Being a mom, I often look to Instagram for bite-sized parenting tips that are practical and realistic. This is how I came to discover Jess, a child therapist behind the account @nurturedfirst. Her expertise has given me some excellent insights into how to form a stronger connection with my toddler.
Individuals like Jess are what we call key opinion leaders or KOLs – experts who specialize in certain fields, often having professional backgrounds or other achievements that strengthen their credibility. People look to them for advice and guidance on the topics they specialize in.
So even though they may have influence, they’re not your typical influencers. They can add credibility and trust to your influencer campaign, helping you effectively engage your target audience and boost your brand impact.
In this post, I give you a closer look at what a KOL looks like and which campaigns have leveraged them. I also share some practical tips on how to approach key opinion leaders and how to work with them. Let’s take a look.
A key opinion leader is someone who:
In other words, they’re not just another social media personality. To get an even better idea of what a KOL looks like, let’s share a few examples.
Industry: Dermatology/skincare
Dr. Wallace Nozile is a double-board-certified dermatologist who uses social media to share his expertise. He currently boasts over 62k followers on Instagram and has a strong presence across other platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
Although he shares the occasional entertainment content, his main focus is on skin health and other derm-related topics. This includes content about how to get rid of bad odor or when to start using anti-aging products. So most of his followers look to him for advice on dealing with skincare issues and maintaining skin health.
Industry: Food/culinary
Marion Grasby is a cook and food entrepreneur whose claim to fame is being a participant in MasterChef Australia. She has since built a strong presence in the culinary scene through cooking shows and her YouTube channel, Marion’s Kitchen, which has over 1.9 million subscribers. She also has a massive audience across other social media channels, including Instagram, where she has 873k followers.
Most of her content focuses on recipes. But she also shares the occasional content about relatable food-focused experiences to entertain her audience.
Industry: Makeup/beauty
Huda Kattan is the founder and CEO of Huda Beauty, which dominates the makeup industry. She originally built her influence as a makeup artist, sharing makeup tutorials and tips through her blog and YouTube channel. Her expertise and knowledge have propelled her to be one of the biggest key opinion leaders in the world of beauty and makeup.
Not surprisingly, she’s attracted a massive following across leading social networks – with 4.9 million Instagram followers and 4.1 million YouTube subscribers. Most of her followers still look to her for makeup tips and product recommendations.
Industry: Tech/coding
Nikki Siapno is the Engineering Manager at Canva and the Co-Founder of Level Up Coding. She’s built a strong presence on platforms like LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter), where she shares coding tips and industry insights that inform and engage her audience. Nikki currently has over 200k LinkedIn followers and over 169k X followers.
Her in-depth expertise makes her a rising key opinion leader in the world of tech and coding.
Industry: Wildlife/environmental conservation
Dr. Jane Goodall is a zoologist and anthropologist who’s considered the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees. She has built a name for herself over many years, owing to her exemplary knowledge and her dedication to wildlife research.
As a result of this, she has gained a massive following on social media, which includes 1.5 million Instagram followers and 1.3 million X followers. She continued to use her strong social media presence to raise awareness about wildlife and environmental conservation efforts as long as she lived.
Industry: Fashion/sustainability
Josephine Philips is the Founder and CEO of SOJO, a platform dedicated to clothing repairs and alterations. She uses her social media presence to promote a culture of conscious consumption, partnering with fashion brands that are also dedicated to the cause. In addition to being featured in magazines and online publications, Josephine Philips has also conducted TED Talks to share her expertise.
Her entrepreneurship background and enthusiasm for sustainability have earned her a significant social media following. She currently boasts 14k Instagram followers and 15k LinkedIn followers.
Now that you have a better sense of what a key opinion leader might look like, you may be interested to know how brands have partnered with them. When it comes to influencers vs. KOLs, KOLs don’t usually promote products. But they may have partnerships with brands with whom they share the same values or promote products they truly believe in. With that said, here are some of the best campaigns involving KOLs.
CeraVe is a brand known for creating skincare products that experts can vouch for. They use proven formulas and keep things simple, which is why they often partner with key opinion leaders like Dr. Wallace Nozile. One of their most successful campaigns involves a partnership with the dermatologist and “Love Island USA.”
The campaign shows Dr. Wallace marching in with some skincare advice featuring CeraVe’s moisturizer in the middle of a conversation between two of the TV show’s cast. With a KOL offering a strategic balance of humor and expert information, the campaign was a huge hit. The collab Reel between the three partners (CeraVe, Dr. Wallace, and Love Island) generated over 84k likes and hundreds of comments.
Brittany Jepsen is a key opinion leader known for her design and creative expertise. She’s the creative director behind The House That Lars Built, a craft lifestyle blog. The designer has amassed a community of people seeking to create an artful life. So it only made sense that Spoonflower would partner with her for a campaign promoting their fabrics and wallpapers.
The campaign showcased the process of transforming a guest room using Spoonflower’s patterns as wallpapers, window shades, pillows, blankets, sheets, and even a canopy. This helped to highlight the flexibility of their patterns to bring Brittany’s vision to life.
As someone whose culinary expertise has earned her a massive social media following, Marion Grasby was the perfect KOL to promote Panasonic’s kitchen products. The campaign involved Marion putting together enticing dishes using some of the brand’s equipment. This included a recipe where she used Panasonic’s bread maker to make fresh homemade bread and then loaded it with some protein-rich ingredients.
Another recipe showed Marion using the air fry mode on her Panasonic microwave to make some juicy chicken skewers. The campaign wrapped up with a giveaway contest where the brand would give away three bread makers to review and keep. Marion shared a few posts encouraging her followers to participate.
This campaign was perfectly executed, as it showed the practical uses of the products to inspire audiences. And providing a chance to try the product for free further sealed the deal.
Now that we’ve established how key opinion leaders are unlike regular influencers, you can also understand that your typical influencer outreach efforts will not work with them. You probably won’t find them on influencer marketing platform databases, and you might not be able to entice them with the usual brand sponsorship deal.
So you need to seriously adjust the way you approach them and work with them. Let’s break down a few tips that could result in a successful partnership with KOLs.
The first thing you need to realize is that key opinion leaders won’t partner with just any brand. Even if you go through the profiles of the KOLs I highlighted above, you’ll notice that there’s hardly any brand-sponsored content in their feeds. The partnerships that you do find involve partnerships with brands that are closely aligned with their values and expertise.
This is why, if you want to stand a chance at partnering with a key opinion leader, you should focus on finding one who shares the same values as your brand. Think: sustainability experts to promote a sustainable, zero-waste product.
Otherwise, you’ll only be wasting time trying to engage KOLs who won’t even take a second glance at your outreach email. By focusing on the right KOLs, you can prevent the risk of wasting your efforts and redirect your time and resources toward outreach efforts that have the potential for success.
As I mentioned earlier, key opinion leaders hardly ever promote products. But when they do promote a product, it’s usually because they truly believe in it. This is also the reason why they’ve managed to earn the trust of their audience and maintain their credibility over the years.
When they come across products they truly love, many KOLs will even promote them without being prompted by the brand.
So don’t expect them to vouch for your product simply because you’re paying them to do it. For KOLs, this is equal to being a sellout, which defeats the whole purpose of being an expert in the field. Instead, give them the chance to get familiar with your products and see what they’re really capable of.
Have them try your products so they can get a better understanding of their features and benefits. If necessary, invite them to your production facility so they can get a close-up look at the manufacturing process.
While the goal is to help them realize just how effective your product is, this will also provide them with a deeper understanding. So when they do agree to promote your product, they can speak from a place of knowledge and present the points as a true expert. This will add credibility to the promotion, allowing you to automatically earn the trust of the KOL’s audience.
In addition to their credibility, the greatest value that key opinion leaders bring to the table is their expertise. So make the most of it by collaborating with them on content creation. Work with them to create informative educational content based on their expertise, whether it’s a video with bite-sized tips or a more in-depth interview.
This creates an opportunity to share their knowledge and provide high-value information that will benefit your audience. And by providing value to your audience, you can effectively engage them and win their trust.
The same expertise that you can leverage for co-created content could even be used for other aspects of your business. From marketing strategies to product development, tap into the in-depth knowledge that KOLs have in your industry to inform your decisions.
For instance, you could work with them for an exclusive collaboration to co-design a product. Or you could consult them to better understand the needs and behaviors of your target audience. Then use this info to develop a powerful marketing campaign that resonates with them.
Recently, Bella Beaute Bar collaborated with artist Isabelle Staub to create designs for their Dark Dreamscape collection. The artist used her expertise to develop a fitting cover for the palette and then created content to talk about their collaboration. This got a ton of positive responses from the audience, especially since the artist talked about the brand supporting real artists instead of using AI.
With their in-depth knowledge, credibility, and influence, key opinion leaders can add serious weight to your campaign. Make the most of the tips I shared above to find the right KOLs to work with and build campaigns that truly resonate.