How to Find and Use the Right Influencers in China
Updated
Everyone wants a list of the top Chinese influencers. We used to keep one. Then we watched brands take that list, spend a fortune on the biggest names, and get nothing back. So here is the harder truth: the name on the list does not matter. The fit does. A creator with 30,000 followers who owns your niche will outsell a celebrity with 30 million almost every time.
Forget the top list, learn the tiers
In China these creators are called KOLs, key opinion leaders, and the smaller ones are KOCs, key opinion consumers, regular users people actually trust. The map looks like this:
- Top KOLs and celebrities. Huge reach, huge price, low trust. Good for awareness, bad for conversion. Most small brands should skip them.
- Mid KOLs. A real audience in one area. Sweet spot for credibility if they fit your niche.
- KOCs. Small accounts, honest reviews, cheap or product-only. This is where buying decisions actually get made on Xiaohongshu.
The insight foreign brands miss
One big post does almost nothing now. What moves a Chinese buyer is seeing your product mentioned by many small voices when they go to research it. Twenty honest KOC reviews on Xiaohongshu build more trust than one paid celebrity, because buyers know the celebrity got paid and assume the small accounts did not. The platform reads that volume of mentions as relevance and shows you to more people. It compounds.
How do I find the right ones?
Search your exact category on Xiaohongshu and Douyin and see who already posts about it and gets real comments, not just likes. Look at the comments, that is where you see if the audience trusts them. Start with a few, send product, see who actually converts, then double down on the ones that work. You are buying fit and proof, not follower counts.
Should I just pay the biggest name I can afford?
No. That is the most common way small brands burn their China budget in a week. Spread the same money across the right mid and small creators in your niche and you get more sales and a trail of content that keeps working long after the campaign. Big names are rented attention. The right small ones are owned trust.
Where we come in
We are a team of 15 in Shanghai who match small brands with the creators who actually sell for their niche, not the ones with the prettiest media kit. We also make sure the buzz turns into Baidu results that close the sale when people check you. If you are about to spend on a KOL, talk to us first and keep your money.
Oliver Verot moved to China in 2007 and has helped small brands get found and sell here ever since. He co-founded this agency to give smaller companies the China playbook the big agencies keep for enterprise clients.