2023 TOP 100 SOUTHEAST ASIAN KOLS INSIGHTS REPORT
When the world was filled with the haze of the post-COVID-19 pandemic era in 2022, many industries experienced significant disruptions, but influencer marketing and its related industries. Despite the heavy hit of the COVID-19 pandemic, influencer marketing and its related industries caught the express train and rapidly developed. In 2022, the website i-Buzz released an article named The Current Situation of Influencer Marketing in Southeast Asia 2022, stating new business opportunities after the pandemic might be connected through the influencer economy. As many countries are now unblocking and have decided to adapt to the new normal of co-existence with COVID-19, the Southeast Asian market has proved its development through cross-border marketing with influencers.
As the influencer marketing market in Southeast Asia remains optimistic, on this basis, AsiaKOL gains insight into the ranking of the top 100 KOLs in Southeast Asia in 2023, the most popular KOLs and their active fields in each country, and their current status of social media communities through our exclusive AIE Database. From the information above, we further expand the scope of the research and release the “2023 Southeast Asia Top 100 KOLs Insights Report”. Through our detailed report, marketers can spy on the environment and prospects of Southeast Asian KOLs, as well as for brands to find out the suitable chances to boost marketing impact through cross-border influencers.
1. The Ranking Of Top 100 KOLs In Southeast Asia: Contents And Interactions Are The Main Factors
AsiaKOL scores the influences, interactive participation, and content association based on our AIE Database and Southeast Asia KOLs’ performance. From the ranking, it’s obvious that:
◼Over 95% of the KOLs are active on Instagram. Therefore, the article will dive into this social platform at the part of “KOLs’ current status of social media communities”.
◼Not all KOLs with more than one million followers rank high on the list. In fact, content and interactions are two major factors affecting their ranking. Those who haven’t achieved more than 4 points in the content feature are ranked below the 30th place, while the top 20 KOLs all score more than 4.5 points in terms of interactions.
2. The Country Distribution Of The Top 100 Southeast Asian KOLs: KOLs From Indonesia Account For More Than 30% Of The List
From the country distribution of the Top 100 Southeast Asian KOLs, it’s obvious that KOLs from Indonesia occupy the largest number on the list. Notably, there are 4 KOLs from Indonesia reaching the top 10 of the list, and 9 representatives from the country standing at the top 20 of the list.
Indonesia has the largest population among Southeast Asian countries, in which nearly 70% of them use social media. Therefore, the number of KOLs and followers is naturally larger, which provides a more suitable condition and environment for KOLs’ growth in the community.
Malaysia and the Philippines are the second and third largest populations in Southeast Asia. However, most of the KOLs from these two countries are ranked relatively low on the list. In terms of influence, KOLs from Malaysia and the Philippines are not as prominent as those from Indonesia. On the other hand, there are only two KOLs from Vietnam on the list, which is far behind other countries, and the ranking position is also close to the end because of their inferior performance in content and interactions.
3. The Field Distribution Of Top 100 Southeast Asian KOLs: Fashion, Beauty, Cars And Motorcycles
When it comes to the fields that attract the most Southeast Asian followers in the KOL community, we can’t deny the power of fashion and beauty fields. Topics related to fashion and beauty fields are generally more interesting to young followers nowadays. It is conceivable why these two fields account for the highest proportion in the KOL rankings in Southeast Asia.
Followed by cars and motorcycles due to the gradual increase of buying powers in recent years among the developing Southeast Asian countries. According to the statistics in 2022, the number of automobile and motorcycle sales in major Southeast Asian countries has risen sharply compared to 2019, just the year right before the COVID-19 pandemic. In this situation, there is no doubt that topics related to cars and motorcycles attract more attention from followers. On the other hand, tourism has always been an important industry in Southeast Asia, in which not a small number of KOLs choose the field to be their topic centralization. As people are eager for a memorable vacation after a long break from society, topics related to tourism have finally revived.
Let’s figure out the business opportunities by looking at the KOLs’ active fields and country distribution on the list:
(1) Fashion and beauty go hand in hand: Malaysia And The Philippines Have The Majority
The distribution in countries between fashion and beauty KOLs is relatively similar, with candidates from Malaysia and the Philippines having the majority, followed by KOLs from Singapore and Thailand. As the content of fashion and beauty often goes hand in hand, accompanied with the relatively low barriers to entry into the fields, many KOLs straddle both sectors. Although Indonesia has a large number of KOLs on the list, few of them are active in the fashion and beauty categories. They mostly switch their concentration toward other sectors.
(2) The rise of cars and motorcycles among commuters in Indonesia; Malaysia boosts tourism marketing
As a developing country with a large population and vast area, its citizens rely on transportation for commuting. The peak traffic in various places has become a daily nightmare for commuters. More people have started to consider purchasing a suitable vehicle with a great price/performance ratio. Related topics keep popping up like mushrooms after the rain, and the KOLs never miss the chance to share their opinions and attract traffic.
Under the vigorous promotion of the government and related units, tourism in Malaysia after the pandemic has started to recover. As community spokespersons, Malaysian KOLs contribute to the development of the country’s tourism industry and diversify their channels’ content by visiting and photographing their popular attractions with diverse themes such as fashion and beauty.
(3) Indonesian KOLs Cross Into Multiple Fields Such As Design And Gaming: Diversified Content And Outstanding Rankings
In addition to the national backgrounds making automobile and motorcycle-related topics popular, Indonesian KOLs are also dominant in design and creation sectors with many global creative talents. The fields give them more space for personalization. Indonesian KOLs are famous for their impressive performance with rich and diversified content, combining various elements such as funny and comedy, travel, art performance, etc.
KOLs from many countries are involved in the field of gaming, with candidates from the Philippines and Indonesia are the ranking leaders. Besides fashion and beauty, the gaming field, developed from 3C products, has also become a battleground among internet celebrities.
It is worth noting that a large proportion of Indonesian KOLs on the list belong to specific fields such as automobiles and motorcycles, design and creation, gaming, etc. With excellent performance in specific fields and topics, no doubt why they stand out on the battlefield.
(4) KOLs’ Current Status In Social Media Communities: Instagram Has Become The Trend In The Southeast Asian Community
Looking at the current status of the Top 100 KOLs in Southeast Asia using social media platforms, more than 90% of them are Instagram users. It’s obvious that Instagram has become a must-have profile for influential Southeast Asian KOLs.
Facebook, which was the first channel to start the KOL trend, still has more than 60% of the active KOLs. However, the platform has been gradually caught up by YouTube, which focuses on audio and video content. It can be boldly speculated that in the future, audio-visual-based social platforms, such as Instagram and YouTube will become the mainstream in terms of usage ratio. One of the important reasons is these two platforms can provide users with a better visual experience and visual stimulation effects.
(5) The Follower Distribution In The Top 100 Southeast Asian KOLs: High Social Media Stickiness Leading To A Large Number Of Followers In The Philippines
Finally, from looking at the follower distribution in the KOL community among the countries, the overall number of followers in the Philippines is significantly higher than in other Southeast Asian countries. The Philippines is known to be the longest social media usage country in Asia, and its high stickiness to social media has become an advantageous environment for KOLs to accumulate a large number of followers. Moreover, the usage rate of Facebook in the Philippines is as high as 95%, resulting in the concentration of KOLs on Facebook content investment and their considerable amount of followers. In contrast, Indonesia has the largest number of KOLs on the list, who invest more in Instagram with advantages on photos and videos as their audiences are likely to converge on Instagram rather than Facebook.
Most of the time, the main users of social media platforms are young people who prefer following trends. As an opinion leader who speaks out for young people, KOLs will fail to attract traffic and lose reputation if their social media content goes out of fashion.
In conclusion, it can be predicted that the future community orientation in Southeast Asia might be more visualizing. If brands consider cooperating with KOLs for endorsement, it will be better to mull over all social media platforms, to amplify the advantages of the products to achieve the effect of “one plus one greater than two”. If you find it difficult to decide which KOLs and channels suit your brand positioning, AsiaKOL has complete cross-border marketing services to provide!
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