KOL’s current situation analysis and future marketing trends and development
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Introduction1500.docxIntroduction 1500字
Social media networks are becoming increasingly important for marketers for spreading positive WOM among their online users (Fosdick 2012). The rise of social media connect by Fortune 500 companies (about 83% by 2011) were supported by the growing figures of online users going to social media as a way to seek views about non-reputed brands (Naylor, Lamberton, and West 2012). These social media conversations often helped in the consumer decision-making process (Powers et al. 2012). The importance of social media analytics data from social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google + helped marketers identify influential customers (Hinz, Schulze, and Takac 2014) and their online purchase intention (Jin and Phua ) in a cost effective way. Instances of the introduction of shippable video advertising in 2010 by Google and its consequent improvement in the viewing experiences and better customer engagement of online users were studied to aid content generators (Pashkevich et al. 2012). So blog is an important marketing tool, online marketing, just like Baker said, "blog is a phenomenon, you can not ignore". The research shows that the content and frequency types of blog posts can enhance the research of Web site access, thus bringing positive comments and improved search engine rankings.
Over the past few years, brands and marketers have transformed how they manage their communications and marketing. The network is intended not only to be a form of entertainment, but also a platform for consumers to exchange experiences and preferences referring to consumer brands (Araujo & Neijens, 2012). Reviews by internet users are a type of electronic word-of-mouth, and are important sources of information in the decision-making process of other consumers (Wei & Lu, 2013). This occurs because the psychological processes of individuals are subject to social influences (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). While it remains important to identify target channels through relevant media, publications and formats – brands and marketers have taken it up a notch, to direct their attention to a multitude of potential key opinion leaders (KOLs) and sources, seeking them out to leverage on their following of fans and readers. In marketing, the experts or authority advertised by the manufacturers are called "key opinion leaders", which are usually defined as people with more and more accurate product information, accepted or trusted by the related groups, and have great influence on the purchase behaviour of the group. Consumers routinely adopt strategies to reduce their decision-making risks (Leal, Hor-Meyll, & Pessoa, 2014) and the opinion leaders act as agents for risk reduction, through experimentation and evaluation (Cho, Hwang, & Lee, 2012). For example, Scotland brewers HighlandPark, in order to promote new DarkOrigins whisky, has invited the authorities of creative and alcoholic industries to endorse the Instagram and other accounts, considering that the target market is young and interested in scientific and technological products. One of them is the Chris Messina, which invented the social network tag “#”.This is a typical marketing campaign using KOL.
The digital age has seen a shift in marketing with the emergence of KOL. Key Opinion Leaders work double-duty: they not only connect with their audience, but in most cases, they also have a specific target demographic. This allows brands to effectively allocate their marketing budget because of the targeted, niche audience the influencer has access to.
L'OREAL, Bondi, IKEA... Many big brands to KOL marketing emphasis on the performance, one is to continue to increase the budget in KOL marketing, two is to start a long-term KOL marketing strategy, have their own long-term cooperation of KOL. And this is just a start, a report released in February by the KOL marketing platform Gen.Video shows that in the KOL marketing brand, 51% indicates that 2017 will significantly increase the budget on KOL marketing, and 64% of the brands hope that KOL marketing can improve sales transformation, and 50% of brand names want to build brand assets through KOL marketing.
And some mature brands, in the KOL marketing has passed the early extensive cooperation, but the use of different levels of KOL in different circles of influence, the formulation of their own KOL marketing strategy, and different levels of KOL in different forms of cooperation.
In these brands, Paris L'OREAL in the UK launched "Beauty Squad", through the small public KOL accurately touch the market segments of the audience, this fine operation of KOL, let us see the brand of KOL marketing more mature thinking and practice. Paris L'OREAL UK is a brand that has gone a long way in KOL marketing. In 2016, Paris L'OREAL UK signed five British beauty bloggers to form "Beauty Squad". In 2017, this beautiful small team added three members to eight people, and the Paris L'OREAL UK will cooperate with them for a long time. Meanwhile, Paris L'OREAL UK announced increased budget in KOL marketing. Paris L'OREAL wants to touch the subdivision of the consumer groups behind them by choosing a number of KOL, and on the other hand, different styles of KOL can also show the diversity advocated by Paris L'OREAL. These eight KOL are very good at areas such as Crilly focused on skin care, Canham is a beauty expert, and Bright is an opinion leader in the field of skin care, beauty and hair and the effects of these KOL are also obvious. The first KOL marketing campaign in Paris L'OREAL is aimed at its base brand True Match, and True Match has become the best-selling foundation in Britain in a few short months through the recommendation of the beauty blogger.
On the ROI measurement of many brand headaches, Andrien Koskas also mentioned the practice of Paris L'OREAL: "the advantage of using KOL is that sometimes we do some product promotion on social media, and KOL will tell its fans." Promote sales information and give them discount codes to encourage them to buy. By tracking these codes, we can clearly see that sales are growing. The effectiveness of these promotional activities is very direct. "
In this context, the study is based on the relationship between online opinion leaders and their followers. The digital opinion leader attracts a lot of attention from Internet users and plays a key role in word-of-mouth advertising, producing information and using content to other people (Meng, Wei, Zhu, 2011), affecting people's attitudes. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers are influenced in their intention to buy after having access - within social media - to persuasive messages sent out by key opinion leaders.In addition, Internet marketing is becoming more and more abundant. Many traditional and new marketing concepts are related to network marketing strategies and behaviours. Based on previous research work, we have learned the most popular themes, representing the most popular field of online marketing. In order to meet the research needs, this paper also tries to explore the future development trend of KOL.
Literature review
2.1 key opinion leadership, behavior and social media
In marketing, the experts or authority advertised by the manufacturers are called "key opinion leaders", which are usually defined as people with more and more accurate product information, accepted or trusted by the related groups, and have great influence on the purchase behavior of the group.
Unlike the "opinion leader", the key opinion leader is usually an authority in a certain industry or field. In the communication of information, they are not dependent on their own activity, but they are easily recognized and recognized.
When potential consumers are not yet familiar with a product/service, they associate a high degree of uncertainty and risk to its purchase. therefore, the adoption of this product/service depends on an individual's predisposition to test new features and form his or her own perception on the product (Ortega, 2011). Compared with people who seek information, the key opinion leaders generally have more experience and more information on the product/service category, have greater involvement with it, and display a more exploratory and innovative behavior (Lyons & Henderson, 2005). Thus, we can see the importance of opinion leaders, whose main features are that KOL has a longer and deeper involvement in a class of products than others in the group, so the product is more knowledge-based, more information sources, more knowledge and more experience. What’s more, another feature is the characteristics of interpersonal communication: KOL is more sociable and talkative than the ordinary people. They have strong social and interpersonal skills, and actively participate in various activities. They are good at making friends. They are the centre of public opinion and information publishing centre of the group. They have strong infection to others
In the digital era, in which one can use the internet as a source of consultation for both news and reviews, the discussion on the influence of certain groups in the dissemination of information should be expanded to the online environment (Merwe & Heerden, 2009). Digital opinion leaders are those who use online spaces, such as blogs, forums, social networks and other forms of online social media actively and in a collaborative manner (San Jose-Cabezudo, Camarero-Izquierdo & Rodriguez-Pinto, 2012). They can influence people in three main ways: serving as a model to be copied, through word-of-mouth advertising, or by giving advice on purchase and use (Merwe & Heerden, 2009). Digital opinion leaders attract a lot of attention from internet users and play a key role in word-of-mouth advertising, generating messages and content of use to other people (Meng, Wei & Zhu, 2011), influencing people's attitudes.
The emergence of online social media encompasses texts, images, videos and social networks (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012) and has amplified the ability to share and spread the content generated by users. By exchanging messages, digital social media users can interact and exchange information through various channels such as blogs, social networks, forums, virtual communities, sharing platforms and virtual worlds, among many others (Teng et al., 2014a).
Within this scenario, Weibo is one of the digital social media platforms in china that is being most used by key opinion leaders to express their opinions on products and services. Weibo was created so that users could share photos, and presently also allows for short videos. Users interact through comments on published photos or through "likes."
2.2Acceptance of information theory
The theory of limited rationality indicates that when a person is making a choice, that person does not have access to all the information available on that subject and, even if they did, they would not have the ability to process and evaluate it all (Merwe & Heerden, 2009). A way to facilitate their decision-making is through recommendations from other users that give useful information on the products (Kumar & Benbasat, 2006).
Deutsch and Gerard (1955) proposed the Dual-Process theory (DPT) model to evaluate social influences on individuals? judgments. According to this model, two types of influence can affect a person?s decisions: normative and informational influences. Normative influences are those that seek to make an individual act in accordance with the expectations of others. Informational influences, in their turn, are those referring to the acceptance of information passed on by others as evidence of reality. DPT suggests that the first motivator of attitudinal changes and, consequently, behavior, is external information (Bhattacherjee & Sanford, 2006). New information introduces other possibilities, causing one to think about different alternatives and possibly change the attitude towards a certain subject and people tend to believe messages transmitted by sources that are considered highly credible and to accept information transmitted through them more easily (Cheung et al., 2009).
2.3 Purchase intention
Moreover, in studies on online word-ofmouth communication, online recommendations are also a kind of social influence, especially when given by opinion leaders (Cheung & Thadani, 2012). therefore, it is expected that the acceptance of information has a direct and positive effect on the intention to buy the evaluated products/services and the attitude of individuals regarding the purchase of the products/services recommended by online opinion leaders has a direct and positive effect on the purchase intention of the evaluated products/services.
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