Influencing in the Year 2022

Influence in modern culture plays a big part in changing lifestyles, societies, ethics, realms and people’s mindset towards certain aspects. To be able to influence others in some or other manner requires mastery over understanding the strengths, weaknesses, capabilities of oneself and displaying them repetitively through their actions and visuals. The art of influencing makes the masses aware of the latest developments, different fields and other aspects of life.

When one visits any social media channel, there are heaps of influencers that teach about lifestyle, fashion, bodybuilding, home decor, pet welfare and other various aspects.

Just like water that is omnipresent, the same can be said about influencer’s content. As the modern dialect describes, these content creators are entrusted with reviewing, promoting, and advertising different products, goods, and services. These brand companies then pay these influencers for their marketed end-products. In today’s space and time, wherein there are numerous channels for coming up with talents, creativity and skills, these influencers tweak different ways for interacting and developing good virtual relationships with their clients/followers online.

• So how do influencers create a wide range of followers?

• How do modern content creators harness ideas for making their videos, reels etc.?

• Why do we, as users, like seeing and watching the content of our favourite influencers?

The answers to the above questions lie in understanding the core dynamics of how social media works and then developing content accordingly. The power of hashtags, mentions, shares, comments and other factors play a titular role in creating marketable content that appeals to users like us on popular socials.

As per a report generated by Social Samosa, influencer marketing collaboration has resulted in a 65% increase in Indian brands and their products. The primary reasons for the same include exploring different target audiences and developing consistent brand reputation and sentiment.

The stats above highlights the role of influencers in driving marketing sales and promotional activities.

Today, the Indian young adults have thronged on the Instagram network. Several influencers bring smiles to those in need, fostering creativity through their artwork, fashionistas, and even travel influencers.

Popular Indian Social Media Influencers

Several digital marketing courses online are instrumental in teaching about critical components that lead to successful target branding and marketing of brands. There are specific courses inclined towards inculcating the different techniques and tools of creating and binding influence within social media scrollers. The MICA digital marketing course enlists in detail the various core elements that help develop followers and deliver their users’ content.

Nowadays, the investment made towards social media channels can help in growing the audience. Moreover, social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram have given a platform for talented individuals to come forward and showcase their talents and bring their creativity to the forefront for developing better connections with their audience groups.

Today there are different categories of social media influencers that have made social media a place for bolstering creativity, growth and giving people joy in the middle of these tumultuous times. These Indian influencers are the commoners who have transitioned themselves into attractive and appealing creators, delivering new and creative content and giving brands excellent fuel for brand campaigns. Those upcoming professionals looking for jobs in social media domains can look at the following list of influencers for developing a career along the same lines.

Entertainment Influencers

These are the people who run the showreel on Instagram and have created a unique audience for publishing their content. Here’s a list of certain personalities that have made the entertainment world their own:-

Kusha Kapila

Kusha Kapila or her famous social media alter-ego, “Billi Masi”, is a massive hit among millennials on Instagram. People love watching her satire based videos where she impersonates high-class South-Delhi women and shares humorous insights and her daily routines.

Kusha Kapila was a Delhi-based writer that used to write content for IDiva- a group of women-led Youtube channels that highlighted problems faced by Delhi girls. Today Kusha Kapila is amongst the top viewed Instagram influencers in the entertainment facet.

Dolly Singh

Dolly Singh was another member of the IDiva channel who that  gained mainstream popularity for her portrayal of “Raju ki Mummy” on YouTube and has then started making captivating and humour-filled reels on Instagram. Nowadays she’s known for playing characters such as “Guddy Bhabhi” and “Shree the Artist”.

Dolly Singh has several other talents and also started doing makeup videos for creating different looks that her female followers follow. She has always been vocal about the first-world problems faced by women and continues to do so, albeit in a humorous way that appeals to the young audience and educates them with those concepts.

Shrishti Dixit

Shrishti Dixit is a common face in the Indian social media juncture. She’s known for her acting in Buzzfeed India’s videos and always comes up with catchy phrases and creative content that makes her audience go in awe and splits. She’s majorly involved with creating feel-good content that teenagers and young adults alike can consume.

Today she has 729K followers on Instagram and over 2000 posts that have earned her celebrity status on that particular social media channel. Shrishti focuses on creating relatable content that is inspired by middle-class events. Due to her fresh and unique content, most of her short videos and reels get over a million views and lots of reshares.

Ankush Bahugana

Ankush Bahugna is a mixed bag and is the modern jack of all trades. Known chiefly for playing satirical characters and comedy defined reels, Bahugana has carved a niche for himself in the social media entertainment industry.

Ankush has been a familiar face in the social media setup and has bagged roles for MensXP, iDIVA and several other Youtube channels. Check out his range for a daily dose of humor. Ankush also pairs up with his mom for making reels, and his content always leaves a lasting impression on its viewers.

Fashion Influencers

Fashionistas have been given a show ramp in the form of social media paradigms to come out with vibrant, colourful and urban styles to teach the basics of dressing, colour matching and other aspects of dressing and fashion. The best part about reels made by Instagram or short stories offered by Facebook is that people can have a quick style update rather than watching a 10 min long Youtube video.

Here are some of the famous fashion influencers:-

Komal Pandey

Komal Pandey is a modern fashionista who generates chic-fashion content for her followers through reels, short videos and other mechanisms. She deals explicitly in fashion therapy videos that help in giving choices to college-goers and other mundane workers.

In her own college days when she used to post pictures with #picoftheday and #outfitoftheday that garnered attention from her younger female followers. Today she has over a million followers, and she continues to provide great and achievable looks for her fans.

Aashna Shroff

Aashna Shroff is amongst those influencers who have dedicated their time and energy towards being a full-time lifestyle influencer. She has worked with several leading brands in her past and gained mainstream attention with her blog- The Snob Journal.

Her timeline consists of various outfits, makeup routines, home decor and inspirations that she posts on regularly for her 864K followers to see and interact with.

Malvika Sitlani

Malvika Sitlani is a show stopper in a lot of ways, and her Instagram, Facebook accounts are a living proof for the same. She does makeup tutorials and product reviews for various brands she endorses and helps her followers with choosing the right set of accessories.

She is a popular influencer model, celebrity and fashionista that likes going all out with her dresses. Malvika Sitlani was earlier India’s Next Top Model Contestant and a Cosmopolitan beauty blogger back in 2019. Malvika Sitlan has about half a million followers who stay active on Instagram for collaborations and other marketing purposes.

Kritika Khurana

Kritika Khurana has been involved with the fashion industry for quite some time, and she started her journey with her famous blog, “The Boho Girl”, and has since achieved widespread success in this domain. Kritika has been awarded with Cosmopolitan Lifestyle Influencer of the Year 2020 for her free-flowing dresses and unique chic and bold fashion sense.

Today, she inspires many with her Indian and fusion wear combinations, leaving a style statement for her followers. She brings creativity to her dresses and expresses herself through her fashion choices.

Travel Influencers

India as a country offers several exotic, tourist places both in nature and concrete that allows people to unwind and spend weekend getaways from their mundane routines. Travelling is a big part of modern youth lifestyle, and there are certain influencers that help those nature-lovers in the right direction.

The following list highlights a few of the leading travel influencers:-

Siddharth Joshi

Siddharth Joshi is an avid traveller and his socials are a proof of that; he loves travelling and visiting stunning locations around the country. He then documents the scenery, surroundings, cultural highlights and other local shops, markets that are popular for a specific tourist spot.

Along with a keen traveller. Siddharth is a skillful photographer and his pictures speak for themselves. Currently, he has 114K followers on Instagram. His timeline consists of travelogues, travel, photography tips, travel product reviews, and detailing the specifications of camera lenses, tripod stands, and other features.

Shivya Nath

Shivya Nath is amongst those who followed her passion at a very young age and took the risk of quitting her corporate job and immersed herself completely in travelling around the world. Back in 2011, when she was just 23, she dedicated what she wanted to be and sold most of her belongings and began exploring new horizons.

Shivya is an epitome for slow and sustainable travel and today offers travelling hacks at affordable prices. Her travelling and exploration efforts have been recognised worldwide and has been featured on National Geographic Traveller India and BBC Travel for promoting safe and responsible travelling.

Travelling Indian

Travelling Indian is an uber desi explorer and traveller- Sahib Singh Sidana, who loves to seek out new experiences within the country and offers insights about unknown places. The influencer has picturesque shots of the Himalayas, the placid shots of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, forest paths that lead to Jim Corbett and others.

Sahib loves documenting his journey for the places he travels and explores and loves giving his 2 cents about the unique features of a place. Currently, Travelling Indian has 65K odd followers, but the content is fantastic and a great resource for igniting the explorer within.

Food Influencers

Are you a foodie who loves to eat?

Given how the world has been forced to stay indoors for safety reasons in the post-pandemic world, people have tried out and baked new cuisines at their homes and enjoy the feel of their favourite restaurants. There’s massive creativity involved in the field of cooking and is a great hobby to unwind from work and school commitments.

Food and foodies can enjoy home-made recipes by following these food influencers:-

Kabita Singh

Kabita Singh is a homeworker who loves cooking and trying out new recipes for her family members. She started her journey as a food influencer from humble beginnings and today is a famous influencer that offers delicious home-cooked food options for her followers.

Her timeline is filled with quick and easy to make home recipes that are loved by her huge followers list. Her target audience is primarily other moms and homemakers. Still, lately, with interest shown from young adults towards cooking, she has been developing content that appeals to her younger audiences as well.

Archana Doshi

Archana Doshi is a magical cook who creates inane recipes from stuff available at her home. She has a large fan following on both Instagram and Youtube, where she regularly posts and shares Indian recipes. Moreover, she also has a website called Archana’s Kitchen to her name that offers new and delicious food recipes for her followers.

She loves exploring new dishes and offers customised menu plans, meal preparations for events and festivals, creative lunch box ideas and more.

Sadaf Hussain

Sadaf Hussian is a Master Chef Indian finalist whose Instagram is nothing short of a gold mine for those who love Indian street food. Along with being a successful chef, Hussain’s an author, podcaster, and TEDx speaker who enjoys sharing his experiences with food, stories, and trivia.

Currently, Sadaf acts as a consulting chef for Delhi’s boat cafes, bistros and restaurants.

India is a Land of Influencers

As seen from the paragraphs above, there’s a variety of Indian influencers who are helping social media users engage and interact with exclusive content. Influencing people’s perception, thinking patterns and other facets of other lives requires an understanding of the interests and content preferences of the target audience. The above mentioned different types of influencers highlight the varied content, marketing facets, interests, passions and other visuals that attract certain social media users.

Therefore, getting a proper understanding of the vitalities of influencing and researching content based on that needs to be done prior to starting a typical influencer journey. The digital marketing courses online offered by credible and globally recognised universities can allow new-age influencers to generate customisable content and earn prospective sponsorship deals. The MICA digital marketing course makes the job easier for aspiring influencers to get equipped with more nuanced aspects of this domain.

Influencing in the current time and space comes with its own challenges with non-reproduction of content, earning the copyrights for avoiding resharing, earning music and audio rights etc. In order to become a successful influencer, one needs to stay consistent and keep on generating content to keep their followers engaged and well-connected.

It’s a long and arduous process that pays dividends in the end. With the focus now shifting on developing marketing practices that cater to influencers, commoners and other social users, there’s an increase in jobs in social media that help new marketing professionals excel in their fields. Upcoming marketers need to keep a close look over the latest developments in this sector and carry out their tasks accordingly.

Success in this arena rests on the influencers and their efforts towards making their brand identity unique, attractive, and appealing to others. With a significant focus change on developing procedures that yield results, digital marketing jobs are increasing day by day, and these influencers need to cash in for the same.

How to Become a Successful Influencer in India?

The breakdown of becoming a top-performing influencer in India comes down to several reasons: freshness in content, presentation of influencer, the content they’re delivering, the time and scheduling of videos/stories/reels, and whether their TA engages and connects with their content.

In order to be considered a “serious influencer”, one needs to put in the hard work, research about their audience, do live sessions online, and reply to those who comment on their published content and directly messaging users is a good strategy for building a decent follower base.

Instagram and Facebook offer specific tools and techniques for interacting with visual-based content for connecting with their audiences. Be it engagement, fostering relationships with followers or analysing interaction and other metrics, leveraging social media applications can help with gaining insights about how their content is performing and other particulars.

Moreover, since its followers make an influencer’s content viral, there needs to be highly active and responsive fans who interact and share their influencer’s content across other channels and amongst their peers. Becoming an Instagram influencer is more than just taking a shot of fame and attention, it’s more to do with expression and the way an individual interacts and communicates with their specific audience group.

Digital branding and social media influence today go hand in hand. Several digital marketing courses online teach about the cohesion and importance of these two in creating a result-driven approach for both influencers and brands. Branding today plays around with social perception and involvement techniques for attracting prospective buyers. If marketed by someone’s favourite influencer, a particular brand has a greater chance of being bought by the buyers, amongst other marketing methodologies.

Hence, it’s important for upcoming social media influencers, digital marketers and other advertising agents to understand the strategies, processes and other elements that help them take advantage of influencers to market and promote their products, goods and services. As for the influencers, they need to have a look over at guidelines that lead to success in their fields.

Starting off With an Official Business Account

In order to start off with the influencer journey, the interested individuals need to create their official social media accounts for business purposes on different channels. For example, Instagram’s business account offers various features that help grow the followers base and provide regular tracking and other useful insights for successful influencing.

A business account is a must for influencers and those who want to show their creativity to a diversified audience. Without such an account, there’s a limit to how much a particular person can grow in their influencing journey. The business analytics, data tracking of followers and other information about the content, its interaction and perception with followers, the number of hits, comments, reshares, mentions and other aspects give an exhaustive look at the different elements of influencer based marketing and content.

Novice and inexperienced influencers must closely examine the different metrics, calibrations, data trends, and practices offered by analytically designed social media applications. By doing so, influencers can develop a successful identity, attract better sponsorship deals, build a noticeable brand image and generate sales with passive income sources.

Several social media applications such as Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok are great for brand promotion and showing content with a great number of reshares, mentions and virals. So once a particular video, photograph or even a reel gets good attention from followers and other social media users, it becomes easier to attract more followers. The knowledge and expertise gained from the MICA digital marketing course can help solve these different analytical tools and develop engagement strategies accordingly.

Different social media tools offer different techniques for fostering better interaction and engagement between followers and influencers. It all boils down to formulating a structured path for gathering followers and keeping them hooked with content. Setting up an official business account requires choosing the right social media platform/s, creating a calendar for scheduling and delivering content, sharing videos, avoiding the newbie’s mistake of oversharing, creating content that delivers and provides value to social media users and other aspects.

Picking up a Niche

This is where the magic comes in; it’s the action stage of content generation and production.

Influencers need to ask themselves the following questions:-

• How can they make their content stand out?

• What value are they offering to their followers?

• Who are their target audiences?

• What message are they giving across to their followers?

The questions as described above define the outlook of how a typical influencer connects with their audience and builds their following list. In the current day and age wherein there’s unmatched competition in the influencer market, it’s important for new and coming of age influencers to broadcast their content in innovative ways so as to attract attention from social media consumers.

Engaging and visually appealing content needs to match its niche and serve a specific purpose for its followers. Picking up a niche refers to the arenas that an influencer engages his/her followers in; there are several niches available today- fashion, poetry, aesthetics, live instruments, bodybuilding/gyming, gaming, short skirts and other areas, influencers need to pick one or two that defines them and start off with their content.

It’s a self-reflection phase for influencers as they need to understand their talents and be the best out in the public eye and make it their locus for influencer branding and marketing. Here’s an interesting that shows the dominance of marketing-driven by roping in influencers:-

As per a report generated by Influencer Marketing Hub, the global influencer marketing industry has forecasted the industry to be worth 24.1 billion by 2025. The growth shown this year is a reflection of profits garnered over the past few years. Therefore, 2022 will prove to be a quantum shift in revenues accumulated for the influencer marketing sector.

The stats described above displays utter dominance of influencers in different domains taking the marketing sectors to newer heights and earning profits and better ROIs for their end products, goods and services.

Given the various options available today, it’s easier to attract a follower base that relates and engages with influencers’ content. Moreover, it can celebrate uniqueness, such as LGTB content that is gaining popularity amongst millennials and Gen Z. For example, an Indian gay content creator Kanwal Walia has taken the platform by storm by promoting makeup accessories, styling for the LGTB community and other aspects.

Establishing an Alluring Social Media Aesthetic Pages

Aesthetics is something that sets up the principles for beauty, artistry and other arenas; it’s a reflection of everyday things and the subconscious signals they send across. The same goes for an influencer’s socials. An influencer’s landing or Instagram page more or less defines whether they can get a decent following list or not.

Influencing, as mentioned earlier, is a game of perception and needs to draw audiences towards interacting with influencer’s content. The aesthetics need to be consistent with followers and must appeal to them to follow an influencer’s content and go well with their preferred niches. Carefully designed and projected aesthetics leads to better brand recognition and can help in the growth of personal brands and stuff.

Authentication of self and the content can help in signalling to the followers that their content can be trusted and creates transparency between social media users and content creators. Different strategies help create visually aesthetic content that drives the influencers and their marketing of products, goods, and services. Aesthetics need to be in conjunction with the message and essence of an influencer’s content; a slight mismatch can lead to loss of followers and boycotting of content.

To ace, the aesthetic aspect requires treading within a thin line of not going overboard and staying within the content’s appeal provided by influencers. Beauty and wellness are critical components that, if utilised smartly and cleverly with proper research about the audience, can lead to positive results for the influencers and help them in gaining followers.

Aesthetics allows influencers to stay abreast of the latest trends and developments in their domains and properly deliver core values to customers and followers. Therefore, the first page that a social media user sees needs to be attractive, alluring, cheerful and bind the average social media user for watching that influencer’s content.

Developing a Brand Voice and a Unique Personality

“A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course are as important as ever, but in the advertising age of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain’t got nothing.”

The above quote by Leo Burnett sheds light on the need to sell an idea through the constant involvement of end-users and is the sure-shot way for making a brand get attention from customers. The same holds true in influencer-based marketing, where the content creators need to render their generated content and ideologies with a unique voice and personality.

The brand personality becomes the primary differentiating element for making the content stand out from others. Just like a person with a great personality attracts people towards themselves and makes them likeable, the same goes for influencers who aim to create a broader target audience for their social media pages.

Influencers need to focus on developing a clear self-image of what their content is about, the message and emotions it gives off to their followers and establishing pathways that lead to communication with the right set of audience. By no means should influencers limit their creative and expressive freedom for exploration but ensure that their content reaches their followers that help in building recognition, and sets them apart from their fellow influencers.

Influencers can utilise the age-old art of story-telling for developing connections with their followers and narrate what their content or brand is all about, its history, what made them take up a specific niche for branding and marketing and the various elements that make their content stand out from others. Moreover, incorporating emotionally charged content such as for gym influencers that pump up adrenaline for their followers or a serene music that evokes memories for social media users can also lead to better conversion of leads and hence make influencers gain popularity across social media channels.

Curating Content with Hashtags and Trends

Influencers need to curate and draft content that is #trending or currently doing rounds on social media. The modern influencers need to avoid the FOMO (fear of missing out) on going for trends followed by other social media personalities and go the extra mile by adding their own touch to those. Influencers need to set up a unique brand tone with their visual content and utilise hashtags wherever necessary.

For example, an aspiring photography influencer can attach aesthetic pictures and ask the viewers to find Disney easter eggs, or Alpha M’s signature “drop one of these” prior to starting his videos. These are amongst the many techniques used by influencers to keep their audiences engaged with their content and develop a long-lasting relationship.

Hashtags are calm and resourceful tools deployed by social media platforms that when used appropriately, can be used to find similar posts, redirect more significant viewership for a particular influencer’s social media page and even lead to better conversions of leads. There are specific hashtags such as #picoftheday #nofilter #instatraveler #tbt, which can help in more likes, comments, mentions, and followers.

Another subtle feature of hashtags is that they can be used in a social media search box to find relevant pics, content, and reels and allow users to explore new influencers. Furthermore, Instagram has a relatively unknown feature that uses a customizable hashtag that redirects to its previous mentions. For example, an influencer who does fashion vlogging can create their own hashtag #vlogwalk and add it in all of their other fashion-inspired vlogging to redirect their users to their posts and videos.

Bringing out the Influencer Within

The above points touch base with the different aspects of influencer based marketing and sheds light on the critical components that help in augmenting great influencing strategies for bringing in more followers for content produced by social media creators. The science to unearthing a sizable followers list and sponsors lies with the influencers in how well they interact and engage with the social media users and the value provided.

There are several aspects of the influencer marketing industry that need to be understood before applying for digital marketing jobs. These core elements include creating an official social media business account, focusing on delivering content as per a niche, creating aesthetic content through attractive pictures, using hashtags and keeping a tab over the latest trends, and staying consistent while realising the dream of becoming a successful influencer in India.

Join the Race to Become Successful Influencer in India

The article above describes in-depth about the need for new and innovative marketing that involves influencers for promoting brands, goods and services launched by agencies and organisations. The growth of social media channels over the last five to ten years has paved the way for content creators to deliver appealing content to their followers. Moreover, with B2B and B2C marketing changes, influencers offer a range to social media users and get recognised with their efforts via sponsorships and endorsements.

There are different facets to ace the role of an influencer. The article above sheds light on the same by identifying the core constituent elements that can help budding content creators attract many followers. Equipped with the learnings from a plethora of digital marketing courses online, upcoming professionals can gather insights about establishing a long-lasting and trustworthy relationship between themselves and their followers.

The current era is a creative and innovative one that has influencers as the modern marketers who are closing the gap between shoppers and customers. Today, social media users can follow their favoured influencers, interact and engage with their content, and get soaked in their creativity, brilliance, and antics. There has been a sporadic rise in jobs for social media primarily because of the latest advancements in this domain and the growth of influencers.

Today digital marketing jobs aren’t just related to developing effective strategies and taking care of metrics but also for the social media activity, its perception amongst public, aesthetics, how it caters to the customers, the brand’s personality and voice, if it sends across the right signal and message across and other vitalities. Therefore, the role of influencers in marketing practices has become important over the years, given how social media has spread its tentacles in all walks of our life apart from just entertainment.

More Information:

Future in Digital Marketing as Career

Is Digital Marketing a good Career in India?

Why to Choose a Career in Digital Marketing?

Growth & Opportunities for Digital Marketing Professionals in 2022