KOL (Key Opinion Leader), a pile of innovative practitioners of new industry, who always strike poses, take photos and even hire assistants to take photos for them at numerous media events or press conferences. They just look like celebrities with attitudes, charisma and strong sense of presence. They can attend to the events during office hours, which means they normally do not have full-time jobs—maybe KOL is their fulltime job. I ask my friend “Can they make their livings?” My friend replies “ The fee his/her of his single post might be more expensive than your single advertisement!”
No matter the number of fanbase or the charge fee of each post, both counts multi-thousands figures for KOL (even exceeds some celebrities’ fanbases and charge fee). The huge numbers does really attract lots of brands to invest on them, but are these fanbases really help the promotion and the branding for the companies? Despite the source of the vast number of fans, the background and the purchasing power of each one of them is it as same as the expectation from the brand, in order to foster their sales performance?
Recently I met with some fellows to discuss with this topics, everyone believes KOL can allow the clients to notice their number of fans but not necessary to see the sales figures, especially luxury goods like watches, wine, fashion items. Normally most of the fans cannot afford with these luxury or high-end products. After watching the styles of these KOL, the fans will buy the products with same style at Taobao. The brands pay a large amount of money to KOL but increase the business opportunities for Taobao, which is an
enormous loss for them. In contrary, with the solid foundations and credibility built for years and the effective use of social media, our traditional media can definitely gather the real targeted client. We can still provide outstanding work and sales result even without eighty thousand to ten thousand fans figures.
Numbers seem to be unreal in my opinons, so we still cannot figure out these people are
KOL or lol……
最近在很多傳媒活動或記者會中，都會遇到一些新興行業的從業員 --- 就是所謂KOL (Key Opinion Leader) 的人士！他們在活動中花枝招展，不斷在現場擺甫士、玩自拍，有些甚至請埋助手幫他們拍照，就像名人明星一樣有架子、有台型、有霸氣；他們在Office Hour能夠出席這些傳媒活動，證明他們多數應該沒有正職 --- 或者這份KOL的工作就是正職，我問朋友：「他們真的能搵夠食嗎？」朋友說：「佢出一個post，分分鐘仲貴過你一版廣告呀！」
這些KOL的粉絲超過十萬八萬，他們出Post收費動輒數萬元，這樣的粉絲數量及收費甚至連一些明星也有不及；當然，牌面有這樣的數字，很多品牌都願意投放資源/資金在他們身上，但問題是這些粉絲背後反映的真實意義，又是否真的對品牌推廣及建立有幫助呢？先不說這些海量粉絲的來源，問題是這些粉絲的背景及消費能力，又是不是如一些品牌的期望一樣，最後能幫助產品銷售呢？
最近我跟一些傳媒行家聚會，也有討論過這題目，大家都認為雖然這些KOL能帶給客戶看得到的粉絲數字，但卻不一定能帶來看得到的銷量，尤其是一些高檔的消費品、奢侈品，例如名錶、名酒、名牌服飾等範疇，便不是一般粉絲能承受及消費的產品；粉絲看完這些KOL的造型後，隨即去淘寶購買相類似的產品⋯⋯那些品牌客戶絕對是賠了夫人又折兵，付了錢給KOL卻幫了人家淘寶做生意；相反，我們這些傳統媒體如果能有效利用Social Media，憑藉多年基礎及公信力，集合真正有實力的目標客戶，就算沒有十萬八萬粉絲，也可以做到出色的效果、交出真正的銷售成績！
我總覺得，這些KOL即使有大量粉絲，一切數字最後也只屬虛幻，是KOL還是 lol 絕對也未可知⋯⋯
