In addition to the first wave of users who have the motivation to spread the word, you also need to know KOLs

Among the key communicators, in addition to the first wave of users who are standing on the top of the mountain holding snowballs and have the motivation to spread the word, our products will also need the attention of KOL (Key Opinion Leader) in the later stages. Imagine that, full of confidence, you entered a makerspace or incubator with an idea that "can change the world" and a group of enthusiastic friends. After countless late nights comparable to Steve Jobs's garage startup and occasionally seeing Zhongguancun at four in the morning, you and your team finally came up with a product. Although it is full of shortcomings in the eyes of outsiders and even complained by early users, in your eyes, it is a new life, the beginning of hope.

After that, after countless updates, revisions, and iterations, the product finally took shape and the team was eager to bring it to market. You couldn't afford the advertising costs, and the investment had not yet come in. Even the rent for the incubator was paid for by a few veterans out of their own pockets. But everyone firmly believed that as long as the product was launched, there would definitely be a market.

The product really lives up to everyone's expectations and starts to gain some word of mouth. At this time, you are no longer satisfied with the product being promoted only by those earliest loyal fans. You very much hope to be noticed by the media. This will not only help to quickly open up the market but may even make it easier to get the attention of investors . For early-stage startups, you need to understand: Do you think of “media” as technology journalists or KOLs in a certain field? The two are very similar, but there are still differences.

As we have said before, the right to speak on the domestic Internet is currently monopolized by technology media. So, how about queuing up to apply for interviews with reporters from technology media? Indeed, many domestic technology media provide reporting services for entrepreneurs , but this process is often fraught with difficulties. Imagine that every day there are dozens or even hundreds of entrepreneurs like you applying for interviews and reports on the official websites and emails of technology media. However, due to cost-cutting issues, domestic technology media now often have only a team of reporters of a few people, and they are often sent to pay attention to the trends of some industry giants. It is conceivable that the result of the email is 80% to no avail, which is undoubtedly disappointing. So do early entrepreneurs have any other choice?

In addition to the media, you can also look for KOLs. How do we define KOL? KOL is actually an opinion leader who has influence on everyone in a certain field. Of course, this is also a type of self-media . These people may not have a wide influence, but they have absolute say in the topics they are good at. The self-media we are talking about here specifically refers to Internet writers who own a large number of columns on technology websites and operate public accounts with fans. This is also their advantage, because if we let KOL interview us, if the content of the interview is valuable, he can publish content about you in the columns of multiple technology media, rather than a single technology media.

Chronicles of Domestic KOLs

Andy Warhol, the fashion master of the 1960s, said:

“In the future, everyone will have the opportunity to be famous for 15 minutes.”

Domestic KOLs have a clear evolution history. The earliest KOLs were born in the blog era. Speaking of this, we have to mention the magical company Sina . Back in 2005, blogs emerged. The most representative KOL of this period is still at the celebrity stage. In order to promote their own Sina blog , Hou Xiaoqiang, then deputy editor-in-chief of Sina.com, and his two employees came up with a good idea: to invite celebrities to start blogs. Xu Jinglei's Sina blog was launched only 112 days ago, but it has received over 10 million hits and has been dubbed "the world's number one blogger"; and Han Han was voted by Chinese netizens as the second-most influential person in the world by Time magazine in 2010, even surpassing US President Obama .

Although most blog readers only do so to satisfy their curiosity, the most groundbreaking significance of blogs is that they create opportunities for ordinary people to have close contact with celebrities. The social rule that celebrities only existed on television and in newspapers and magazines in the past has been broken. In the later stage of this phase, many famous blogs opened by ordinary people appeared, and the first generation of grassroots KOLs began to emerge gradually.

In 2009, Weibo appeared and the Sina team repeated history. Of course, this time inviting celebrities to open Weibo accounts was much smoother. After three years of development, the flow of information on Weibo is no longer the state of individual floating and random circulation after the Big Bang in the early years. The fans of big Vs have accumulated into a lake, and the circulation of information is seriously homogenized. These big Vs are the relatively mature second-generation KOLs in China (they were called joke makers at that time). With the development of the platform, their influence is getting bigger and bigger, and they can cover more and more people, and they themselves have begun to actively seek ways to monetize their voice.

Compared with blogs, Weibo is a social tool that is more suitable for entertainment and gossip. For KOLs who are more adept at expressing themselves in words, this obviously makes them uncomfortable, because the 140-character limit of Weibo at the time was too torturous, which made Weibo more like a public opinion plaza model with very loud noises. For example, Wu Xiaobo , a very famous columnist and self-media, once said that a professional writer like himself, especially one who writes about finance, focuses on details and needs to use facts, data, and logical reasoning to tell a story, all of which cannot be carried on Weibo.

Soon after, WeChat became popular, and Moments and public accounts appeared, which changed many of the shortcomings of the blog and microblog era. On WeChat, you are in an environment with acquaintances, and people get information from their friends circle. When you want to share a message or face your friends circle, you must be careful about your words and deeds, because they represent your identity and your values. Therefore, for KOLs on WeChat public accounts , there is a requirement for serious writing. WeChat brings people closer together.

The sharing here is closer to the interaction among friends on Facebook. The information generated is deeply personal preference and has strong commercial value.

However, the most revolutionary thing about WeChat is not this, but that it has opened the valve for fragmented reading by the public. In the past few years when WeChat has become popular, technology media has also begun to truly flourish. Both require a large amount of in-depth and serious content. The original system of official editors and media providing content has been completely shattered. At this time, most self-media people began to emerge gradually and became the authors of discourse power in various vertical fields. The golden age of KOL development and monetization officially arrived.

The structure of KOL

Like the communication pyramid introduced at the beginning of this book, the level of KOL also presents the characteristics of a pyramid, and its structure is divided into three layers.

The top of the pyramid is undoubtedly made up of celebrities from all walks of life. The resources of these KOLs are mainly fan economy and corresponding social influence. For example, the income of stars is mainly through advertising endorsements, while that of social celebrities is achieved through event endorsements. The cost of this is very high. Asking a star to post a Weibo or to cooperate with a certain big shot in a marketing campaign may cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Sometimes, celebrities will also consider whether you are qualified to have such cooperation with them. The publicity value and usage cost of this kind of KOL are extremely high, and it is more suitable for some stronger companies or some big brands to produce the effect of a strong combination.

The second level of KOLs need to be paid more attention by general companies. They often have more fans and stronger influence within a certain range. This type of KOL is usually an opinion leader in some vertical fields, or a relatively niche professional expert. They have a certain grassroots nature, but in their field, they are the real authority. Compared with the top KOLs at the top of the pyramid, these people are relatively easier to cooperate with and the cost is relatively lower.

At the base of the pyramid are some super fans and a large number of netizens who are keen on spreading the word, and are also the promoters of the entire KOL marketing .

So the second layer is very critical, they can influence both the top and the broad target market at the bottom. No matter which level you start from, you must know that you ultimately need to impress the people at the bottom of the pyramid, and you can influence them through the first or second level.

The social composition of domestic KOLs

How to choose a KOL, or just do it yourself

Many entrepreneurs would say: We can’t afford to hire celebrities at all, so let’s wait until we get a large amount of financing before considering it. In this way, finding the right KOL becomes a science.

We first need to analyze who KOL influences

Take an Internet company as an example. For example, if you are the entrepreneur of an OTA (online travel agency) company and now want to use a budget to find KOLs to promote your company, then for online travel companies, you may encounter three types of KOLs to choose from:

1. Social celebrities and big Vs directly influence some hotel real estate industries.
2. Internet columnists and self-media, these people analyze and comment on the models of various OTAs, influencing the public and investors.
3. The well-known travel bloggers on Douban are real users who influence a wide range of literary and artistic young tourists.

So, as an entrepreneur with limited funds, what would you choose? Sometimes we will directly choose the cheapest one, such as travel bloggers on Douban, because they directly influence a large group of literary young people who love traveling, but don’t worry, we will throw out a new filtering item next.

Let’s analyze the influence of this KOL on his group.

How do we select KOLs? This is typically achieved through the WeChat or Weibo platforms. WeChat is more populated with self-media, while Weibo is relatively open. We can see the number of fans, reposts, reads, and shares on social media , etc. This is the most basic option, and it is reliable most of the time, but we should also add one more thing, which is the other media resources owned by this KOL.

Many Internet KOLs do not create communities themselves, but are keen on writing columns on technology websites and just being a quiet author. At this time, the number of columns and whether he owns a strong media becomes a relatively important measurement indicator. This is also one of the reasons why KOLs have obvious advantages compared to inviting a media outlet to interview us, as they are content providers for many media outlets.

So, to sum up, we finally confirmed that as the founder of a startup company, what we need is the favor of early users and investors. Considering the domestic practice of running data before investing, user attention often takes precedence over investors. Therefore, the most suitable KOL for this online travel startup company should be the well-known travel blogger on Douban.

After the analysis, contact KOL

If you search Baidu, you will find that almost all domestic KOLs have clearly marked prices. This is not surprising, because even some business leaders, such as Buffett, have specific prices for meals. Some technology self-media leave QR codes and contact information for business cooperation at the end of almost every article, but this does not mean that they will cooperate with you just for a little money.

For KOLs, influence is a resource, and cooperating with companies that lack influence or have inferior products will weaken their influence, so they tend to prefer cooperating with companies related to their fields and attach great importance to the quality of the cooperative content. Therefore, we first need to consider whether the value matches before discussing whether we need to pay.

I would rather advocate that some colleagues in enterprises or public relations companies cultivate their own KOLs, including making friends with one or two self-media, so that they can cooperate with your startup company or public relations company for a long time and cultivate the relationship between them. At the same time, in order to maintain the quality of cooperative content, companies in the future will need a content officer to turn the company itself into a KOL. Before finding this person, I think it is more appropriate for the entrepreneur himself to serve as the future KOL. In this regard, many people can actually refer to entrepreneurs Diao Ye and Luo Yonghao who are very popular in the media.

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