Where Do I Find China KOL Influencers? How Much Do KOLs Cost?

You are trying to tap into the Chinese market, but you don’t know anything about the social media landscape and how to reach your target audience.

You might also already know your ideal candidate for partnership but don’t know how to find them.

You are probably asking this question because China holds the world title for Most Confusing Social Media Ecosystem. KOL marketing costs in China and where to find them are a total enigma.

Take all the influencers on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok then multiply that by 10. That’s how many influencers you have in China on Weibo, RED, WeChat, and Douyin. You can read about the top social media platforms WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) here to differentiate your needs here.

You have two options:

1. Sign up for your target social media platforms and look up the relevant users and influencers in your industry.

Go on Weibo, Douyin, Little Red Book or any target social media platform and search for influencers in your industry using relevant hashtags for your product and industry. E.g. Weibo format for hashtags which is closed on both sides. (e.g. #微博#).

The process might be difficult as there isn’t a direct search engine that filters the influencers for you. Most of these platforms have international versions, but the apps do not offer a full translation function. Weibo and Little Red Book is are the only platforms that have a website version where you can use Google Translate to immediately translate the entire page.

Message the Weibo KOL about your product, brand, and key marketing message to negotiate a price or format that you can work together.

Finding the perfect influencers for your brand can be a very long, and very time-consuming process. Especially when it is not your area of expertise. But with time and effort, you will be able to find an influencer that you can work with.

2. Use marketing agencies that targets influencers who match your audience profile.

Working with a social media influencer agency can help to streamline the process of influencer marketing. That’s especially true if your brand is completely new to influencer marketing. Working with ChinaKOL can make it easy to get a sense of how the process works. Agencies also offer valuable advice on how to enter the China market and how to best position your brand.

We keep you from having to trawl through social media and match you with an influencer with the right amount of engagement and the appropriate subject niche.

You might be unsure how much to pay influencers or what a fair price is for a campaign. An agency can help to guide you through the negotiation process with an influencer and give you a good idea of the going rate for a campaign, based on the influencers’ clout and engagement rate.

Marketing agencies also have the best deals with their influencers due to their long-term working relationships and trust rather than if you went an negotiated a price individually.

There are many agencies out there where influencer campaign ranges from $1k to $500k. ChinaKOL has simplified that so you can get a tailored proposal from any one of these ranges based on your budget.

What is the usual process of a KOL campaign?

Brands, particularly brands that are new to working with influencers, often have a lot of questions about the process.

The most common process follows seven steps when creating a KOL influencer campaign.

1. Defining Your Objectives

As a first step, we define your KPIs to set clear goals for your KOL influencer marketing strategy and the concluding success measurement.

2. Defining Your Target Audience

The next step is to define the demographic and geographic data of your target group.

3. Planning your campaign strategy

In the following, we prepare a campaign strategy for your brand, taking into account your corporate identity and already applied strategies.

4. Selecting KOL influencers.

We find suitable KOL influencers that can best introduce and promote your product to viewers.

5. Creating promotions

Our KOLs create creative ad campaigns for your product on your platform of choice (e.g. Weibo, RED, Douyin).

6. Content approval

In close cooperation with selected KOLs, we ensure that the campaign is implemented as planned.

7. Campaign reporting

We provide a detailed report on the completed campaign, in which we review the process and the successes achieved, considering previously set KPIs.

Have any Questions? Comment below and we can answer your questions.

ChinaKOL is a company that helps companies increase their social media presence in China. Check out our website at: https://www.chinakolexperts.com