According to a recent collaborative report by EY and Collective Artists Network, titled ‘The State Of Influencer Marketing in India’, the Indian influencer marketing sector is poised for significant growth, with an anticipated 25% surge, reaching Rs 2,344 crore in 2024. It further suggests expansion to Rs 3,375 crore by 2026.
These forecasts highlight the ongoing expansion within the influencer marketing landscape, offering an avenue for brands, marketers, and influencers to capitalise on this thriving industry.
Underscoring the notable trend, the report states that 75% of brands anticipate integrating influencer marketing into their marketing strategies. Additionally, 47% of brands opt for leveraging micro and nano influencers to spearhead their influencer campaigns, citing the lower cost per reach as a key factor.
Surge in pay scale
As the EY report suggests, it is a good time to be an influencer in India especially when it comes to pay scale. Currently, approximately 12 percent of the 9.3 lakh content creators who monetise their content earn monthly incomes ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. The 12 percent influencers who earn between this range include macro and micro influencers.
In the realm of social media, influencers or content creators are often classified according to their follower count. A mega influencer boasts an impressive following of over a million, while a macro influencer typically ranges between a hundred thousand to one million followers. Micro influencers fall into the bracket of ten thousand to a hundred thousand followers. Finally, nano influencers are those with a modest following of a hundred to ten thousand followers on social media platforms.
Over the last two years, 77 percent of influencers have experienced income growth, and 86 percent anticipate a further increase of over 10 percent in their income over the next two years.
Amiya Swarup, Partner, Marketing Advisory, EY India, said, "There are 3.5-4 million influencers in India. There is a huge chunk of influencers who are sitting on the brink of content monetisation. We see a huge chunk coming in terms of influencers monetising their content in the next two years. We surveyed 600 influencers and many of them have seen their income increasing upwards of 10 percent."
The influencer landscape in India now encompasses a total of 4 million individuals, comprising both content creators who have not yet begun monetising their content and those who have.
Growing brand interest
Referring to the fact that 50% of mobile usage is devoted to social media, the report emphasised the importance for marketers to integrate influencer marketing into their communication strategies.
The report noted, "Brands focus on the engagement rate and the quality of the audience when picking influencers, understanding the importance of real connections to reach their target audience."
Around 75 percent of brands are projected to incorporate influencer marketing into their marketing strategies. Among them, 56 percent of brands allocated more than two percent of their budget to influencer marketing. As per the report, it is anticipated that numerous brands will raise this allocation by as much as 10 percent.
Vijay Subramaniam, Group CEO and Founder, Collective Artists Network, noted that while lifestyle, fashion, and beauty sectors continue to lead influencer marketing growth, other industries such as BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance), automotive, and sustainability are also showing significant investment in this area. He also highlighted the increasing prominence of fintech in influencer marketing.
Regarding the platforms where influencers are most active in content creation and where audiences engage the most, Instagram and YouTube stand out as the top choices.
Political parties embrace influencer marketing
Not only brands, even political parties have been keen on leveraging the growing popularity of influencers in the run up to the elections. In the last state elections of Telangana, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi had, reportedly, engaged at least 250 such social media ‘influencers’ and celebrities to promote its campaign with the hashtag #EtlundeTelanganaEtlaindiTelangana.
Many social media personalities began using this hashtag to commend what they perceived as the progress and advancement of Telangana under the leadership of former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Similarly, Veer Sharma, an Indore-based social media influencer, had shared a photo and a reel on Instagram of his meeting with the then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, months before the state election. Sharma, along with his partner, Parul Ahirwar, claimed that they even got offer from the Congress party leaders who were willing to pay double than what the BJP was offering for making promotional videos or reels.
However, they relented saying, “Since we are admirer of PM Narendra Modi and the BJP, we turned down the offer and made many videos supporting the policies and works of the BJP leaders.”
In a similar vein, the Congress-led government in Rajasthan under Ashok Gehlot had announced its plans to provide advertisements ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5 lakh to social media influencers who promote government schemes and programs.
The state government has classified influencers into four categories: Category A requires a minimum of 1 million subscribers/followers, Category B requires half a million subscribers/followers, Category C requires 100,000 subscribers/followers, and Category D requires at least 10,000 subscribers/followers.
Apart from this, the social media is ripe with reels and podcast interviews of several political leaders with YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia and Kamia Jani of Curly Tales fame.