How do advertisers choose KOC in 2022?

In 2019, the concept of KOC (Key Opinion Consumer) emerged and quickly attracted the attention of the social media marketing market. Some people were pessimistic about it, while others supported it. Compared with KOL, KOC has fewer fans, but represents people who are closer to ordinary consumers. Faced with a new marketing concept, many advertisers and MCN agencies have chosen not to lag behind and have begun to try out KOC marketing .

Three years after the concept became popular, where is the KOC marketing market heading?

Although the KOC concept has been questioned, brands' enthusiasm for KOC investment has continued to grow rapidly this year. Compared with 2021, the amount of money invested by brands in KOC marketing increased by 322% year-on-year, and the number of industries involved increased from 8 to 14. International brands with strong financial strength and rich experience in social media marketing occupy 82% of the KOC demand market.

From the perspective of the investment industry, the beauty and daily chemical industry accounts for 72%, and the growth of the home appliance industry is particularly rapid; from the perspective of industry commonalities, industries with low consumption thresholds and strong consumer universality are more willing to try KOC marketing.

At the same time, from the perspective of brands’ marketing demands on KOCs, in addition to daily promotion, 48% of advertisers choose to combine KOC promotion with marketing scenarios. Among them, the demands for new grass varieties and node-planting grass are the most vigorous. In terms of marketing platform selection, 73% of the investment is concentrated on the Xiaohongshu platform, followed by Weibo and Douyin, the two major topic marketing platforms.

Judging from the performance of the KOL+KOC integrated marketing project that Weibo provided to a certain brand client, KOC influencers have more advantages in the CPM data of the overall project due to their cheaper prices and larger number of influencers.

In terms of cooperation methods, advertisers prefer to cooperate with KOCs in the form of "micro-original" content, that is, the brand provides materials and information, and the influencer fine-tunes the content. The micro-original form of cooperation can not only accurately convey the key features of the product through the mouth of the KOC, but also create differentiated content output. KOC has a natural advantage in this type of content marketing.

What kind of KOC experts will stand out in 2022?

Nowadays, social media platforms have become an indispensable source of information for the younger generation. KOLs are becoming more and more "celebrity-like". Factors such as intensified industry market competition and more rational consumers have given rise to new changes in the social media marketing market. On the one hand, brands pay more attention to conversion effects in social media marketing and are more strict in selecting influencers; on the other hand, consumers also pay more attention to the uniqueness of influencers and the quality of content, and their purchasing decisions also need to be repeatedly stimulated. Weibo predicts that KOC marketing will develop in the following directions in 2022:

1. Data-driven number selection, cost-effectiveness first

For advertisers, the KOC group is huge and selection is difficult. In the selection of KOC data, more and more advertisers use CPE (interaction cost) and fan volume indicators as necessary criteria for KOC screening. KOC celebrities with relatively more fans and lower CPE (interaction cost) are more favored by advertisers.

2. Choose accounts based on “people”. KOCs should also have distinct personalities and outstanding authenticity.

Unclear features and low authenticity have always been issues that are often criticized in KOC marketing. In the future, advertisers will pay more attention to the "human" characteristics when selecting KOCs. KOCs with distinct personalities, obvious content characteristics, and strong authenticity will be more attractive to brands and consumers.

3. Circle-based number selection: crowd characteristics, brand fit, and marketing scenarios are all essential

As we mentioned earlier, in recent years, advertisers have become more specific in their focus on marketing scenarios and their demands for marketing experience among groups and categories in KOC marketing. Reaching a more precise audience circle with more specific marketing demands has become an inevitable demand for brands in future KOC influencer marketing.