KOL Marketing: 4 Steps to Becoming a KOL

There are always many people who want to become KOLs, but they have a vague understanding of KOLs and don’t know how to become a KOL. The author will answer these questions one by one.

Many people have wanted to become a KOL, and may have made various attempts: answering various questions every day on Zhihu and Maimai, opening more than one public account, but eventually they became exhausted and had to give up.

Today, from the perspective of operations, I will analyze how to go about this path for those students who still want to become KOLs or internet celebrities.

1. What is KOL?

Although KOL is a term that everyone uses easily and is familiar with, in fact, when we are doing some work on top user operations, we often confuse its boundaries.

Definition of KOL: Key Opinion Leader (KOL) is a concept in marketing. It is usually defined as a person who has more and more accurate product information, is accepted or trusted by the relevant group, and has a greater influence on the purchasing behavior of the group.

There is a difference between KOL and what we commonly call Internet celebrities. Simply put, KOL is an account that has appeal, influence, and credibility in its field.

This type of account can be a two-dimensional cartoon character or a real three-dimensional person. To put it bluntly, it is an "expert." It’s just that some media organizations or institutions praise “experts” too much, which leads to their demonization and disgust.

KOL must meet three criteria:

1. Have a strong interest or talent in a certain field;
2. Possess extensive domain expertise;
3. Able to produce a steady stream of insightful content.

2. How to become a KOL

The first step is to find a field you like.

The first step to becoming a KOL is to find a field that you are truly passionate about and good at, instead of choosing a major like in the college entrance examination: choose the one that makes more money or the one that will be popular in the future.

Some students may say, I have been a top student since I was young, and I will keep working hard on what I have set my mind to.

Becoming a KOL does not require you to be a top student, but a genius student. The biggest difference between a top student and a genius student is that a top student strictly follows a 997 schedule every day, while a genius student plays 24 hours a day and only reads for one day before the exam.

The despairing reality is that things are never fair in many things that we cannot choose.

I had a roommate in college who loved drawing and would often sit on the playground thinking with a pen and paper in his hand. I remember one month, he would get up in the middle of the night every day and write on his desk with an eraser. He would go out early in the morning to look for inspiration, and he would not attend classes or do homework.

Finally, he showed us four paintings, namely: the playground in heaven, the playground in purgatory, the aesthetic playground in Japanese style, and the cyberpunk playground. The details in the painting are perfect. The playground that we pass by every day for class looks completely different. It makes my hair stand on end, and it’s as thrilling as watching a Hollywood blockbuster.

Unfortunately, he eventually gave up painting and entered the popular financial industry under the arrangement of his family. The day before yesterday, when we were drinking, he said that his work was not going well because he was not good at financial work. Even though he worked hard every day, his performance was still far behind that of his colleagues.

The saying “diligence can make up for lack of talent” is true, but sometimes, it can only make up for “lack of talent”, and it is difficult to stand out.

When it comes to becoming a KOL, there is no leader, teacher or parent forcing you. Everything is your own choice. Why not choose a field you like?

When you complain that you work hard to write articles every day but still no one likes them, you should think about whether you have chosen the wrong direction. How can your work have soul if you create in a field that you don't love?

There has always been a strange trend in China, that is, people always like to do things they are not good at, under the euphemism of challenging themselves. For example, in some TV programs, foreigners insist on singing Chinese songs, and those who sing pop songs insist on singing Peking Opera. Why would they put themselves at a disadvantage when they have an advantage?

Most people spend their entire lives trying to "find themselves", but ultimately come back empty-handed. However, those who have discovered their talents, due to social pressure and family responsibilities, give up their talents and choose an ordinary life direction that is recognized by more people. Such a person will never be able to become a KOL because he or she really has no soul.

I have a very close friend from childhood who has been fat since he was young. His greatest love in life is eating. Besides loving to eat, he also loves to study food. I remember when he was a child, he would consciously clear out the snack cabinet every time he came to my house to play. He failed the junior high school entrance exam and the college entrance exam, and finally only went to an unknown third-tier university in Tianjin. However, he remained calm and was always persistently pursuing the taste experience in his mind.

According to him, he has tried all kinds of food from all over the world, but he just can't find the taste he imagined in his mind. Unfortunately, he can't describe it in words. With this obsession, he is now studying at a cooking school in France, despite his already amazing cooking skills. He said that he will return to China for me to taste once he can create that kind of flavor. Oh yes, he is now a food blogger with more than 3 million followers.

Before you do this, ask yourself: If WeChat stops operating one day, will you go to another platform and start over?

Step 2: Personalized Core

Being a KOL is not something you can just do by opening a public account. Many friends around me have failed in running public accounts. At first, they just wanted to open an account and write some beautiful articles every day, and then people would follow them. I’m sorry that this is not the case.

In fact, we can see that many corporate public accounts have several professional operators and editors and tens of millions of resources, but they are still lukewarm. The reason is very simple - they have no "soul". In fact, the "soul" of the public account that has been mentioned so many times is personification.

Let us go back to the most primitive form of KOL and savor what personalization is.

When I was a child, there were several well-known "celebrities" in our community. They were: Grandpa Wang, an old Chinese medicine doctor, Grandma Li, the matchmaker, and Aunt Feng, the owner of a cold noodle shop.

• Grandpa Wang, an old Chinese medicine doctor, has been practicing medicine for more than 50 years. He specializes in treating various difficult and complicated diseases. His medical skills are excellent and residents within a 5-kilometer radius all come to him for help when they feel unwell. One year when there was influenza, he said that drinking water soaked in orange peels could prevent it. As a result, the water cups of uncles and aunts in the entire community were filled with orange peels. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was a KOL in the medical and health circle.
• Matchmaker Grandma Li, the old lady loves gossip very much, and after retirement she becomes a matchmaker to make use of her spare time. She knows exactly how old the children in the community are, what their height and appearance are, and what type of partners they like. She ran around and successfully made several red lines, becoming famous. When her children are looking for a partner, she will definitely ask Grandma Li first. This is an emotional KOL.
• Aunt Feng, the owner of a Liangpi shop, became popular in the community because her Liangpi is so delicious. I remember that I wanted to go to her shop to eat cold noodles for three meals a day. Everyone would ask her why the cold noodles were so delicious. Aunt Feng was also a straightforward person and told us all the steps and ingredients for making the cold noodles. But everyone still couldn’t make the same taste when they went back, and slowly word of mouth spread, and even people from other places knew that there was a person named Aunt Feng who made the best cold noodles, and she became a food KOL specializing in making cold noodles.

Grandpa Wang, Grandma Li, Aunt Feng, I still don’t know their full names, but these three titles have become brands in their fields. No one disbelieves what these three people say in their respective fields.

Later, Aunt Feng’s Liangpi shop opened a branch, and her sign read: Aunt Feng’s Liangpi, Aunt Feng who only knows how to make Liangpi. This is personification.

The third step: craftsmanship

When chatting with friends in the same industry, people often ask a question: they can basically update their work every day, and the output is very high but the return is very low.

As we were talking, I casually followed his public account and took a look. The articles are really updated very frequently, with the most common interval being only 3 days. Being able to do this in a busy work life requires real hard work and a passion for one's interests.

However, a closer look reveals that the blind pursuit of quantity results in low-quality individual articles that fail to resonate with readers or lack truly useful knowledge points.

From the examples of Grandpa Wang, Grandma Li and Aunt Feng above, we can see that everyone is very focused and deeply engaged in the field they are good at. They may only do this one thing in their entire life, and this is why they can succeed. This is craftsmanship. Everyone believes what Grandpa Wang says about soaking orange peels to prevent influenza, based on the premise that Grandpa Wang cures more than 500 patients every month.

If you want to become a KOL, you must pay attention to quality and delve deeply into your field. Readers follow you to acquire the knowledge they need or learn some unique perspectives, not to kill time. Your ingenuity will make you uniquely differentiated from similar competitors.

So how do we practice craftsmanship?

It’s very simple. When you have thought of the topic of an article, if you are still unclear about some issues, go and look up information, study and summarize, and work hard on yourself. Then write after you have a clear understanding of it.

Even if you are not good at writing and you can only write a learning summary, it is also very valuable. After all, it takes a hardcore skill to make readers understand the knowledge you have learned in 5 or 6 hours in 10 minutes.

Step 4: Know how to speak up

Since it is called "Key Opinion Leader" , it means that KOL is different from ordinary Internet celebrities and celebrities. Your real value lies in the following three points:

1. Key: “Key” means that at critical moments, especially at time nodes in the field, when major industry news and turning points in the industry situation come, you must at least stand up and show that you are paying attention to this matter.
2. Opinion: On key issues, you can’t just speak out and not say anything. You have to express your views and thoughts and stand your ground. Many conflicting events depend on which side’s opinion is more convincing.
3. Leader: "Leader", you must not just entertain yourself, but speak up for your fans. You are like a megaphone, and you must say what your fans who have always supported you want to say. Therefore, you must think carefully about every point you make, because you represent tens of thousands or even millions of people behind you.

Therefore, if you want to become a KOL, you must cultivate both inside and outside: not only knowledge, but also personality. Eventually, your language, narrative style, values, focus, and personality will be integrated into the "soul" of your public account, and people who share a similar soul with you will like you.

Source: Wu Jiahao (theivanmind)