A key component of marketing has always been leveraging your fans and customers through word-of-mouth. While we know its importance, until recently the challenge has been measuring the success and reach of brand chatter. We now have the ability to measure the effectiveness of our social media and online initiatives, allowing us to collect the data we need on word-of-mouth initiatives and actually tie them to sales. This is extremely attractive to advertisers, marketers and their clients and, with the rise of “the influencer,” it provides an opportunity to extend our audience in a trackable and targeted way.

“We call them KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) now”, says Chris Breikss, Founding Partner of 6S Marketing, a marketing agency based in Vancouver, Toronto and New York City. “With the rise of popularity in incorporating KOLs into corporate marketing strategies, some agencies and businesses that aren’t jumping on board are being left behind.”

If you haven’t considered adding influencers or KOLs, perhaps it’s time to do so.

What is a “KOL” or “Influencer”?

A KOL/influencer can be defined as someone who carries influence over others in their purchasing decisions. The way in which someone can be influential to others can vary and no two influencers are the same. How we view who qualifies as a KOL has changed significantly in the past few years. It used to be we’d see mostly celebrities who would be representing brands or showcasing products. Now we’re seeing it’s not just celebrities, but the “everyday” social media user who influences others.

Some of the key definitions of what makes someone influential:

Followers

The sheer number of followers someone has can make them influential. Someone with thousands and thousands of real followers (check for spam) is clearly doing something right and may help you reach a targeted demographic or market.

Quality of followers

An influencer may not have a lot of followers, but the followers they have are incredibly dedicated and passionate. They bring on a lot of engagement and sharing, which has the power to further their reach far beyond that of the following.

Celebrity

Fame is instantly influential, but jumping on to someone’s personal brand who is also a celebrity can be expensive. Many brands hire celebrities to promote their products or campaigns on social media, at a substantial cost. Canadian supermodel Coco Rocha is the perfect example of someone with a huge following who is working with major brands on social media campaigns.

Doing my best #DonDraper at the #MadMen screening hosted by the MOMA tonight. The end of an era!

A photo posted by Coco Rocha (@cocorocha) on Mar 22, 2015 at 4:10pm PDT

Expertise

Trust is invaluable on social media, as people now are trained to look at everything online with a certain skepticism. While people might react to your own messaging with skepticism, the support of the right expert can wipe away any doubts. If you can find a trusted expert in a field relevant to your business on social media, this can be a huge driver of awareness and sales. Businesses should be striving to show their own expertise on social media as well, in the hopes of one day earning that inherent trust.

Good Taste/Quality

There are times when someone with good taste is just as important as the other types of influencers mentioned. Identifying someone who may not currently have a lot of followers or influence, but who has good taste and is developing an organic following can be useful. These people, when given an opportunity, can instantly become extremely influential, as they may just be developing their online identity. Each type of influencer offers something different. Understanding your brand goals will help you choose the best fit for your project.

Advantages of KOL Marketing

The beauty of incorporating KOLs into your marketing plan is that this form of marketing is  not only measurable with analytics tools and reporting, but it’s also completely targeted. “Influencer marketing is unique because it’s a great way for brands to effectively engage with individuals that have specific targeted audiences,” shares Dennis Pang, Co-Founder (full disclosure: with me) of Popcorn, a digital marketing agency based in Vancouver, BC. “It’s important for brands to find the right individuals whose subject matter and audiences align well with their project goals and target market.” Working with carefully selected individuals is not only a great way to reach your current market, but a great opportunity to connect with new market segments that otherwise would have no contact with your brand: “We work with influencers regularly and will often choose those that aren’t the obvious choice for a brand, but who we know have reach into markets that we have yet to actively market to, but would like to,” says Pang.

Incorporating KOLs into Your Marketing Campaign

There are a few key things to think about before getting started with incorporating individuals in to your campaigns.

Who Should You Work With?

Choose your KOLs wisely! When selecting who you’re working with, you should have a good sense of who this person is, what their audience wants from them, if the look and feel of their brand is inline with yours, if the content you’re asking them to post will work with the rest of their content and if you’re ready and willing to let go of some creative control. When you’ve made your decision to approach someone, it makes sense to start by telling him or her who you are, who your audience is, what you’re trying to achieve and engage in a conversation about how the relationship will work. This process should be a back and forth and, again, no two people are alike—it’s important to remember you’re working with unique individuals and they may have their own thoughts or ideas on how to incorporate your business in to their social channels.

Allow for Creative Freedom

You should always have a creative vision and messaging around your campaign, but remember that a KOL is not a spokesperson—you’re not necessarily going to have perfect alignment. This is when understanding who you’re approaching and including in your campaign is incredibly important. An experienced KOL will help determine the creative fit as well. “I know from first contact a campaign won’t be the right fit when, the requested work is so far outside my creative zone that it becomes painfully obvious [a business] is only looking at the number of followers I have, rather than the type of photos and videos that I make”, says Maurice Li (@Maurice), Co-Founder and photographer of creative agency Stay and Wander. Similarly, Spandy Andy, a YouTube celebrity known around the world, tries to maintain a lot of creative control in the work he’s doing: “Some brands don’t mesh well or they want too much control. With me, it needs to be organic. I was contacted by a mobile app and they wanted to control the video production. I felt it would not be well received and declined.”

It can be a challenge for agencies to work in between the influencer and the client. Chris Breikss of 6S Marketing has a hard time getting clients and KOLs on the same page: “Right now I would say the biggest challenge for agencies, is marrying the client’s objectives with what the KOL is comfortable sharing and ensuring they get the tone right.” Understand who you’re working with and allow for flexibility. These influencers have worked hard to build a relationship with their followings, and their first priority will be to protect their reputation with that audience. They also likely understand that following better than you do. Try to work with influencers to understand their audience and come to an agreement on a campaign that meets both of your needs. Giving them creative freedom will likely result in not only a better, but a more effective campaign.

How Businesses are Incorporating KOLs

Companies all over the world are investing a large percentage of their marketing budgets towards influencer marketing. Here are some examples of campaigns that have caught my eye recently.

Ford Canada

Ford Canada has put a major focus on KOL outreach in the last few years. Recently, they sent a group of bloggers and online influencers on a fishing trip, that was tracked on social media, using the #FordBacktoBasics hashtag.

Participating was a no brainer for Vancouver based author and photographer, John Biehler. “Whenever I’m pitched something, I always consider what’s being offered, is it something unique, that I haven’t done before or if it’s even something I want to do. I hadn’t been fishing (of any kind) since I was a kid and Sturgeon fishing was definitely unique that I hadn’t done before. Having been involved with Ford previously, I knew it would be an interesting and well run event.”

Huckberry

Huckberry has chosen to incorporate KOLs by way of brand ambassadors. Not only are they offering products to those who are inline with their brand, but also giving these individuals their own trackable online store with curated items. These online stores give KOLs the ability to share a direct link to the products they’re talking about, and also a commission that goes back to the individual, upon each sale from the page.

“Working with Huckberry made a lot of sense for me,” says Shayd Johnson, Lifestyle Photographer from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. “Not only did they come to me with an offer of clothing and supplies that I would have needed otherwise, but they also gave me creative freedom, ensuring that incorporating the brand and product on my feed made sense with what I was trying to achieve personally. Having that flexibility was really important.”

The value of this project can be huge for a company like Huckberry. Johnson gives the brand access to the analytics of his posts and provides value with professional photography. “Huckberry can very easily see and measure the success of the work I’m doing, by simply looking at the likes on each of the photos I post, or reviewing the analytics and purchases on my curated store. I’ve also given them value through my photography. The cost savings on that alone is huge for them.”

Contiki Canada

Image by Contiki
Image by Contiki

Some brands go far above and beyond just sticking to local adventures. Casie Stewart had a great experience with Contiki Canada in 2013 with a trip to Thailand.

“I was approached to join a group of Canada’s top YouTubers to go to Thailand and document my experience. My job was to share my experience and tell stories through my travels. I had so many tweets, videos, Instagrams from that trip! People have talked about it with me ever since, my followers all remember being there with me via updates. It was a once in a lifetime experience!”

Casie had no issue saying yes to a trip that would be a great opportunity for her, as well as something that would be of interest to her followers. Being required to provide social media analytics and detailed reports was all part of the process. “All of the bigger campaigns I’ve been a part of, I’ve always had to provide reports and data on the reach of my posts,” says Stewart.

Businesses should always be evaluating the data and ensuring the initiatives and influencers chosen are giving them the desired results. Hootsuite gives you the tools for measuring campaign success through analytics and tracking mentions of the brand or campaign hashtags with social listening streams.

Influence Comes at a Price

While there are some exceptions to the rule, those with influence generally don’t work for free. Many of them treat social media as a business. If you want access to their large networks, who trust them and believe in their personal brand, you need to be ready to dedicate marketing budget to your influencer campaigns.

“A large potato chip brand asked me to come to a farm out of town so they could film me and a blogger friend for the day to be on their YouTube channel.” Shares Casie Stewart, lifestyle and travel blogger and Canadian YouTube veteran. “I wasn’t offered any compensation for my time, use of name + likeness, or gas money. I turned it down.”

These people are getting pitched new ideas every day. How will you stand out?

How KOL Marketing Will Change

With the rising popularity of this kind of marketing, we’ll see brands incorporating KOLs in a variety of new ways. Companies that will succeed will be those who choose to market subtly and allow creative freedom to the individuals they choose to work with. Paying attention to social trends, new platforms and being open minded towards the constantly changing world of online marketing.

Do you have personal experience working with influencers or questions on how to get started? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.