In this article, we will review:

• Why influence and KOL should be part of your digital marketing in China  ?
• How to define the right influence marketing strategy ?
• Where to find the key opinion leaders ?
• How to reach out and negotiate with KOL ?

Digital marketing in China: Why your brand need the influence of KOL ?

The first question you may ask yourself is why do I need to work with influencers in China ? 

In China, netizens have highly rely on the opinion of their peers to make decisions. Those social recommendations have grown in popularity and are often perceived as more reliable than media or advertising.

Building brand credibility in China with influencer marketing

As such working with influencers is first a way to gain credibility and trust among your Chinese audience. So, it’s important to select influencers you feel comfortable working with. You need to see them as trustworthy people yourself as they are endorsing your brand.

Bad endorsements is also a risk for brands. And, there are multiple examples of brands having faced backlash in China because of their ambassadors. For example, NARS, the cosmetic company was badly hit in 2018. The backlash happened after working with a KOL, who was detained for using marijuana back in 2014. As such you need to make sure your collaboration with a KOL do not turn into a PR nightmare.

Creating brand awareness in China with influencer (KOL) marketing

The second key reason to collaborate with influencers is to increase brand awareness in China. With large community on social media platforms like WeChat, Sina Weibo or XiaHongShu, KOL can give visibility to your product instantly.

However, you need to keep in mind that visibility is only a short term gain, and that your investment will be negative if your collaboration does not have a long term impact and make your brand memorable. 

A short term campaign with a KOL can have significant cost for a brand when you add up the influencer fee, the discounted pricing on product, the campaign production… If this is not done with a long term approach, the impact on the brand visibility will not be optimal.

In interview with Next Ren Shanghai, an influencer reminded brands that they need to have a long term approach of their relationship they develop with KOL to maximise the impact on the audience.

Read the interview of a French Food Influencer in China

How to make influencer part of your digital marketing strategy in China ?

Digital Marketing Campaigns in China

When you launch a new product, or want to celebrate a special occasion like Chinese New Year or 11.11, your brand will need to create a special campaign including digital content and interactive web experiences like games.

Working with KOL can give a genuine twist to your campaign and you should leverage KOL to create content like videos that will engage their audience with more impact. You might even decide to make the collaboration with this KOL the centerpiece of your digital marketing  with a co-creation.

Social Media Marketing in China

Social media platforms are the playground of influencer. They know the platforms inside out and might even give your brand visibility outside your brand social media presence in China. As such you need to integrate influencer in your social media strategy and leverage KOL support to:

• Gain visibility on your brand accounts, for example by reposting or commenting on your brand post on Sina Weibo
• Recruit followers and build your community on WeChat
• Explore new territories on platforms your brand might not be on yet like XiaoHongShu or Douyin

Keep in mind social media is about interacting with different communities, especially on public platforms like Sina Weibo. As such, social media listening is key in China to identify who is already talking about your brand including KOL as well as KOC (Key Opinion Consumers). As a brand you should have genuine interaction with their content, it will help you get some exposure and a positive image in those communities.

E-commerce Marketing in China

E-commerce is a key area of KOL collaboration as they can maximise sale and have a direct impact on your revenue online. KOL can help you demonstrate the value of your product to your Chinese customers with live streaming videos directly on e-commerce platforms like TMall or JD.

In the meantime, it is common for KOL and KOC to sell product directly to their audience on WeChat. As such WeChat has demonstrated over the year its capabilities to become a online e-commerce platform.

A successful way, brands have been collaborating with KOL on e-commerce in China is through flash sales on a limited amount of unique and exclusive product. For example, thanks to the promotion of a limited edition of 80 bags with a KOL, Givenchy manage to sell 1.2 million worth of products in less than 12 minutes.

Discover the best plaforms for e-commerce in China

How to identify, reach out and negotiate with KOL for your digital marketing in China ?

Work with a digital marketing agency in China

Part of the job of your digital marketing or social media agency like Next Ren in China is to help identify KOL and KOC for brands. They value added of an agency is to provide the client with an integrated comprehensive digital marketing strategy and planning.

As discussed in the previous points, KOL should not be approached ex nihilo and must be part of your digital campaigns, social media, and e-commerce effort. As such a digital marketing agency in China will make sure all the pieces fit together.

Use existing Chinese KOL platforms to recruit influencers

Today, multiple platforms will let you browse through KOL profiles for free or with a subscription model, like KOLStore.com.

If those platforms can be useful to reach out easily to KOL, collaboration will mostly be money oriented and evaluating the performance of each KOL can be a challenge.

Reach out to KOL and KOC directly on social media

This genuine research and reach out is our favorite method. As mentioned above, KOL research should be part of your pro-active social listening effort in China. If you are truly serious about being successful you need to know and keep identifying who is talking about your industry on social media; follow them and interact with them.

This methodology will give you the opportunity to build stronger and more long term relationships with KOL in China.

Negotiating and compensating influencer (KOL) for digital marketing support in China

Most influencers (KOL) in China collaborate with brands as a business. As such financial compensation is more and more standard. In this situation, many KOL will work with an agent that will directly bill you for the influencer service.

However, financially compensating influencers is not the only option. Providing product or experience for KOL to share and give away to their community can be beneficial for both. You must never underestimate the value of your brand and the positive impact you can have on them. This is especially true with smaller KOL or KOC who can gain legitimacy by collaborating with international or local brands.

Collaborating with influencers is a two way street. For example, giving access to professional resources can be highly valued (video production).

Like in all aspect of digital marketing in China, keep in mind you must be creative. Always think outside the box to find the best win-win deals for your brand and influencers. 

Pricing - How much does influencer (KOL) marketing cost in China ?

In China, KOL pricing will mostly be a function of the size of the community; and the number of fans they can reach . However, you should definitely factor the level of engagement; or the creative implication of the KOL to get the right price.

Here some references for brand to use in future KOL negociation:

For Sina Weibo, an influencer with a reach of 1-2 million people will cost around 30,000 CNY for one post. On another hand, on WeChat, for a reach of 50,000 people, the cost can rise up to 40,000 CNY.

As such, to build your network of KOL in China; you can reach to a digital marketing agency like Next Ren Shanghai !

Next Ren is a digital marketing agency in Shanghai.

Follow us on LinkedIn and WeChat to stay updated on WeChat trends.

The post How to work with influencers (KOL) in China for your digital marketing ? appeared first on Next 人.

●       How did he become a KOL in China ?

●       What is the daily life and challenges of an influencer in China

●       Why China is so unique when it comes to influence marketing ?

●       How does he collaborate with brands ?

The genesis: becoming a food KOL in China

Tell us a few words about you what is your background ? Why did you come in China ?

To give you some background, I fell in love with China very early. Since being a child, I have been practicing martial arts and have a full admiration for Bruce Lee. In 2008, I had the chance to visit China for the first time, teaching English in Chongqing. My love relationship with China was officially sealed when I met my Chinese wife in London a few years later, and when we decided to come to Beijing to live.

How did you start on Chinese social media platform ? Why sharing content about food ?

First, food is a central element of who I am. It’s part of a family heritage  transmitted by my mother. I believe food is a perfect key and opportunity to share, socialize and interact with people. I believe every culture, every man and woman, like France and China, can come together, and understand each other thanks to  food.

Second, food is also a great way to address a large variety of topics like health, children education, love or the environment. Those are growing interests in China where topics like fighting obesity, how what you eat impact environment, or how to convey your cultural heritage to your children in a modern society is at the heart of the Chinese society concern.

So, it felt very natural for me to use food as a key topic to share on Chinese social media platforms. I started by opening a Sina Weibo account in 2012. And, as I had some background creating media and marketing content for  work, I could very easily produce my own. So basically, it started as an afterwork hobby. To relax and chill, I took pictures of the food I cooked, sharing some recipes, and even filming myself cooking. It was the perfect way to improve my Chinese as well. All the content was then shared on Sina Weibo.

Influence: Building an audience and content on Chinese social media platforms

How did you do to grow your audience ?

It was very organic and progressive. It started slowly but some key people start noticing my efforts and found the content genuine. It gave me the opportunity to be invited to TV shows and events, each one participate in building my community and creating some buzz around my account. So the growth was not linear and it has never been an objective for me to have a big audience.

So, when did influencer became a full time activity in China? When did you become officially a KOL ?

My work before becoming a full time influencer was actually to create and manage a KOL program for a major Chinese e-commerce platform. So this professional experience gave me exceptional understanding of the key success factors and helped me to see the value of my effort in content creation. So, in 2015, I decided to focus on building my own content full time, and also luckily landed a major TV show for Anhui TV.

For me, the content is really at the heart of my work and the way I connect with my community. The growth of the social media community and engagement are the results of the content quality. It is the way to impact, connect with my audience and what motivates me on a daily basis.

You began on Sina Weibo, how about WeChat?

WeChat came later for me. Even if I saw the rise of the platform, I did not try to leverage it immediately as a “business” would do. So we started late, and as WeChat is quite “private” compared to Sina Weibo, it was not the perfect platform for us to share content with a massive public audience. Today, Sina Weibo still do a better job to achieve this purpose.

Some marketers and expert have been announcing the death of Sina Weibo for years. Do you think it still a relevant platform in China ?

Yes, definitely. Sina Weibo is a great platform to engage and share content. And over the years, it has shown some great resilience. In China, there are always new platforms and trends, which do not always last. For example, Miaopai or some livestream have been very hot 2 years ago but are not relevant anymore. However, live streaming has become very relevant on e-commerce platforms like Taobao or JD.

In the meantime, the main game changer was WeChat, it has definitely changed the way we interact in China. However, it is a very “private” platform and can not really be compared with Sina Weibo. 

As a KOL, are you “testing” those hot social media platforms ? What platform is hot right now in China ?

As a key opinion leader, I need to follow the trends, however it’s not always easy and can be time consuming. I want to stay focused on producing great content first.

At the moment, we have been developing XiaoHongShu (Little Red Book) since one year. I  am also building content on a cooking APP (XiaChuFang)) where I get amazing engagement from my audience.

How about Douyin (TikTok) which is very hot right now for video content ?

I have a mixed feeling about Douyin (TikTok). For sure, it’s very popular but the quality of the content can be deceiving. It’s really about entertainment and can some time feel like a waste of time for users.  For content on Douyin, the real challenge is to catch the user attention very fast and be impactful. Furthermore, the algorithm of TikTok is very random, some content get a lot of views, and the size of the community has almost no impact on the visibility of the content. So it is not an easy platform to navigate.

Influencer working with brands and digital marketing agency in China

Part of your activity as an influencer, is to collaborate with brands and digital marketing agency like Next-Ren. How do you apprehend this part of the job ? How do you work with brands ?

I mostly work with brands thought digital agencies, however, I remain an independent KOL and I did not sign an exclusive contract with an agent. This is important as it gives me the opportunity to really choose the project and the people I am working with.

I had the chance to work with dozens of brands and actively pitch some creative ideas. I like projects where I am a part of the creative process and I can add value that goes beyond pure influence. I believe this is also a way to stay true to my community.

Can you share the names of some brands you have been working with ?

Sure, I have the chance to work with brands like Samsung, Citroen, Mercedes Benz, Président or Siemens.

Great, what is your expectations when you work with a brand ? What are the challenges?

I am very flexible in the way I work with brands in China. The key expectations are content quality and staying true to myself and my audience. One aspect, I believe brand should improve is building long term relationship with influencer, and fight the short term, one time campaign approach. There is a lot of indirect exposure brand can gain from working with influencer on a longer time frame.

The daily life of an influencer in China

Can you tell us about a typical day of your life ?

Every day is different, but always very hectic. I am doing  most of the work myself, from planning content, writing scenario, filming, editing and even producing my own music !

Hopefully, I can always count on the support of my wife who is working with me and became both an agent and a project manager. Also, my two boys are very involved and became a central part of the content I create.

Outside the daily support of your family, is there a team working with you ?

We do not have a full time team with us at the moment. We recruit freelancers depending on the support us or the agency needs for each project. I had the chance to work in the industry for a long time in China so we can build a great team in little time.

What is Next ?

What are the projects you have in the back of your mind and hope to work on soon ?

Woww, there are so many projects and ideas I would love to develop around food as an influencer in China.

First, there is so much to discover in China for foreigners and even Chinese that I would really love to build a show to bring French chefs around China. And the other way around in France with Chinese people. I believe we have an incredible chance in France to have such traditions of craftsmanship in food that we should show it more to the Chinese people who love to travel in France.

For now we're focused on building our social media as we want to reach more Chinese fans and share our message of health and happiness. We get lots of positive comments every single day so it's very encouraging!

To build work with influencers and KOL in China, you can reach to a digital marketing agency like Next Ren Shanghai !

The post Influence Marketing: How a French KOL share his love for food in China ? appeared first on Next 人.