KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing, aka influencer marketing, was one of the major trends to emerge in China’s social media era. In 2022, China’s consumers seem to be shifting to KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) for product recommendations.
What is KOL and KOC?
KOLs are individuals who are trusted and respected based on their status quo. This includes movie stars, models, celebrities or people who are self made influencers who’ve made it big on social media and are paid to promote products and services.
KOC on the other hand, are essentially micro influencers. They are ordinary everyday consumers who enjoy sharing their experiences on social media. They may have less followers but typically have a closer relationship with their followers than KOL does making their reviews more credible. Unlike KOL campaigns, KOC Campaigns are typically unpaid.
The Rise of KOC Marketing
Several reasons why KOC Marketing is booming:
- Chinese consumers are growing more sophisticated and have a lot of options to avoid traditional advertising. A lower attention span also means it’s challenging to keep their attention once you have it.
- Consumers are now more aware that KOLs are promoting products due to sponsorships or being paid. Hence, they crave more authentic content that is not commercially influenced such as KOC.
- The past few years have seen a decrease in performance of KOLs in China, yet costs have increased and become unbearable for most brands.
- The Chinese social media landscape has become more fragmented. Consumers have countless platforms to get information that creates complexity for brands to leverage every single platform. With KOCs the job is dones for them.
Is This The End of KOL?
The world of online marketing is big enough for both KOLs and KOCs to coexist. Every brand needs an individual to be their brand image and people to create conversations around the brand through genuine user experiences.
In fact, marketers are turning towards a 2 part approach where a combination of KOL is used to increase brand exposure and KOC marketing is used to market more granularly target specific consumer groups.
At IG Marketing Solutions, we successfully used this approach for our recent RED campaigns. If you’d like to grow your brand with this strategy, contact us for more details.
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