8 pitfalls I encountered during the kol operation process, and shared some practical skills!

When attracting KOLs, the first thing you must do is to pick the ones you think are the best. You must first learn to identify which ones are the best. We need to find the ones that best suit the temperament of your platform and fit your psychological positioning, not necessarily the highest ranked ones or the ready-made ones.

I started trying to attract people in 2007, including writers, beauties, models, video shooters, internet celebrities, etc. Many of them can actually be considered kols. There were very few such people at that time, and once we discovered an outstanding one, our eyes would light up.

Mop was very popular at that time, but the section I was in charge of had very few users. When I first started doing the "True Me Show" (which can be understood as the predecessor of the current anchors), they told me that there were many beautiful girls on Mop. As a result, there were only 6 or 7 posts in this section a day. I had no choice but to attract them from everywhere.

I tried to get help from Tianya Community, but the private message system on Tianya was terrible at that time. I finally got some responses from people who responded to me, but I found that they were all pretty good, so my success rate was almost 0. What impressed me most was that there was a very popular girl named Xiaoyun at that time. I was the first to post a message on Mop and did an exclusive interview with her, which resulted in the interview with Tianya not being done.

I have recruited beautiful women from Poco, Pacific Model Zone, QQ Blog, etc., recruited writers from literary websites and vertical communities, and recruited photographers from video websites... After slowly finding the feeling, I have a feeling of "Zhou Gong spits out food to feed his guests, and the world is at peace". In fact, the success rate is only 30%-40% at the highest.

In fact, we persisted little by little. When stars like Zhang Xinyu, Yang Mi, Feng Shaofeng, Tang Yan, Bao Beier, etc. just became famous, we did exclusive interviews with them. When Feng Jie first became popular, we were the first to do an online interview.

Later, Weibo and WeChat public accounts became popular, and I also tried to attract people. When my success rate was the worst, 9 and a half out of ten people rejected me.

Cultivating users has always been what I’m good at, because I have good patience, and later I have honed some experience and skills. In fact, it’s just that I can endure and persist better than the average person. It is difficult for a company that is too KPI -oriented to cultivate this kind of mentality.

As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Where there are many experts, there will naturally be more and more people. The key is that the process from 0 to 1 is the most difficult. Whether you find them or dig them out yourself, you must be clear about why they can make a commitment to you and whether your methods and means can be replicated to more people.

Then there is the gameplay. In fact, user operation, after all, is nothing more than setting one or multiple gameplays for users. Operations staff are more likely to stand from the perspective of the platform, formulate rules, constraints, incentives, and consider copying and exploring new ways of playing.

Users will follow whoever treats them well. That's how they are. Especially for users at the level of KOL, if you don’t want to spend time on them and delve deeply into them, there is no possibility of doing well. You need to understand the needs and characteristics of each of them. The higher the level, the harder it is to serve them. The more KOLs you have, the more time and energy you will naturally spend.

Stimulate those with potential and make awesome users even more awesome. First, let more users know about them on your platform, and then help them let people outside know about them as well. Good users are promoted, not waited for.

"The Past of a Xinjiang Tomb-Robbing Family" was a very popular novel at that time. The author was Yu Songshu. His novels were serialized and highly recommended that year. Giving him the best recommendation position and more encouragement would give him more motivation to continue writing. A few days ago he told me that his novel was being made into a TV series. I am happy for him too.

In fact, every kol has his own uniqueness. We need to tailor our approach, give unique labels to different people, and find different packaging points. For example, among all beauties, some have celebrity faces, like the fake Fan Bingbing, some have breasts, and some have talents. Some things are beautiful, but they are so beautiful that people can't remember them at all. In that case, we can only work hard on the events.

Another important task is called user landing, which is actually to use some platforms and tools accumulated in daily life. When people come, we need to take them over and help them establish their authority, such as through special topics, exclusive interviews, etc.

In fact, there are many pitfalls in this regard. The following are just some of the more important ones that I think. I hope they will be helpful to your work:

In the 12 years that I have been working, the platforms I have worked on are probably not small platforms, and I have never felt that kol operation is easy. Even though the platform is big, they still don’t care about you. Maybe your budget is insufficient. Even if you have money, you may have wasted a lot of money. A certain product was once cheated by a famous singer named Mou Feng.

Even if the platform is small, or the work module you are responsible for is small, you can still achieve results as long as you work hard. Even if the success rate is low, if you contact a group of people a week, you will always be able to succeed a few. When you accumulate them and improve your methods and ideas, the result will be considerable. If you feel that you need to persist and the direction is right, then you must persist.

I used to spend a lot of time on Sina Weibo and worked hard to attract a lot of users. Even though the failure rate was as high as 90%, I still persisted and finally accumulated quite a lot. But when they really came in handy, I found that they were of no use, and only 2 cases remained. Later I concluded that I had not considered the other party's needs clearly.

These users already have many fans of their own and are more familiar with the platform. They are familiar with the gameplay and routines, and they can make very stable money. Why do you want him to open up a new territory?

Nowadays, many KOLs have reached the point where money cannot impress them because they don’t have the time and cannot do more things.

Later, I found that I was unable to influence these KOLs, so I gave up and switched to a completely new approach.

It's not impossible to recruit people directly from the top of the pyramid, but there are only a few companies with deep pockets that can spend money to kill you. Let's mainly discuss this from the perspective of saving costs or not spending money.

Generally speaking, it is difficult to attract the top users of a platform, such as the TOP50 users, and you will encounter many obstacles. But it’s not necessarily the case for the ones ranked later, for example, 100-500, because many people entered later, or they are simply not convinced and unwilling to give up. They want to have their own stage, and as long as they work hard, they will feel that they are excellent. As long as you spend more time and effort, you will definitely make a breakthrough and find many good ones.

Introducing and cultivating KOLs helps enhance the value of the platform. Introducing the wrong KOLs will not help and may even damage the value of your platform.

Reflecting on it now, some of the internet celebrities that Mop promoted back then were actually of no benefit, and some even brought a bad reputation to the platform. I won’t give any more examples in this regard.

Celebrities are definitely the largest category of KOLs at the moment. Everyone knows that they have the most fans, but everyone also knows that they are extremely expensive. We once invited a third-tier singer to post a Weibo and attend a press conference, and it cost 300,000 yuan. As for the effect, I cannot agree. We even hired a popular handsome guy as our spokesperson, spending several million, but the conversion rate was just so-so.

Which platforms are celebrities most loyal to? Will he promote you from the bottom of his heart? If we understand this problem, I think we can solve the key to the problem.

If a kol does not have enough footholds on your platform, he is likely to leave.

An important job of operations staff is to establish mechanisms, such as recommendations, incentives, constraints, rules and regulations, etc. These are actually the foundation-laying work. Otherwise, even if the best users come, you will not be able to handle them.

Many products that are once popular but short-lived actually have serious shortcomings in this area.

A product that satisfies all users is only 1.0. For many products, especially community-based products, the later functional iterations are actually designed to satisfy core users.

KOL operations also require product support. Only when product means and operation means are organically coordinated can they be more efficient.

It is impossible for any kol or platform to meet all the conditions of its life cycle (germination, growth, maturity, decline, and extinction). Like Mop back then, it made many people famous, but when they became completely famous, it was time for them to say goodbye to us because we could no longer give them greater value. Back then, Chopstick Brothers promoted "Memoirs of a Geisha" on Mop (Chopstick Brothers is an old mopper of Mop), but it didn't take off. Later, they became famous with "Old Boy". After becoming famous, the platform was no longer of much value to them.

The works of Jiaoshou Yi Xiaoxing were very popular on Mop in 2005 and 2006. Jiaoshou's videos are classics among classics, and Jiaoshou's mask is a perfect trademark. After Wanhe Tianyi and "Wan Wan Expected" became popular, all my WeChat friends have deleted me /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~. Just treat it with a normal mind!

The growth stage of kol is the easiest to manage and control because they have needs for you. After they mature, the operating costs will be very high because you will need them. Therefore, during the growth stage, we increase more investment, explore more routines, and establish deep friendships with them based on what we need. Relatively speaking, the cost will be lower.

Nowadays, the division of labor in the operation industry is becoming more and more detailed, and the requirements are becoming higher and higher. If you want to become an excellent operation personnel, you can't escape the kol link.

Of course, you will encounter more problems during the actual implementation process. Just one article will not help you solve all your doubts and make you an expert immediately. The key is to rely on practice and summary.

I hope that the above text will be helpful to you after reading it. Even if it can give you some inspiration, it will be enough.