most of which were beauty and skincare KOLs and 91% were micro-tier KOLs. On Weibo, PMPM offered discounts to KOLs who recommended goods to guide users to buy products. PMPM also found the top and mid-tier KOLs with types of beauty makeup, product testing, and even lifestyle sharing in Douyin and Kuaishou.
In addition, the Jo Malone Cypress & Grapevine Cologne Intense used the theme of # the world after human vanished#, not only cooperated with perfume KOLs but also looked for travel KOLs, photography KOLs, lifestyle vlog KOLs, fashion KOLS, etc., to create graphic and video content with a strong sense of theme and atmosphere. The hashtag # the world after humans vanished# had been viewed 4.522 million times on Xiaohongshu.
How To Do KOL Evaluation?
Many brands working with agencies or MCNs in China are given massive lists of influencers to choose from. This situation can often become overwhelming as the number of options can be very large.
Brands often have a hard time understanding who the best influencers to work with to accomplish a particular goal are.
With our China KOL Analytics feature, you will be able to evaluate any KOLs based on 6 key metrics including Impact, Community, Cost Efficiency, Relevancy, Activeness, and Content Creativity.
The weight of each metric can be adjusted to align the total score with the goals of the brand. After each evaluation, the brand can save this list of influencers along with the weighted scoring for future reference.
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By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
