Today, businesses frequently gain marketing advantages by targeting goods and services towards customers most likely to desire their products.
Identifying a key opinion leader for a brand quickly helps facilitate sales. By contrast, using the wrong spokesperson or social media website for this task may result in potentially costly delays and setbacks.
Leaders And Influencers in The Media
For generations, the public has followed the example of people in leadership positions. These individuals serve as role models. Others frequently imitate their actions. Yet the impact of the key opinion leader in commercial contexts expanded significantly with the development of mass communications during the 1900s. Previously, consumers likely based many of their choices upon the recommendations of respected family members or friends. They also maintained personal relationships with sellers in their local marketplace (another influential factor in buying decisions).
By the 1920s and 1930s, both the rise of telecommunications and the popularity of the comparatively young Hollywood motion picture industry allowed companies to use media figures to promote specific products and events. Many familiar radio personalities hawked cigarettes or soups during commercial segments of their broadcasts. This type of testimonial spawned a thriving advertising industry with the advent of television and nationally distributed magazines. Marketers realized celebrities, as well known figures, could lend their prestige to the use of particular brands. Millions of Americans associated imaginary characters like “Mr. Whipple” with Charmin toilet paper and beloved stars like Robert Young with Sanka Coffee. Examples of this type of promotional activity still abound today. For example, people associate the talking Geico gecko with Geico Insurance and the helpful customer service character Flo with Progressive.
Adapting to a More Interactive Age
The development of the Internet, a more interactive medium, caused many firms to expand their strategies for calling upon a key opinion leader to inspire and influence the public. Instead of paying large sums to celebrities to market goods online through conventional advertising, companies often employ more cost-effective social media campaigns. These online efforts seek to inspire word-of-mouth advertising by tapping into existing social networks in cyberspace. They strive to identify grassroots influencers to help promote their brands to their friends and followers spontaneously.
Following posts and other content from a key opinion leader may assist a marketing team in ensuring the firm’s products meet the needs of consumers more effectively. A key opinion leader sometimes appears in the form of a single individual. However, an entire organization or website may also qualify for this role. Studies suggest Internet-savvy Millennials in large numbers place far more emphasis upon online influencers than upon conventional “commercial” ad spots.
A Time Consuming Activity
Unfortunately, locating online influencers does require extensive market research. This process may prove both time consuming and unreliable, in fact. While in theory it helps firms save money, the extensive effort involved in this process may result in significant expenses over the long term. Additionally, companies with multiple brands frequently require variable Internet strategies for different product lines.
The development of programs like Quid Social and NetBase Enterprise help marketing teams accomplish the goal of identifying a key opinion leader efficiently. Online markets do not remain static. Different groups and individuals may gain or lose prominence as influencers in Cyberspace over time. Investing in these useful software platforms and analytical tools from NetBase Quid holds enduring value for this reason. It supplies a useful way to tap into essential marketing venues for a variety of different brands within the dynamic, complex, and ever-changing online environment!
