How do brands decide which social media influencer is a good fit?

Marketing spends now include the universe of Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn in their budgets but is getting the correct match always that easy?

Imagine this scenario: You are scrolling through Instagram and click on what you feel might be an interesting post. What you get is a fiery young woman scolding her offspring, and interspersed into that volley of mother-child confrontations is a rapid description of the car that’s being driven by the mum. The car in question is Tata Punch and the role of the mother is played by social media star Kusha Kapila. The Instagram post, dated 18 August 18, has more than 586k likes and 4288 comments; the YouTube post for the same ad has been viewed more than 14,000 times. The same ad has also been circulated on Whatsapp endlessly, since it happens to be a great way for family groups to chuckle over how most Indians moms are the same! Kapila, a social media sensation has 2.6 million followers on the ’gram and another 403k subscribers on YouTube India. The Tata Punch ad is a great example of how Kapila’s acting chops can help expand the reach of a brand well beyond the realm of print, television and outdoor advertising and tap into her own intensive network.

What the above example highlights is the power of going viral in today’s world of social media influences. Social media is one of the most effective digital marketing tools, with more companies embracing it now than ever before. As the number of social network users continues to soar and consumer shopping behaviour is increasingly impacted by the likes of Instagram, marketers are learning to leverage these networks’ drawing power for promotional purposes. In 2020, social media ad spend stood at approximately US$132 billion, with spending expected to surpass the 200-billion-dollar mark by 2024. While the United States remains the largest social media ad market globally, marketers from other countries are also jumping on the social media train.

Hard to ignore

“At one point, all we had to do was monitor print, TV and outdoor advertising spaces. We live in crazy times now! Now the focus has shifted to the digital space. We have to ensure that social media channels and using personalities on these channels are accounted for in clients’ budgets,” states Urvashi Iyer (name changed) a media planner from a leading ad agency who spoke to The Established. The writing has been clear for a long time now. It’s impossible to ignore social media influencers. But how easy is it to find a social media personality that matches a brand’s core values? With Kapila and Tata Punch, the fit ostensibly appears easy but probably required a great deal of brainstorming at Fetch, the agency that is partnered by Santu Misra, Pankhuri Harikrishnan and Kapila. “Brands now have budgets [for influencer marketing] and as you have seen, even the big stars use influencers to promote their movies. Using social media personalities feels more real and garners more engagement,” emphasises Harikrishnan.

It’s a view that’s shared by Prashant Rao, Group Brand Head, JSW Group, “Social media allows you to target your audience, very precisely, so you know who you're reaching out to. You have instant metrics in terms of how the campaign is received, and you know how people are reacting to it. So you can also course-correct, almost instantaneously. Secondly, it is, to a large extent, far more cost-effective than launching [a campaign] on traditional media even now,” he acknowledges.

The rise of social influencer marketing

According to Statista, ad spends in the Indian social media advertising segment are projected to reach US$1.06 billion in 2022 at an annual growth rate (CAGR 2022-2027) of 5.18 per cent, resulting in a projected market volume of US$1.37 billion by 2027. Statista also states that the market share of Meta Platforms, Inc. amounts to an estimated 80 per cent of the social media advertising segment in India for 2021– which means Instagram clearly leads the way.

Of particular significance is the shift from relying on celebrity endorsements to employing social media personalities for product placements. In 2021, celebrities held only 27 per cent of the market share of marketing campaigns, while influencers had the bigger piece of the pie at 73 per cent. The growth of influencers is also not merely limited to traditionally dominant sectors like food and beverage, personal care, fashion and technology; they are being used in sectors like BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance sector) and fintech too.

Matching brands with influencers

An estimated 210 million people in India use the Internet to access material written in local languages, according to management consultancy firm Redseer. Brands are thus placing more emphasis on collaborating with local influencers who can reach the target audience more successfully. Also called nano influencers, these social media stars proved to be important channels to build brand trust and credibility, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic when consumers were receptive to branded content that was comforting and inspiring. For instance, cult brands like Royal Enfield work with passionate motorcyclists, who might not have too many followers on social media, but their commitment to ‘pure motorcycling’ makes them far more important than, say, a celebrity. Brands such as Reebok, McDonalds and H&M consistently work with influencers that they call ‘brand friends’ who have varying follower counts.

A recent example of using social media stars–both celebrity and non-celebrity–in a brand’s campaign is that of Swiggy Instamart’s YouTube Series Inside My Kitchen featuring Janice Sequeira which takes you into the homes of celebrities includingSrishti Dixit, Shruti Haasan, Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor and Tammnah Bhatia. The idea behind the YouTube show, produced by leading media and entertainment agency OML Entertainment, is to take viewers into the kitchens of famous personalities, giving them a glimpse of their lives.

On the client side, Sneha Elizabeth John, Director Marketing, Swiggy, says, “We knew that viewers yearn to know more about how their favourite influencers and celebrities live. Inside my Kitchen was conceptualised along with the OML team and Janice to showcase these celebrity kitchens and how Swiggy Instamart has become an integral part of their day-to-day lives.” Sequeira, who is a digital creator, concurs when she says, “The audience today is looking for real conversations and is keen to see the lighter side of their favourite talents. What better way to do this than hang out with these celebrated names inside their own homes and kitchens?”

Building social media personalities

To help social media stars peddle their wares better are folks like Prachi Kapse, who heads talent management and influencer marketing agency, People Kind. Kapse believes in helping her clients achieve their social media goals by building their image and connecting brands to them. “I like the idea of being a digital strategy-forward agency. We give our clients advice that ranges from who should be part of their entourage, which stylists they should be working with, what kind of ads/brands they should be associated with and what kind of interviews they should be doing. We are a PR and strategy agency because if [the influencer] is good, money [and growth] will come in.” Kapse, who managed fashion influencer Masoom Minawala’s portfolio until recently, also manages celebrity stylists Shaleena Nathani, Tanya Ghavri and Edward Lalrempuia and has worked with Manish Malhotra too.

Kapse, who references Bollywood actors like megastars Shah Rukh Khan and Ranveer Singh in her conversations, is very focused on building her clients’ portfolio in a more wholesome manner. She says, “For us it is image management. It is Instagram management. Are you trying to be funny? Are you trying to be cute? Are you trying to be informative? Are you only thinking that you're going to earn money by just creating content? Do you think Shah Rukh Khan literally just goes and acts? No, he [goes all out for] promotions? For me no conversation is a bad conversation and we learn something for and with every client.”

What’s the ROI on social media influencers?

“It's a great idea to use social media exclusively to launch your campaign. Of course, it depends on the product category. For instance, if you are a financial services organisation, or a big manufacturing company launching an IPO, for instance, then social/digital media cannot be the only medium. It depends on the objective as well as the audience,” explains Rao.

According to the INCA Influencer Marketing Survey, 84 per cent of the brand marketers leaned positively towards launching one influencer campaign. Results also indicate that decision-makers have unanimously forecast strong growth in influencer marketing budgets, with at least 50 per cent of the respondents indicating a hike of 25-36 per cent. Seventy-five per cent of the marketing leaders have indicated that influencer campaigns have had a positive impact on the consideration and purchase stage of the sales funnel.

Part of the INCA survey is Sreerupa Banerjee, Brand Head and EVP Marketing, Vodafone Idea (Vi)’s input, who says, “Choosing the right influencer thus becomes very important. At Vi, we choose to collaborate with influencers who believe in our brand and bring something fresh to it. The true passion an influencer displays while conveying what the brand has to offer becomes the key differentiator. This generates a positive share of voice, which, in turn, builds brand love and neutralises any negative sentiments on social media.”

But what about the crucial return-on-investment factor when using social media stars? Rao cites an example of organic growth in a social media campaign: “A lot of the campaigns that we use are awareness-driven. So they don't necessarily come with a product to purchase, where I can measure the effect the campaign has had on actual sales. But in terms of awareness, I think the bigger the audience, the bigger the need. I hate to say this but famous sportspersons, or Bollywood actors give you far more traction. For instance, we did a campaign last year for the Olympic Games which got shared organically by Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt through their Instagram stories, and the campaign views increased by almost 350k.”

When we ask Misra about how one assesses the success of a social media campaign, his response is swift, “ROI must be assessed at the cultural level. Have the ads and the influencers impacted culture in any way? The moment you become part of culture, and your words are being referred to, then you know you have success at hand. Campaigns are just number-driven conversion exercises. So it depends on what the campaign is and what the product is. The product’s price point also dictates what the campaign can become. So there are multiple levels that one needs to look at while designing a campaign [around an influencer].”

In the end, the numbers do speak for themselves. Nazneen Joshi, Senior Vice President Business and Strategy for digital agency RepIndia tells us about one of her clients, Havells. “We wanted to break the clutter on digital during the 2019 Cricket World Cup . We worked on the basic insight that since most fans cheer from their living rooms along with their families, how do we bring this experience to digital? Through WhatsApp, we started the campaign by connecting with crazy cricket fans by asking them to add their favourite cricketer Suresh Raina to their family WhatsApp groups. Thus, we drove the traffic from social media to a website where people could register to be a part of the WhatsApp group with Raina.”

The results were impressive: 8,000+ WhatsApp group requests with a total reach of over 6.1 million; total engagement of more than 202.5K; and over 2,000 WhatsApp groups created with total impressions of more than 68.2 million.

The proof, then, lies in the social media pudding, which seems to be getting sweeter by the moment.

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