Guidelines In Finding Key Opinion Leaders For Your Business

By Author: Vijay K Shetty
Total Articles: 2541
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The power to influence and affect the choices of people has played a critical role to pop culture, politics, business and even our personal lives. We look up to those influential people in our lives, those charismatic people who seem to know how to persuade and affect people, be it favorably or the other way around. The concept of an opinion leader was first highlighted in the 2 step flow of communication by Katz and Lazarsfeld in the mid 1950s. The concept is that ideas first flow from the media to opinion leaders and then to the masses. So how does this transfer to business?

Finding the key opinion leaders
There are particular qualities that you should look for in an opinion leader. These qualities will vary from person to person but nonetheless, they are the basic elements that you should know.

- It is all about finding a credible leader. We will find out later how they are relevant to any business.
- The power of opinion. He or she shoulf have something worthy and relevant to say to the public.
- Catches the attention of the audience. It could be wit, clothing, facial features, philosophy ...
... or background. These motivations aid in influencing the market.
- A strong following. The key opinion leader will not be one if he or she is easily dismissable and can be taken for granted. They should have a good flow of audiences or followers.
- Able to promote and expand networks.

Taking advantage of the internet
The internet is the best place to find these key opinion leaders. What the net did in the past few years is democratize the real of opinion making from so called experts to the man on the street, the person who is charming enough to be himself and still be able to provide valid points and opinions that can change the minds of their chosen audience. Of course, there are disadvantages with this democratization. With the millions of men on the streets using the net to create their own loyal following, it becomes apparent that the search will be either focusing on a regional influence, national or international. As you move up, there are more demands that will arrive.

Social networking
As you might have guessed it, the key opinion leaders are scattered across the web as bloggers, website owners, journalists, PR experts and those people who became viral and popular. They have many faces as you can see in YouTube and they have something to say, like in blogs. They are parasocially connected to our own niche using social networking. This extensive realm of the internet is a realm of ideologies and influence. It is critical all the more to look for credibility more than anything else.

Vijay K Shetty, Platinum Level Author.
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