Influencers, brands stress on proper content balance

Pune: Brands engaging influencers for digital marketing should allow a certain level of independence to the creators, as they have a fair amount of understanding of their audience, industry players said at the Maharashtra Influencers Summit organised by the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) on Saturday.Influencers should realise that they are promoting content and not lose sight of that in the process, they said."It may not be the case that advertising agencies are familiar with trends at the grassroots level. They have their own ecosystem, with set algorithms, so it becomes difficult for them to penetrate the minds of the consumers," said Sarang Sathaye, who runs Bharatiya Digital Party.Digital marketing strategy goes wrong only in cases where there is lack of understanding of the audience that the influencer caters to, the panellists said.Around 2018, the trend started where brands began approaching influencers for digital marketing in addition to celebrities. The cost of engaging celebrities for marketing was high, while the immediate impact on sales was not commensurate with it. While celebrities do not have responsibilities in proving the impact of the promotion, influencers deliver much more effective results, which is why advertising engagements with the influencer industry have grown exponentially in the past five years, said an advertising professional.India's influencer marketing industry is estimated to reach Rs 3,375 crore by 2026, growing by 18% between 2022-26, as per an EY report. It also said that brands are opting to keep their influence marketing budget the same or raise it by around 10%.Eventually, video-based social media such as YouTube and Instagram would shift towards e-commerce, as roughly 50% of time spent on mobile phones is on social media, social media influencer Arun Prabhudesai said.There is a rising preference by companies for engaging micro-influencers as consumer preferences keep changing between towns and even localities. "We are working with micro-influencers as the requirement for masalas in Maharashtra keeps changing every 100 km," Anand Chordia, director of technology and innovation at Suhana Masala, said. The immediate impact of digital marketing on sales in case of commodities was always a question mark, but it pays off where digital marketing is able to convert into retail sales, he added.