What are KOLs and how to get results from working with them

Social media influencers have ruled the feeds for years, but they’re not the only people driving impact on social anymore. 

More brands are turning to key opinion leaders (KOLs), the experts audiences genuinely trust. 

In this guide, we’ll break down what KOLs are and how to work with them to get real results.

What are KOLs (key opinion leaders)?

Key opinion leaders (KOL) are valued thought leaders within a specific industry or area of expertise. They’ve built an engaged audience of people who genuinely value their knowledge and opinions.

That’s what makes KOL so powerful for brands. You’re not just getting reach. You’re getting a genuine stamp of approval from someone their audience already trusts.

KOLs vs. influencers: What’s the difference?

The main difference between KOLs and influencers is where their influence comes from. KOLs earn trust through expertise and real experience. Influencers earn trust through personality and community building.

Here’s a complete breakdown of their differences:

Category	KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders)	Influencers
Source of influence	Their expertise, credentials, and real-world experience	Their personality, creativity, and ability to build community
Why people follow them	To get expert advice and recommendations	To be inspired, entertained, and feel connected
Approach to collaborations	Highly selective; endorsements must align with their expertise	More flexible across brands and categories
Content style	Educational how tos, explainers, research-backed recommendations	Funny, inspiring, or educational content like trends, hauls, vlogs, and storytelling
Cost	Often pricier due to expertise, credibility, and selectiveness	Varies widely based on audience size

Let’s dive more into these differences below:

Level of expertise

KOLs are industry experts first. Think dermatologists, lawyers, coaches, professional marathon runners – you name it. They’ve trained, worked, or researched in a specific field and built trust over time. 

Many KOLs also build credibility outside of social media. They might speak at industry events, guest on podcasts, or grow their reputation through professional networks. Social media helps them reach more people, but growing a following isn’t usually their main focus.

Influencers and content creators tend to build their audiences directly through social. Their audience shows up for their personality, aesthetic, or content.

Why people follow them

KOLs are seen as authorities in their particular field. They attract followers who want answers, advice, and “just tell me what works” energy.

Influencers are often relatable personalities. They attract followers who want inspiration and fun, whether it’s outfit ideas, product recs, or general good vibes.

Approach to collaborations

KOLs are picky, but for good reason. Their reputations matter, so they only say yes to brands that genuinely align with their expertise. And remember: social media is probably not their primary source of income.

Take this example from The Honest Vet. A follower questioned her credibility after partnering with a specific brand. She cleared it up, but the moment says a lot. When you’re the “trusted expert,” audiences hold you to a super high bar.

Source: @thehonestvet

Influencers, on the other hand, can collaborate more freely across a wider mix of brands and categories without raising as many eyebrows. 

Content style

KOLs usually stick to educational formats like how-tos, in-depth product reviews, tutorials, and “here’s what the research actually says” style posts. 

A great example is Dr. Mamina Turegano, a triple-board-certified dermatologist. Her audience (now a million-strong) trusts her advice, product picks, and ingredient breakdowns because they come from decades of real expertise.

Source: Dr. Mamina Turegano

Influencers, on the other hand, create a little bit of everything. Their content can be funny, inspiring, or even educational – but the perspective is personal, not professional. Influencers also thrive in real-time culture, jumping on trends, sounds, and moments as they happen.

Cost

Because KOLs are more selective, they often come with a higher price tag than your average influencer.  The upside is big though. You get expertise, credibility, and real influence instead of just one sparkly moment on the feed.

Influencer pricing, meanwhile, is all over the place. Micro influencers can be surprisingly affordable, while bigger creators (hello six-figure collabs) bring premium reach. Check out our guide to influencer rates for a clearer breakdown.

What are the benefits of working with KOLs?

The benefits of working with KOLs come from their credibility and the way they help audiences make decisions.

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 on hard-won knowledge and expertise. Their followers engage with their content specifically because they’re interested in whatever niche topic the KOL covers.

For businesses, that means you’re reaching a highly targeted, niche audience. If that relevant audience aligns with your campaign goals, target market, and key demographics, a KOL partnership can provide dramatic return.

2. Build brand trust

When a respected expert shows support for your brand, it carries real weight in terms of audience trust and brand credibility.

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

Even the best marketers can get stuck in their brand bubble. KOLs don’t have that problem. 

Because they work independently of your brand, they have a wider view of the industry and what people need, want, or are frustrated by.

Partnering with them gives you access to high-quality insights you may not hear internally. They can help you refine your messaging, avoid missteps, and position your product in a way that feels spot-on with your most valuable prospects.

4. Make more sales

At the end of the day, every partnership needs to impact the bottom line. And 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. This combo has real power to influence purchasing decisions.

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

The best way to get results from KOL marketing is to choose the right experts, communicate clearly, trust their insight, and invest in a real partnership.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Do your research

A KOL partnership is an investment. Not just in budget, but in reputation too. 

When you bring a KOL into the mix, they become an extension of your brand, and everything they do or say may impact your company.

So, do your research. Look beyond follower count and flashy content.

Make sure their brand values line up with yours, their audience matches who you want to reach, and yes, that their expertise is the real deal. You want credentials you can stand behind, not just confidence on camera.

A tool like Talkwalker is very useful here, as it can help you discover the right KOLs and understand their social reputation and specific niche.

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. Psst: this also makes it way easier to choose the right metrics when it’s time to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaign.

Pro tip 💡: KOLs are especially effective at educating audiences during a new product launch because they can explain how and why it works.

3. Trust their advice

KOLs are the experts for a reason. They know their stuff, and when they share insights or suggestions, it’s worth listening to. 

After all, you’re not partnering with them just because they have a following. You’re partnering with them because their perspective genuinely matters to your audience. 

So, give their ideas room to breathe, even if they’re a little different from what you originally planned. A collaboration should be, well, collaborative, not a one-way briefing.

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 creating overall buzz to generate 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 doesn’t = 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

Consistency

A consistent posting schedule signals a commitment to followers – and sends favorable signals to pretty much every algorithm across social media platforms. 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

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.

FAQ: KOL marketing

What is the difference between KOLs and influencers for enterprise marketing?

For enterprise teams, the biggest difference comes down to credibility. KOLs influence through expertise, while influencers connect through personality and lived experience. KOL partnerships can really amplify your marketing efforts, especially when you need credibility behind your message.

How do global brands build KOL partnerships that scale?

Scalable KOL programs start with clear goals and repeatable processes. Most enterprise teams create one core strategy that outlines messaging, brand guidelines, and deliverables, then local teams adapt it for cultural norms and market needs. 

Long-term relationships also make scaling easier because you are building with partners who already know your brand.

What tools help identify and evaluate KOLs in new markets?

Social listening tools like Talkwalker make the process much easier. It gives you a read on reputation, topic authority, audience sentiment, and whether someone is an actual expert (or just really good at talking confidently to a camera).

How do you measure KOL campaign ROI at the enterprise level?

Enterprise teams should measure ROI by tracking both brand lift and actual business impact. Think impressions, engagement, share of voice, traffic, leads, or revenue from tracked links. The key is knowing your goals upfront so you can zero in on the KPIs that genuinely reflect success.

How are KOL strategies shifting with AI and social search?

AI has made it easier to find content, but harder to know what’s legit. This has made human-backed expertise more desirable than ever. As platforms begin to prioritize expert-backed content, brands are leaning into KOLs  who can create content that ranks, gets recommended, and answers real user questions.

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.