Social media influencers. Content creators. Every social marketer knows that these popular folks on social media platforms can help draw attention to a brand.
Heading into 2025, savvy marketers are considering a different kind of content partnership, focusing on key opinion leaders (KOLs). These valuable players are experts in their respective fields and offer a host of benefits beyond extended reach.
Bonus: Get the influencer campaign template for brands to easily plan your next campaign and choose the best social media influencer to work with.
What are KOLs (key opinion leaders)?
Key opinion leaders, or KOLs, are valued thought leaders within their area of expertise.
KOLs have a significant following made up of people who value their knowledge. Those followers often look to the KOL for strategy guidance or insights on which products or services to use.
For brands, that means a KOL partnership or endorsement can have significant value. Beyond simple exposure, you’re getting the stamp of approval from a known expert that people trust and admire.
KOLs vs. influencers: What’s the difference?
KOLs are a specific type of influencer. So, you could say that all KOLs are influencers, but not all influencers are KOLs.
The main difference is that KOLs are generally valued as experts within specific industries. People value their opinions not just because they are popular, but because they have insider knowledge and specialized expertise.
Regular influencers generally build their audience from the ground up on social media. They may have a specific niche audience, but they found and cultivated that audience on social platforms. They actively engage with their social audience and focus on social media as their primary form of content creation and distribution.
KOLs, on the other hand, may establish their expertise and start to build an audience outside of social media. Maybe they become known as a valued speaker at industry events. Or they might make connections through other professional channels. They develop a social audience, but they are not primarily focused on building their following.
They may be less engaged in one-on-one interactions with followers. Their audience is there primarily for the subject matter expertise rather than building relationships. Since KOLs are so respected in their particular fields, they are very selective with the brands they partner with. Remember: social marketing efforts are likely not their primary source of income.
However, Lenni is distinctly lacking in subject matter expertise, so she is not a KOL. She could, however, promote many different kinds of brands.
This interaction in the comments highlights why it’s important for KOLs to be more choosy about the brands they partner with:
Source: @thehonestvet
This means KOLs may be more expensive to work with than regular influencers. That said, the right KOL has the potential to bring significant value to your brand, beyond a traditional influencer marketing arrangement.
4 reasons to work with KOLs
We’ve hinted a little already about why KOL partnerships can be so valuable for brands. Here are some specific reasons you may want to consider working with KOLs.
1. Reach a targeted audience
Here’s the thing about key opinion leaders: they have opinions. And those opinions are based in hard-won knowledge and expertise. Their followers engage with their content specifically because they’re interested in the niche topic the KOL covers.
For businesses, that means you’re reaching a highly targeted audience. If that audience aligns with your campaign goals, target market, and key demographics, a KOL partnership can provide dramatic return.
2. Build brand trust
Public support from a respected expert in an industry related to your brand is invaluable in terms of audience trust and brand credibility.
In short: support from a KOL shows that you’re a legitimate brand with a quality offering.
This helps with sales, but it can also help grow your community and increase brand loyalty and trust.
Expert support can differentiate good social marketing from great social marketing. It proves you’re not just talking the talk.
3. Gain valuable feedback
Marketers can sometimes wind up with siloed brand expertise and fall behind on the latest developments in their larger industry. Because they are not tied to a brand, KOLs avoid this tunnel vision.
Working with them can provide valuable context and help ensure you position your brand in a way that resonates with your most valuable potential customers.
4. Make more sales
In the end, you want to see that your investment in KOL marketing has an impact on the bottom line. Trusted KOLs can help shift purchasing behavior even in areas that are traditionally driven by brand loyalty.
For example, 60% of doctors have changed their perception of a medication based on social content created by a KOL in the healthcare field. And 50% have changed their prescribing choices.
Even higher numbers of doctors will consider a product or reshare KOL social content. Both of these can also lead to sales down the line.
Source: Sermo
If sales are your goal, it’s particularly important to highlight your KOL’s credentials and share evidence-based content. Physicians cited these are the two most important aspects of credibility for social media KOLs. This logic extends across industries.
4 tips for getting the most out of KOL marketing
1. Do your research
A KOL partnership may represent a significant investment for your brand. That’s true both financially and in terms of your company’s reputation.
A KOL partner becomes an extension of your brand, and everything they do or say may impact your company.
So, do your research. Don’t just check that the KOL has an engaged audience and effective social presence. You’ll also want to be sure that your brand values are a match. And that they really do have the experience and credentials to back up their position as a thought leader.
A tool like Talkwalker is very useful here, as it can help you discover the right KOLs and understand their social reputation.
2. Know your goals — and communicate them well
Before reaching out to a KOL for a potential collab, make sure you know exactly what you want out of the relationship. If you don’t communicate your needs clearly (or worse, if you don’t know what your needs are) it’s unlikely that the KOL will be able to deliver what you consider a successful result.
You need to be very explicit about your goals to make sure they’re reached. A goal might look like hitting a certain follower count, getting a certain number of affiliate link uses or simply getting a certain number of likes or shares. Whatever your goal is, make it crystal clear.
3. Trust their advice
As we’ve already said, KOLs are the experts. They know what they’re talking about. If they offer you insight or guidance, you should seriously consider it.
You’re not seeking out a partnership with a KOL just because of their social following.
You (and your potential customers) genuinely value their opinions. You should respect their ideas—even if they vary a little from your original plan. Collaborations should be, well, collaborative, and it’s important that the KOL you’re working with feels that their input is valued.
4. Invest time, effort and money into the partnership
KOLs you collaborate with need to feel like valued partners. They have made a significant investment in developing their expertise. They reasonably expect you to invest in the partnership in exchange for their support of your brand.
Make sure you reply to their messages in a prompt manner, be friendly and respectful, and compensate them well. Ideally, you’ll form a positive relationship with a KOL that can last for a long time and potentially lead to other partnerships in the future.
This isn’t a last-minute, off-the-side-of-your-desk commitment. You’ll get out of it what you put into it.
Successful KOL marketing campaign walkthrough (real example from our team)
Let’s take an inside look at a recent, highly successful Hootsuite KOL campaign for lessons you can apply to your own KOL marketing strategy. I interviewed Eileen Kwok, Hootsuite’s Social & Influencer Marketing Strategist, who was responsible for the campaign from start to finish.
1. Create a campaign or launch that’s suited to a KOL partnership
When Hootsuite launched the Social Media Trends 2025 Report, it was important to get the message out to the most active and engaged social marketers while also creating overall buzz to garner media attention and extend the report’s reach.
Hootsuite’s social team identified this as a prime opportunity for a KOL campaign.
2. Create clear goals for the campaign
Before you identify who you want to partner with, you need to think about what you want to achieve with the partnership.
Start by thinking about which stage of the marketing funnel you want your KOL campaign to feed. Are you looking to raise brand awareness? Drive traffic? Create conversions like a trial sign-up or purchase?
In this case, Hootsuite’s goals led the social team to choose LinkedIn as the right platform for the campaign.
We’ve got a full blog post on setting goals that can help you get really granular here.
3. Identify potential KOLs
When looking for potential opinion leaders to partner with, Kwok looks at three key factors:
Following
Hootsuite has seen the greatest success with KOLs who have at least 10K followers. But you need to look at more than the number.
“I’ve noticed users that are up-and-coming in their thought leadership journey and are experiencing high growth have the best-performing content,” Kwok says. “These partners are keen to grow their community and invest time in creating thought-provoking content to share.”
Engagement rates
A high number of followers does not guarantee an engaged community. Kwok specifically looks for KOLs who engage with other creators, have a high number of reshares, and tend to get value-added comments rather than just likes. LinkedIn’s Top Voice badge is another good clue that someone is perceived as a thought leader.
Source: Sakshi Darpan on LinkedIn
Consistency
A consistent posting schedule signals commitment to followers. It also sends favorable signals to all social media algorithms. Consistency also opens up the potential for a long-term partnership rather than just a one-time ad.
4. Craft an effective outreach plan
Just because you want to work with a KOL doesn’t mean they’ll want to work with you! You need to reach out in a way that shows you know and value their work.
“The more personalized your outreach is, the better,” Kwok says. “Mention a recent post of theirs that struck a chord with you, or congratulate them on a recent milestone.”
If you’re having trouble making contact, Kwok suggests engaging with their social content.
“Adding valuable comments to their posts keeps you and your brand top of mind,” Kwok says. This type of outbound engagement is actually one of the trends identified in the 2025 Trends Report!
5. Develop a clear creative brief
The more detailed the brief, the better the outcome of the campaign. It’s important to set partnership expectations, communication styles, and intended outcomes. Every individual is unique and has different working styles, so it’s important to understand the best way both parties can feel supported.
For this campaign, Hootsuite developed a brief that tied the creative back to the content of the report itself, then worked with KOLs to develop an authentic approach. The plan was to jump on the oversized marketing props trend with huge newspapers announcing the report’s launch.
Note: A social listening tool like Hootsuite Listening can be helpful here in planning your content strategy. Hootsuite’s social team used the tool to monitor the conversation on the oversized marketing trend to determine whether this was a moment worth joining in on.
“We briefed our partners on our approach, and seeing them equally excited about the direction assured us this would land well with our audience,” Kwok says.
6. Work with KOLs to create content
Your KOLs are the experts, and it is not the marketer’s role to tell them what to say. The brief sets the parameters and should provide everything your KOL needs to get going. That said, for a specific campaign, it’s beneficial to both parties to strategize on the specific content deliverables together.
“Our main goal is authenticity,” Kwok says. “We want to give our partners the flexibility for their sponsored post to naturally fit into the rest of their feed and feel natural to their tone and personality.”
For the first set of posts in the Hootsuite KOL campaign, all the KOLs showcased the same newspaper, but they all created their own content to go with it:
For the second series of posts, Hootsuite worked with each KOL to create a custom newspaper.
“Every partner has different themes they speak about,” Kwok says. “They each chose a trend from the report that they were passionate about and knew would start a conversation in their comments.”
7. Analyze your results
Once your KOL content goes live, use a tool like Hootsuite Analytics to track the performance and map your success back to the goals you set at the start of this process.
For this campaign, Hootsuite met or exceeded the goals set. It was the brand’s top performing campaign in terms of leads generated. It earned more than 775,000 impressions, 530,000+ reach and 8,000+ engagements.
“The campaign went viral within our social marketing community, which falls perfectly into our micro-virality trend,” Kwok says.
Make KOL marketing easier with Hootsuite. Schedule posts, research and engage with KOLs in your industry, and measure the success of your campaigns. Try it free today.
The post What are KOLs and how to get results from working with them appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
