To be a successful KOL, you need to have an outstanding personal image and show your good understanding of a certain aspect in order to catch the audience’s attention. Talking about some popular beauty KOL, many of you will think of Pony, the well-known beauty blogger in South Korea.
Pony is a makeup artist from South Korea, she also helps CL, who is the famous female singer, do her makeup. A few years ago, Pony started her YouTube Channel ‘Pony Syndrome’, uploading makeup tutorials and some celebrities inspired makeup videos. Her excellent makeup techniques and detailed explanation bring her audience. Currently, there are over 5 million audiences subscribing her channel. Apart from YouTube, Pony is also active on Instagram with over 6 million followers. Pony started her own cosmetics business — ‘Pony Effect’ years before, which became one of the favorite makeup brands among the young ladies. Even Pony has her own brand, this never stops other beauty brands like Dior, Etude House, Givenchy, Shu Uemura and the like to cooperate with Pony.
The reason why Pony is so successful is that she sufficiently exploits her strength — makeup. As mentioned in the last post, making use of your hobbies and profession can help you yield twice the result with half the effort.
Plus, under the trend of Korean culture, Korean style makeup has gained great popularity in the market. Pony’s YouTube Channel can exactly meet the market demand. By adding English subtitles in her videos, the channel caters the need of audience worldwide, this helps her being known by more overseas audiences. These days, more and more brands invite KOLs to promote their products or services or be the spoken person. Why brands are using KOL marketing more frequently? In the generation of ‘everyone can be KOL’, how should brands choose suitable KOLs to cooperate with?
If you are targeting young consumers, it is good for you to use KOL marketing. According to Social Identity Theory, we tend to communicate with people who share something in common with us, including age, background, hobbies, belief and so on. We also tend to believe their opinion than others. Many of the KOLs are young generation, compare to the celebrities shown on TV programs or movies, they are more ‘down to earth’, which makes their ideas accepted by the young audience. Take Pony as an example, being a KOL aged between 20 and 30, her thought may be similar to her audience, who are passionate in makeup with a certain level of consuming power, they may be convinced by Pony easily. Therefore, there is no doubt that cosmetics brands like to invite Pony for cooperation or promotion.
Moreover, KOLs in particular professions are likely to be taken as being at an authoritative position by the audience and their opinion is more trustworthy for potential customers to consider. Like Pony, as she is a professional makeup artist, if she publishes makeup tutorial using brands that she cooperates with, it will be more convincing.
If you would like to use KOL marketing as one of the marketing strategies, you should first consider your group of target customers and choose suitable KOLs to cooperate with. Inviting KOLs in relevant industries for promotion can greatly increase your brand awareness and reputation!
