For those of you who are unaware of KOL in industry circles (not just in dentistry) it is usually understood to mean Key Opinion Leader.
It has always confused me a little bit this terminology because it seems to infer that you are a person who is able to lead on opinions regarding keys. It always makes me smile when people are badges as Key Opinion Leaders; I wonder whether they are experts in Mortise locks, Yale locks and padlocks (but no combination padlocks obviously because they don’t have a key) but it is a little bit more sinister than this and has almost reached the stage where the fact that you want to be a Key Opinion Leader should probably exclude you from ever being able to become one.
I have written a lot and I think that everybody knows that dentistry is now full of people trying to attach badges to themselves to make them seem more commercially viable or more credible in a world where all we have to do to be more credible is infact… be more credible. I watched with interest recently as practices gained second place awards merely on the interior design of their practice (it’s not bad enough that we give awards for interior design but we also give second place awards for interior design for practice) I’m not sure that’s a fantastic marketing tool to use but I’m sure it will be used by the practice that won it. Similarly Key Opinion Leaders, why do we actually need to publish the fact that we have Key Opinion Leaders?
The fact that a company or a product would be keen to associate itself with an individual defines the situation entirely; the individual is clearly well enough known and respected for the company or product to want to associate themselves therefore that should explain itself entirely, people will know who the individual is, they will trust and respect them and therefore will be more drawn to the product as a result. It’s surely not essential for someone to use the phrase ‘KOL’ beneath their profile picture or indeed at the bottom of their emails. Perhaps we are reaching the stage where an advert in the local newspaper which defines a clinician as a Key Opinion Leader, Product Specialist, Fourth Place in Interior Design Competition and Best Dressed Young Professional in a Post Code in the East Midlands will attract them more patients then their ability to provide exceptional dentistry and be a good communicator.
Blog Post Number - 953
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