The Primary Factor Today Driving Fast Digital Growth Online

With the pandemic making people stay at home for months at a stretch and boosting their digital media consumption, the reach and efficacy of digital marketing has significantly increased. More and more brands are going all out for increasing their presence across digital platforms to profitably engage their digital-first prospects. One of the fastest growing digital marketing services is Influencer Marketing.

Influencer Marketing is a variant of social media marketing that involves content creation for popularising brands through endorsements, demonstrations, and product and service mentions by social media personalities with a dedicated fan and follower following. These influencers have built their following through years of sharing content with them that informs, educates and entertains their followers. When these influencers talk about your product or service to them, they are more likely to pay attention to the message, with a higher probability of them actually trying out the brand. With social media becoming the leading digital channel of brand discovery and purchase among Gen Z and Millennials, influencer marketing is moving to the next level of engagement. Which is why, marketers are excited about the tremendous potential offered by this fast-growing digital engagement channel.

Creating interesting video content along with the influencers, with story lines matching the profile of the influencer, is the best way to ensure that the content piece will receive higher likes, comments, and shares. One trend that is picking up, is entering into long term endorsement partnerships with influencers, rather than doing a one-off campaign. The core advantage of building long term partnerships with influencers is that, over a period, the partnership builds advocacy and gradually increases brand trust among the influencer’s fans and followers. This always-on approach to influencer marketing also portrays the brand loyalty of the influencer and positions him or her as having a serious approach towards the activity. Nivea India has taken influencer marketing one step ahead, with its #NiveaSoftFreshBatch initiative. As part of this exercise, the brand has discovered 75 diverse Gen Z social media content creators, after closely examining entries from over 20,000 students from more than 200 colleges across India. Nivea’s mentors influencers like Mrunal Panchal, Nagma Mirajkar, Abigail Pande and Neha Doodles, will mentor these chosen 75 individuals with brand building masterclasses and resources for creating unique content, over a year-long brand collaboration.

Another trend that is just beginning but will surely pick up, is brands using influencers popular with social media users in Tier 2 and 3 cities, who are either creating content in the local language or with local flavour. This includes radio jockeys, who interact with Millennials and the Gen Z audience every day, making them a good choice for brands wanting to engage their prospects with content co-created with the RJs, as they know the pulse of the audience in this segment. To illustrate the point, RJ Malishka of Red FM has 1 million followers of Facebook and 1.3 million followers on Instagram, while RJ Praveen has 8.4 million followers on Facebook and 2 million followers on Instagram!