Soompi, DramaFever, Korea Boo, HanCinema... If you are a fan of Hallyu(Korean Wave), you might have heard of them and even added them on your favorite list to keep up with Korean pop culture and latest updates on Korean pop stars. Editors who create  contents for these web sites have been getting their job done greatly with high level of interests in Korean culture. However, in many cases, they have never been to Korea despite of the close relation of their work with the country, which often leads to lack of understanding on Korean culture.  
Accordingly, the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange(KOFICE) invited representatives of 15 K-pop media from 9 countries around the world to Korea. These overseas online opinion leaders had a chance to tour around Seoul and Busan during their 9 nights 10 days trip from September 30 to October 9 and communicate with their SNS followers in real time, being eyes and ears on behalf of Korean Wave fans out there.

Beginning with the participation in the opening ceremony of the 20th Busan International Film Festival, they covered major Hallyu events such as Gangnam K-POP Festival, 2015 Seoul International Music Fair and so on. Paul Queen, a manager of ‘Hangul Celluloid’, a Korean movie community site in England said in joy “Seeing Korean actresses like Son Ye-jin and Mun So-ri walking on the red carpet made me so thrilled that I would’t even regret to die today”. 

At a joint media conference with ‘Sistar’, one of the hottest K-pop stars loved by many global fans but rarely exposed to foreign media, the global opinion leaders threw sharp questions instead of global fans. Besides, they tried ‘K-Food Cooking Show’, broadcasting their cooking of Bulgogi, Japchae, Seafood Pancake live online in real time. One of the global fans watching the real-time show through the SNS of an invited representative left a message of appreciation saying, “Even though I am now in the U.S., I could feel like I was there with you guys as I could see what you see  in Korea in real time.”   

As the 15 overseas online opinion leaders concluded their coverage schedule with watching a live performance by K-pop artists on M!Countdown, a music television program broadcast by Mnet, they said in agreement, “Though we are from different countries, we are all interested in and enjoy Korean culture in common. It was very useful to meet and communicate with others working in the same area in person because we could just monitor their web sites before. At first, we thought we would be engaged in a fierce coverage competition but now we became friends. It is even hard to say good bye. The biggest award of this trip is that we could build a solid network among managers of Korean culture community web sites.” 

The global online opinion leaders who were now back to their countries have been  producing and sharing contents based on the new experiences and memories in Korea in a variety forms such as photos and videos and further contributing to getting global Korean fans to know and understand Korean culture better. 

Photo: Overseas Opinion Leaders Covering Gangnam K-pop Festival.