According to Kantar's Yang, due to the faltering influence of print media and television, KOLs are shaping up to be a highly useful medium for brands to reach their target audiences and through whom to deliver critical information regarding products and brands.

Folland found out that compared with their Western counterparts, Chinese KOLS are creative and savvy in terms of looking at international brands and products.

"For instance, they are able to explain them in a locally relevant and culturally appropriate way," Folland said. "Meanwhile, customers are also keen to take in new information that's given to them by influencers, whom they can feel much closer to than an A-list celebrity."

Ideally, KOLs need to be a great brand fit. For example, they should be knowledgeable on skin care, beauty and lifestyle, said Klaus Redomske, president of Babor, a German skin and body care brand that entered China less than two years ago.

"While still at an early stage of working with KOLs, we are always looking for those who like our brands sincerely. From there we can gradually build willingness, awareness and relationships," he said.

Talent agencies scour the internet to snap up and train budding KOLs, and internet platforms are joining the fray. Weibo has officially launched an e-commerce influencer incentives program and put "influencer incubation" at the nexus of social media and e-commerce. Tencent's WeChat and Douyin has rolled out similar programs.

But the most noteworthy platform is perhaps Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book. Targeting 18-to-35-year-old Chinese urban women, the platform helps 250 million users discover and buy luxury, fashion and beauty products from overseas, share shopping tips and swap fashion ideas.

As brands bankroll lucrative endorsements and influencers funnel fans into traffic, objectivity might be at stake. Influencers need to strike a tricky balance in their relationships with their corporate partners without losing integrity.

To step up scrutiny on the eligibility of its influencers, Xiaohongshu has unveiled a new set of rules stipulating that only influencers with over 5,000 followers, and whose average post view of the past month exceeds 10,000, are allowed to establish a business relationship with brands.

Its founder Qu Fang said the new regulations are aimed at "disciplining the behaviors of influencers", and that the company will come up with more rules to regulate the content-making process of influencers, such as criteria of ads and sponsored posts, in the near future.

"It is not a silver bullet," said Folland. "Any negative side or risk is due to the point that there are now so many, almost infinite KOLs, that there are those who might not truly connect with their audience."

According to him, it's important for a brand to work with a KOL that has really achieved something and gained fame and followers for a reason－that they are not merely famous for being famous, but they have built a following through real achievement.

"We now call these figures LOLs－local opinion leaders. With their own community, they offer a brand a real way to connect to genuine fans," he said.

The overheating of the KOL industry is also due to the fear of missing out borne by many brands in China, Yang noted, which resulted in an inevitable imbalance between supply and demand.

"From a purely financial point of view, using KOLs is not such a cost-effective choice. The price for ad exposure ahead of online videos has quadrupled to 200 yuan per 1,000 views in just a few years," he said.

Also, it's hard to gauge a reasonable rate in such an unregulated market as influencer endorsement, leading to overcharging. And this will undoubtedly erode the basis for drawing real followers: credibility.

In her defense, Ching likened her relatively high charges to the preservation of authenticity.

"We cherish our platforms, which we put a lot of effort into building, because random acceptance of any endorsement requirements consumes our own brands too," she said. "That's why we need to be selective and why we ought to be expensive."

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