Here’s how you can prepare for digital marketing shifts.

The Biggest Challenges Marketers May Face In 2023

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2020, Apple announced iOS 14 and new privacy features. As a result, marketers have less data to use to understand customers and personalize marketing efforts. However, that announcement was just the start.

Now, we’re looking toward a cookieless future. Google is planning to make cookies a thing of the past by the end of 2024. We need to start preparing in 2023 for the change.

How To Get The Upper Hand

If you know about stocks and investing, you know that the strongest portfolios are usually the most diverse. No expert investor will throw all of their resources into one stock, because if that stock fails, they’ll lose everything.

Marketers can learn from investors. Throwing all of your marketing budget into one or two strategies puts your business at risk. Instead, diversify your approach. For example, keep running your ads because they’ll still be relevant without cookies, but also invest in email marketing.

The most effective content marketing strategies work together to fill in the gaps where some strategies are weak or where you aren’t reaching customers. By using diverse strategiesin tandem, you reach the most customers and aren’t impacted as significantly by changes.

Four Strategies To Excel At Marketing In 2023

Here are four strategies to add to your arsenal of digital marketing tools to ensure that you continue reaching customers in a more restrictive digital world:

1. Gather First-Party Data

First-party data will likely be the most valuable source of information in 2023 as third-party data continues to go the way of the dinosaurs. Instead of purchasing information from outside companies, rely on your own assets to gather customer data. According to a Gartner survey, 79% of consumers want more control over their personal information and its use. You will benefit from respecting customers’ privacy and turning to first-party data instead of using outside data.

Some valuable sources of first-party data include:

• Website visitor tracking.

• Digital forms and surveys.

• Social media interactions.

• Customer service interactions.

• Marketing email and text message responses.

2. Run Pay-Per-Click Ads With First-Party Data

Many e-commerce retailers rely on Google and social media ads to retarget and create an ad funnel. For example, imagine a customer stopped by your website and looked at new dresses but left. Retailers retarget by showing ads on other sites to entice the customer back.However, Apple’s privacy updates are making that more difficult, and cookieless browsing will only make it harder.

Thankfully, retargeting through ads is still possible.

Many marketers are turning to services like Google’s Customer Match, or Facebook’s Custom Audiences. These solutions use a custom audience list that businesses create with first-party data and match that list to users on the ad platform. That way, companies can deliver personalized ads to customers based on first-party data to create an ad funnel.

3. Focus On Email And Text Message Marketing

Email and text message marketing are two of the most valuable first-party data sources. Through these marketing channels, you can target specific customers and segments. For example, you can divide your email list by location and send out location-specific promotions to customers. According to research by eMarketer, most consumers prefer personalized emails based on behaviors like purchase history.

Then, you can track which customers open emails and text messages and how they respond to the content. This data will allow you to customize marketing to current customers based on behaviors, like how they respond to certain promotions.

4. Work With Brand Ambassadors And Influencers

Brand ambassadors and influencers will likely play a crucial role in 2023 as companies continue to find creative ways to reach their target audiences without the help of cookies and data-tracking tools. In 2022, more than 75% of brand marketers planned to budget for influencer marketing. You can choose an influencer with a niche audience to help you reach your target market.

Brand ambassadors and influencers promote businesses more personally than a traditional ad that pops up on someone’s social media feed. Brand ambassadors are friendly and familiar faces offering product recommendations, which boosts your brand’s authenticity.

Rahul Singh, founder of Winkl, a platform that helps brands execute, manage and track influencer marketing campaigns: “In April and May we saw a 60% dip in business.” Winkl works with brands such as Amazon, Flipkart and Dabur, among others.

Brands are definitely staying away from promotional activities with influencers at this moment, said Ashutosh Harbola, founder of influencer marketing company Buzzoka. “I have not received a single client brief in the last three weeks or so. There’s a fear among top advertisers of being trolled for being tone deaf to the worsening state of the pandemic in the country if they indulge in promotions.”

Big spenders such as fashion & lifestyle, cosmetics and travel categories have paused their promotions. “Any company which cares about the image of its brand has delayed promotions. Brands are a lot of perception, after all,” said Singh.

What is an Amazon Influencer? As a member of the Amazon Influencer Program, you are a content creator who provides recommendations to inspire your audience via social media. If you are a media company or a brand and want to drive traffic to Amazon, you should apply to the Amazon Associates Program instead.

According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s influencer market is estimated at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion.

Second Wave Slowdown?

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brand, Plum, which works with a variety of influencers, has taken a conscious decision to slow down campaigns and promotions.

“We did slowdown in terms of influencer marketing campaigns especially in May. We respected the wishes of those influencers who were choosing not to partner at this time. So, there were several promotions and campaigns that were pushed out,” said Arushi Thapar, senior marketing manager at Plum.

Renowned chef Tanaz Godiwala had to pause all influencer collaborations with food bloggers as her cloud kitchen venture A Parsi Affair was impacted by the second wave. With state-imposed restrictions in Maharashtra, there have been multiple challenges in sourcing ingredients, delivery as well as staff safety.

“Owing to the fact that there is no business happening, we are tight on the money to spend on influencers. We are doing bare basic postings on social media platforms and promoting safety and well-being messages. Nobody is going to spend money on luxury items in the current scheme of things,” Godiwala said.

Is the choice of platform post pandemic changing?

Businesses and creators leveraged Facebook and Instagram to enhance their reach online more than ever during the pandemic, but digital marketing had started booming when Google and Facebook became popular

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=813283942867862

Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have become the go-to platforms, especially in the last two-three years, for promoting and advertising products. In 2020, though, Instagram turned out to be the most preferred platform for influencer marketing, with it being the choice of 82% marketers, as per Buzzoka, a Noida-based influencer marketing company. Released in March, the fourth edition of Buzzoka’s Influencer Marketing Outlook (an annual survey that offers a detailed look at the influencer marketing landscape) revealed that YouTube was the second-most preferred platform with 41% votes. The survey included over 300 senior marketers and leading brands across India. Around 72% of the marketers believed that influencer marketing is the fastest-growing online customer acquisition method.

In their earnings report published on Bloomberg on April 30, Amazon, Facebook and Google revealed that people had become more dependent on their offerings since the shutdowns and that this trend could drive long-term growth. The companies said their advertising and e-commerce revenue streams remained immune to the problem of business contraction during these times.

The three pivotal moments in history, however, that defined the digital shift remain the launch of Jio, demonetisation and the pandemic, with the latter being the major reason businesses shifted online, according to Bengaluru-based Abhinav Arora, co-founder and CMO, Avalon Meta, an alternative online education platform.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPK1S09pJrF/

Another factor that contributed to the boom was the fact that offline projects and shoots were halted. As mobile consumption spiked significantly, brands increased their spending on digital and influencer-led marketing campaigns, shares Mumbai-based Viraj Sheth, co-founder and CEO, Monk Entertainment, a creative digital media organisation. According to Sheth, digital and social media marketing allow one to track the key performance indicators, something that has not been possible with the other mediums in the past. This, in turn, fetches extremely targeted data, which helps analyse the campaign RoI better and take effective steps for the next campaign.

Influencer marketing is an important component of digital and social media marketing today. It involves utilising the services of an influencer with a considerable number of followers to market a product in exchange of payment or the product/services. According to estimates by research company Insider Intelligence (based on data by California-headquartered influencer marketing agency Mediakix), the influencer marketing industry will be worth $15 billion by 2022 up from $8 billion in 2019.

Facebook India’s Bhushan shares that businesses have started communicating with their customers in creative ways, including immersive ad units through influencer marketing. “With digital influence up by 25% across categories, large and small brands are using branded content by creators to drive business impact,” he says, adding, “There’s a natural affinity to interact with public figures, creators and brands. Brands are essentially looking for one thing: business impact. This could be in the form of sales or salience. Leveraging branded content with influencers is a way to deliver on both objectives. They can essentially choose to work with a creator, who has an authentic voice and represents the brand well, to bring alive their content.”

Sharing a few such instances, Bhushan says, “Some examples would be Hyundai, which launched its sedan Aura with influencers and saw a five-point lift in awareness. Similarly, there was a 2.3-point increase in purchase intent for Cadbury when they used influencers. Even a small business like myBageecha, which is into gardening products, recently leveraged branded content in partnership with actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, resulting in a significant ad recall lift of 3.5 points.”

However, there are certain rules when it comes to influencer marketing. In February this year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued draft rules for influencers on digital media platforms to protect consumer interest. According to the new rules, an influencer has to specify if their content is through a paid partnership and this should be visible on all mediums like phones, tablet, etc, prominently.

The way forward to influencing..

• A B2B brand should choose LinkedIn
• For a consumer brand, Instagram is best
• Once on the platform, one must regularly share authentic content to build audience trust
• One must ensure that purchase (or conversion) flow is smooth and user-friendly on app/site
• Brands should reproduce the user journey themselves and optimise it
• Identify and collaborate with digital influencers and content creators in one’s industry

The real truth about all of this is that there are no definitive “rules” as such. What works for your brand, and your audience, may not have any impact at all for another business.

The truth is that what really matters is the core of the content that you produce, and how that connects with your target market – but that also doesn’t mean that you should just ignore all the best practice advice out there and post whatever you want, whenever you want.

Indeed, all of the data-backed guides and tips you’ll find around these topics can be critical in helping you find the optimal process for your business. By following researched tips, you’re starting from a better position, and over time, you can refine your approach from there, in order to settle into the best practice for your brand. 

But you have to start somewhere, and it’s good to have some idea of how you’re more likely to reach that end strategy.

That’s where guides like this come in – the team from Sutherland Weston have put together an infographic listing of optimal social posting lengths in order to spark more engagement.

And there are some key considerations here – like how much room you have in the preview pane and what research suggests about engagement. It’s worth noting these pointers, and either testing them out, in variance to your existing practices, or making them a starting point for your experiments.

This article originally appeared on SocialMedia Today

As per the Google KPMG report, the Indian internet user base will increase to 735 million by 2021. Indian language internet users are expected to grow at a CAGR of 18% to reach 536 million by 2021, while English users are expected to grow at only 3% reaching 199 million within the same period. Clearly the growth opportunity for brands lies in the regional markets.

The Google KPMG report is in line with the growing demand for language content. According to the report, 70% Indians find local language digital content more reliable. Furthermore, 88% Indian language internet users are more likely to respond to a digital advertisement in their local language as compared to English, and 90% of all video consumption happens in local languages. These numbers already tell a story!

Leading content generation platforms have already started focusing more on Hindi and other Indian languages. While 95% of YouTube videos consumed are in regional languages, apps such as DailyHunt and ShareChat are allowing people to consume content in multiple languages. Facebook and Google have started focusing on vernacular content, furthering the mass distribution of regional content. In fact, earlier this year, Google enabled voice search for eight Indian languages earlier this year.

The exponential increase in creation and distribution of regional language content has led to an explosion in terms of content consumption. This offers a huge growth potential to target these Indian language Internet users, which are expected to account for nearly 75% of India’s internet user base by 2021.

Here are 7 things keeping ‘vernacular’ at the core which can be a total game-changer for digital marketers.

1. Multi-lingual web platform

Building a localised platform to generate higher traction and reach out to a larger set of audiences should be the first thing on the list for digital marketers. Leading content creation platforms in India are catering to audiences through multiple Indian languages such as Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Punjabi to name a few. People who are more comfortable consuming content in their own language, thus feel an affinity towards the brand.

2. Vernacular content capturing regional nuances

70% of Indians find local language digital content more reliable than English content. So, brands need to start thinking regional in terms of content so that they speak to their audience in the affable regional expression with the right regional nuance. Transcending into literacy agnostic content across formats – audio and video – will only help brands target users across the spectrum.

3. Regional videos – the future of digital content marketing

Interestingly, 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it. When consumers recall a marketing video, they also remember the brand. And, with the proliferation of social media, consumers are also sharing the videos they like, which can expand the brand’s online reach. To make videos memorable and acceptable, brands must ensure that they are in line with their brand strategy and in the language the customer wants to see.

4. Voice-enabled content by marrying the 2 Vs – Voice & Vernacular

Gartner recently forecast that 30% of web browsing sessions will happen without a screen by 2020, with ‘voice-first’ interactions” potentially taking over much of the legwork. With the potential to include the semi-literate sections of society into the fold of the content revolution, audio content is without a doubt the next big step towards internet inclusion, riding steadily on the vernacular wave. Brands, therefore, will have to find new ways to become discoverable through voice search results to stay visible on digital platforms.

5. Regional insights to personalize communication

In order to create communication or products that consumers will find valuable, brands need to know who they’re speaking to, where their interests lie and what their concerns are. With diversity at its core, India offers a new insight at every 100 km. It’s therefore important to capture these insights and leverage them to build relevant products, services, and communication for the language users.

6. Two-way conversation through vernacular social media

Social media marketing allows brands to not just speak to their consumers, but also to listen to them in return. To be able to have a meaningful conversation and build user engagement, brands need to start conversing with the users in their languages on social media pages. Without a doubt, marketers to speak the language of their audience!

7. Not translations, but transcreations!

Brands need to be conscious of an important fact that mere translation is not going to do the job while conversing with the non-English speaking users. They need to build an understanding of this audience and adapt content, communication, and campaigns keeping in mind what appeals to them best. Transcreation is a big opportunity, but the benefits of this can only be realized through appropriate changes in the organizational structure, both at the client as well as the agency. Brands need to start thinking about this right away.

This article was originally featured in BrandEquity.

Numbers are all the rage these days. From Rs100 crore films to Rs500 crore collections at the box office, the world of cinema has become obsessed with records.

With social media quickly taking over the entertainment space, the parameters might have changed but the competition remains. YouTube has now become one of the fastest growing content spaces for Indian media.

In March 2018, Satya Raghavan, then entertainment head at YouTube India, told The Hindu BusinessLine newspaper, “When we started Youtube Fanfest in India in 2014, there were barely any subscribers who had notched a million viewer mark. However, it has grown tremendously in the last few years.”

With a user base of 4.4 billion in 2019, there is no question why content creators, producers and filmmakers were flocking to the platform. In 2019, Indian entertainment giant T-Series took over as the most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world. The company threw its full might behind a campaign that took it past Swedish content creator PewDiePie for the pole position. The battle was quite significant, as the back-and-forth trolling between the two would suggest.

These developments have also shown consistent growth in Indian audiences on the platform. The latest example is the Punjabi music video, ‘Laung Laachi’, crossing the one-billion-views mark on the platform, becoming the first Indian song video to achieve the distinction.

The title song from the film of the same name was composed by Gurmeet Singh and features Ammy Virrk and Neeru Bajwa. The video has cross 1.14 billion views now, with 3.2 million likes and 513 dislikes.

The numbers matter to the extent that it becomes a prestigious moment for the production house to showcase. On ‘Laung Laachi’ hitting the 1 billion number, Bhushan Kumar, head of T-Series, said, “It’s quite surreal! The song has been hugely appreciated and over one billion views is certainly a huge validation from music buffs. It has struck an emotional chord with viewers across the globe and we are extremely happy with the humongous success.”

Music director Gurmeet Singh said, “It’s a huge achievement and I’m feeling very proud to have composed the song. Hearty congratulations to everyone associated with the song, especially T-Series, which has been an instrumental force in taking the song to this level, and the viewers for making it a huge success.”

The Significance of a Billion

‘Laung Laachi’ became the first Indian song video to hit the one-billion mark. In a random search, the most viewed Indian videos after ‘Laung Laachi’ are:

1. ‘Mile Ho Tum’ by Neha Kakkar (868 mn)

2. ‘High Rated Gabru’ by Guru Randhawa (865 mn)

3. ‘Zaroori Tha’ by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (822 mn)

All three songs date back to 2017 or earlier. Even ‘Laung Laachi’ was released on the YouTube channel of T-Series Punjabi on 21 February 2018.

An interesting and, perhaps, funny aside is that the most viewed Indian videos (apart from ‘Laung Laachi’, that is) are Phonics Song with Two Words (over 2 billion views), Johnny Johnny Yes Papa (over 1.7 billion) and Old Macdonald Had a Farm (almost 1.1 billion), a reminder that one billion views is not to be scoffed at, and takes time and consistency to be achieved.

Hence, globally, it is music videos that reach the number regularly owing to their relatability and shelf life. The music video ‘Despacito’ recently crossed the 6 billion views mark. Meanwhile, Guns n Roses 1980s hallmark ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ became the first video from the 1980s to reach 1 billion views in October 2019. While ‘Despacito’ grew owing to its immensely popular music, the latter number has lasted longer for its relatability and shelf life. (Of course, it didn’t help Guns n Roses — and other even older greats of pop, rock and classical music — that YouTube only began in 2005 and there was no YouTube back in the day.)

A media professional in the digital world says, “It [1,000,000,000 views] is a rare thing and doesn’t really happen unless a lot of people are engaged with the content. It is a great number to have.”

She added, “It [the song ‘Laung Laachi’] also caters to a large audience. The Punjabi music scene is really large. But first, it is the fact that they [users] have engaged with the content. There was also ‘Lamberghini’ which went viral. There is no specific reason, sometimes it just goes viral.”

How Things Go Viral

The term viral remains as much a mystery to boomers as it does to social media professionals. But there is a method to the madness.

Sagar Madhani, founder, Cyringe Media, told us, “Marketing is never a guaranteed result, but it is an assumption. This assumption is based on the input you are giving.”

Madhani added that most production houses choose to create videos that tap into large influence bases that go beyond music. “If I pick up Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Suniel Shetty, for instance, I know I am getting 10 million, five million and three million, this is just their Instagram followers, as potential viewers,” he explained. “How I reach out to them is also important. Do I do a poster release? Do I do a TikTok dance challenge? There are lots of parameters that go into it.”

A good example would be the recent music single ‘Filhall’ featuring Akshay Kumar and Nupur Sanon. The song has 523 million views, but it was released only in November 2019.

Similarly, Nora Fatehi and Vicky Kaushal, two of the more saleable artistes in the film industry today, featured in the single ‘Pachtaoge’ which has caught the attention of 325 million users since August 2019.

‘Laung Laachi’ features Ammy Virrk and Neeru Bajwa, two of Punjab’s most popular artistes. Bajwa has a following of over 442,000 on Twitter and 3.2 million on Instagram, with Virrk bringing in 3.5 million followers from Instagram. Add their fan clubs and you have an influencer range that easily crosses the 10 million mark.

Organic or Inorganic?

While viewership numbers always attract eyeballs, the question remains: how many of those are truly viewers and not part of the marketing gimmicks. This is differentiated by techies by the terms ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’.

Organic traffic refers to viewers who naturally arrive on the video or content through searches, links and references, and react to the content in place. Inorganic traffic refers to forcibly generated views that are created by surge viewing, sponsored boosts of links, and smart marketing.

Every content creator, depending on the resources available to him or her, opts for techniques to boost their viewership. This is understandable. But not all of them work.

Another media professional in the digital medium said, “It is T-Series. They have promoted it and fuelled it in the right manner.” She added that there is an element of luck involved as well. “For instance, ‘Kolaveri’ and ‘Lamberghini’ are names that are not always planned. Sometimes, it just happens, and you can capitalize on that.”

A 2019 BBC report stated that ‘20% of T-Series’ total revenue comes from YouTube’. With more than 65% of the music and entertainment company’s fanbase coming from India, it certainly has a lot of potential to tap into.

However, Sagar Madhani reminds us: “We are a country of more than one billion people. It is not hard to get one billion views if there is a channelled effort. Also, it is not necessary that one billion views come from India alone.”

Since the spat with PewDiePie, T-Series has acquired an international presence. The channel even started a #BharatWinsYouTube campaign on social media, with the support of several prominent Indian artistes like Sonakshi Sinha, Akshay Kumar, Varun Dhawan and Salman Khan to tap into nationalism as well as an international fanbase.

The record shows that T-Series has increasingly established a method to the madness of YouTube algorithms. No wonder the company is now targeting a huge and growing youth base on the platform through its music videos and singles. The old music cassette days are gone, but the target remains the same.

This article was originally published in Cinestaan

“Social Media influencers, whether their audience is significant or small, impact the lives of everybody who watches their content. They do have a responsibility to ensure what they are publishing is not harmful or offensive.”

Bombay High Court in Marico vs Abhijeet Bhansali

The order is not a final decision on the main case under the tort of disparagement, but is an interim relief for Marico, which argued that allowing this video by Bhansali – who runs the YouTube channel ‘Bearded Chokra’ which has 152 thousand subscribers – to stay online was causing them irreparable damage, and thus, needed to be taken down at least till the time the court decides the main case.

Nevertheless, the order could prove to be a very significant one in the times to come thanks to its recognition of the recent rise of ‘social media influencers’ – and its subsequent warning to them to be more responsible.

What Was This Case About?

To get an interim injunction in a case like this, the party requesting it has to show that there is a prima facie case to show that the other party has done them some wrong, that not passing the injunction would cause irreparable injury, and that on balance, they will suffer more than the other party if the injunction is not granted than the other party if it is actually granted.

To satisfy the first part of this test, Marico therefore had to demonstrate to Justice SJ Kathawalla that they had a prima facie case of disparagement:

• That Bhansali had made false statements in his video about Parachute Coconut Oil;
• That the statements were made by him either maliciously or recklessly; and
• That the video caused ‘special damages’ to Marico.

What Do Social Media Influencers Have to Do With This Case?

It was in terms of the latter two elements – recklessness and special damages – that Bhansali’s status as a social media influencer came into play.

The order defines social media influencers as individuals who have acquired a considerable follower base on social media along with some amount of credibility when it comes to the space in which they operate.

According to the judge, these influencers often “employ the goodwill they enjoy amongst their followers/viewers to promote a brand, support a cause or persuade them to do or omit doing an act.”

They could even, Justice Kathawalla noted, use their influence to dissuade followers from purchasing certain products – as Bhansali had done in the video in question when he suggested that people should not buy Parachute Coconut Oil.

As a result, he noted, social media influencers like Bhansali have “the power to influence the public mind.” The judge held that this meant they can make statements with the “same impunity available to an ordinary person.”

Essentially, what the judge was saying was that if a regular person makes statements in a video or elsewhere which may not be entirely accurate, this is less likely to to cause damage to a company or its product’s reputation, than when an influencer does the same thing. The reach and popularity of a social media influencer means they have a greater responsibility to ensure that their statements don’t mislead the public or provide incorrect information.

“Such person bears a higher burden to ensure there is a degree of truthfulness in his statements. A social media influencer is not only aware of the impact of his statement but also makes a purposeful attempt to spread his opinion to society/the public.”

Bombay High Court in Marico vs Abhijeet Bhansali

Special Damage

‘Special damage’ in tort law has nothing to do with the value of loss caused to a person, but whether there is some form of irreparable loss to them in terms of reputation.

When looking at whether or not Bhansali had caused special damage to Marico and Parachute, the judge noted the 1,08,000 views, the 2,500 or so ‘likes’ and several comments by viewers, including comments saying they would no longer use Parachute, and that they would share the video with others.

The nature of the comments and the numbers here were sufficient according to the judge to show that there was damage to their reputation.

While Justice Kathawalla didn’t expressly refer to Bhansali as a social media influencer in this part of the order, if this is how a court will assess special damage, influencers are likely to be more vulnerable, as their large subscriber/follower count will mean more views, and will also mean more people are likely to agree with their opinion and trust it.

Does This Create a Problem for Influencers, Going Forward?

The judge’s views on social media influencers throughout the judgment were not merely observations. Some of these, particularly on the issue of recklessness, were meant to be findings and so can be cited in subsequent cases as well as by angry companies looking to get an unflattering review taken down.

Now, this should not mean that any social media influencer who puts out a negative opinion about a product is going to be facing lawsuits from an irate manufacturer. The judge arrived at the finding of recklessness after reviewing the arguments about the accuracy of Bhansali’s statements and the way in which he put them forward, and it was because of Bhansali’s failings in these departments that he was found to have been reckless.

He had claimed that he had done his research on various oils and how to assess which ones were better, he claimed to have done an “extensive review of the Parachute Coconut Oil with the tests and proof” and he used forceful and assertive language like “I will prove it”, “bring the truth to you”, etc. After assessing the claims made by Bhansali in his video and the research he’d relied on for this, the court found that this wasn’t up to the mark.

It’s in circumstances like this that social media influencers will have to be particularly careful, as intellectual property lawyer Eashan Ghosh explains:

“This is a controversial but important warning to influencers: if your content about a product or service conveys an impression that it is based on research, courts will probe into whether the research reasonably supports the content. Not just that, you will have to withstand efforts by the commercial entity that puts the product or service on the market to discredit your research.”

Property Lawyer Eashan Ghosh

If the language used by an influencer is more careful, if they don’t claim to have done extensive research or have some special expertise on the subject, then they could avoid the pitfalls that this order creates for them. Another thing to watch out for is to not go after one product only, and then recommend and include links to competing products in their content, something which proved a problem for Bhansali.

This may not be quite so easy as it may seem, since many influencers, Bhansali included, may not have even realised what they were doing was risky.

“With the advent of the internet, the youth is exposed to content from foreign social media influencers that may be considered proper as per the laws of their country,” says Ryan Wilson, an advocate specialising in intellectual property law, adding: “When they mimic such vlogging styles in India, they do so not so much with malice, but because they think there is nothing wrong with it.”

As Wilson points out, this is not something which will exonerate them in court – which means they should look to spread awareness about this kind of tort liability beyond the legal fraternity.

But was the approach of the Bombay High Court correct? Ghosh is of the opinion that the test adopted by the court to assess whether or not Bhansali had been reckless was not entirely fair.

“It’s one thing to say ‘you have a duty to post responsible content on social media’,” he argues, “it’s quite another to say ‘you have a duty to post responsible content supported by research that can stand heavy judicial scrutiny about specific products or services on social media because their owners will bring legal action against you if you don’t.”

As Justice Kathawalla acknowledges at the start of the order, the expansion and commercialisation of the internet has led and will continue to lead to new kinds of legal disputes, which the old principles and precedents may not be sufficient to cover.

Other high courts and the Supreme Court may take a different view from the Bombay High Court in other such cases – which will surely happen with the continued rise in prominence of influencers. Till then though, it might be wise for them to read up on this order, and be aware of the responsibilities that the judiciary at this time views them to have.

This article was originally published in The Quint

Sangha says she had a clear picture in mind of her bridal look. She, however, was fixated on the kind of shoes she will be wearing on her big day. “A lot of my focus was on my shoes and a lot of my friends and family didn’t understand why with shoes. And it was actually juttis,” says Sangha.

“I had a certain design in mind which I wanted to wear for my wedding. I went to lengths for months looking for those juttis but could not find them.” At this point the 32-year-old Sangha drew the juttis design by herself on a sheet of paper and got it custom-made. She was ecstatic to wear them for her wedding and the shoes were liked by her friends and family.

When Sangha chose to wear juttis for her wedding, they were not trendy and it was a declining handicraft. “At that point it wasn’t cool to wear juttis (in wedding),” claims Sangha. 

She grew up watching her mother wear juttis and found them beautiful and elegant. “My mother was the inspiration behind starting Needledust. Even today I take her feedback on our designs and if she doesn’t approve of anything, I go back and make amends,” says Sangha.

Sangha’s entrepreneurial journey began when a few of her friends and family inquired with her about the shop from where they could buy juttis similar to what she wore. “There was no place from where they could buy them as they were not available anywhere,” shares Sangha. 

That moment, the entrepreneurial bug bit her. “I thought that it took me so long to find the perfect juttis. There might be other girls out there like me who would want to wear juttis but didn’t find something different, extraordinary or something beautiful. There was nothing like this in the market. I felt that I want to do this, I want to explore it,” shares Sangha.

Though hesitant after encouragement from her husband, Sangha five years ago manufactured 100 shoes in six designs and five sizes. She put them up on an e-commerce portal and within seven days of Needledust going live, her entire stock was sold out. 

“I had no idea what to do (after posting the juttis on an e-commerce platform), on the seventh day of us going live, I got an email from that we are sold out and when can we get the next stock. But there was no stock because I didn’t even think I will sell these. And that’s how it started,” says Sangha.

After putting up her designs on another e-commerce website and successfully selling them, Sangha got confidence and opened a tiny store (which is today four times its previous size) in Shahpur Jat in New Delhi and then launched her exclusive online retail store Needledust.com. “I started with an online portal because I didn’t have the guts to invest in a brick-and-mortar store in a retail space or even build an exclusive website. Nobody was doing designer juttis,” says Sangha.

Ascendancy Of the Juttis

“We like to believe that when you are purchasing Needledust, you are purchasing an heirloom,” she says.

Needledust now has three retail stores; two in Delhi and one in Chandigarh; and an online exclusive online e-commerce store which ships to over 200 countries. The designer jutti brand has rolled out over 300 designs in the last five year and has currently 90 to 95 active designs on its shelves. The company has also partnered with the celebrated designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla by manufacturing juttis designed by them. 

Six months earlier, Needledust partnered with Swarovski crystals. “We are the first handicraft to have collaborated with Swarovski. So if anyone wants a piece of jewellery on their shoes, we also have that. With this partnership we have also for the first time launched customization services,” says Sangha. She further adds, “We like to believe that when you are purchasing Needledust, you are purchasing an heirloom.” 

New-Age Marketing

Needledust has a very active and aesthetic Instagram page with over 300,000 followers. Sangha believes that social media has played a vital role in Needledust’s success. “Social media or the new-age media is a massive tool for start-ups and people with new ideas. It lets you reach millions of people with zero to minimal cost,” says Sangha.

Sangha reveals she has received orders from countries such as Italy, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, China, Japan and Korea, among others. “It is not just the NRIs who order from us but the natives of these countries.”

She shares that some of her customers have been English wedding bridesmaid wearing juttis along with their gowns and dresses, and a Philipino bride wearing Needledust juttis with her white gown. “These stories are pretty incredible on an everyday basis,” says Sangha.

The Bollywood Connect

Needledust is enormously popular among Bollywood celebrities. A-list Bollywood ladies such as Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Sara Ali Khan, among others, are frequently spotted wearing them. Sangha says that Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor was the first one to wear Needledust and from thereon, Needledust’s rendezvous with Bollywood has been growing organically. 

Needledust has provided its designs to big-budget Bollywood movies such as Padmavaat and Veere Di Wedding. Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone also chose Needledust for their wedding celebrations.

Sangha attributes the popularity of Needledust among various age groups to the versatility the designs. “Our designs are such that from an 18-year-old to a 50-year-old can find something that they like. That’s why you can spot an Ananya Pandey to a Bollywood veteran like Kajol wearing Needledust.”

Sangha says she never imagined she could be so passionate about something. “There is never one side to one person—you can be passionate about several things. I am very passionate about Needledust and I still like writing but my journalism career feels from another time altogether. Now, I can’t imagine my life without Needledust,” says Sangha.

This year Needledust will open two new retail showrooms, one in Delhi and the other in Mumbai. 

This article was written by Tahira Noor Khan and originally appeared in Entrepreneur

So exactly where are social ad initiatives falling short? And what can brands do to address these shortcomings? Here are a few common pitfalls we see across channels.

Targeting in all the wrong ways

Brands often overlap their prospecting and retargeting efforts, delivering irrelevant messages for new and existing customers alike. This wastes dollars and delivers messages to the wrong consumers at the wrong time. Conversely, some campaigns don’t have a targeted audience at all. Without a clear sense of their audience or objectives, brands tend to struggle with purposeful targeting. In one audit of a new partner, we observed a previous campaign where ads were served to over 240 million people without any identified target audience.

We’ve seen brands also target such a small audience they cannot reach their campaign target goals. Striking a balance between strategic targeting and audience size is a critical skill that brands need to master in order to optimize the reach and ROI of any social campaign.

Creating and delivering content

Creating the right, engaging content can be a hurdle. For example, an outdoor cooking equipment manufacturer posted social ads that showcase food instead of actual products. While food is an engaging image – especially for people scrolling Pinterest – it’s ineffective in establishing a brand identity or product portfolio with potential prospects.

Social video content is often a compelling and effective sales and engagement driver. Despite that, we often find video content is often low quality or even non-existent. In 2019 we saw an explosion in video performance, even with the decline in Facebook’s accessible inventory. There are ways to reduce production costs and still develop high-quality content. Consider free creative services platforms that produce fantastic results or minimize the length of higher-budget videos to reduce production costs.

With the total number of global social platform users to rise to over 3.09 billion by 2021, and with an average of 136 minutes spent on social each day in 2018, advertising success is dependent upon strategic social investment.

Brands will continue to miss significant opportunities unless they look ahead to the emerging trends and technologies that will drive social success in the future. Regardless of which platform becomes the next big thing, remember to always target with purpose, define audiences strategically and develop impactful content.

This story by Andy Hardman has been republished from here

Oh, don’t scream yet, because you’ll still be able to double-tap on your favourite content and like them, but you will no longer be able to see how many other people have liked that particular post.

While a lot of people love the idea, many others think its a very bad move and Instagram can’t just wake up and do this. Well…

I’m sorry “dear”, but this platform is just rented land and Instagram is the Landlord who has been tweaking the algorithm without our permission for a very long time….so, yes, they can just wake up and hide likes too….

The first question here is

Why Is Instagram Removing Likes?

On the 14th of November, Instagram announced on its official channels that they were rolling out the private like update globally (they had previously tested this feature in Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and a few other select countries).

According to Instagram… “We want your followers to focus on what you share, and not how many likes your posts get. During this test, only you will be able to see the total number of likes on your posts”

A different side of this story has also been flying around — there is a rumour that Instagram may have done this to address complaints that young people’s mental health is being affected by likes (which has become a scale for validating your work on the app) or that this may be a strategic move to increase their bottom line by pushing brands to consider direct promotion since they can’t see likes on Influencer posts (although paid partnership tags allow brands to see analytics from influencers they partner with, so I’m not sure about the last story).

Another key question is…

How does this affect influencers & Influencer marketing?

Although the Influencer status is not determined entirely by the number of followers you have, almost anyone with a huge number of followers and likes on their posts can become an influencer.

Personally, aside from cleaning my account periodically, I have also deleted or archived posts because they didn’t get as many likes as I expected . A lot of influencers who place value on likes consider this update as a threat to their relevance on the platform, but it shouldn’t be and here’s why.

Influencer marketing has never just been about the number of likes. Working with businesses over the years has taught me that brands that know what they want, don’t care about the number of likes on your page. What they do care about is how their partnership with you affects both their overall brand equity and their bottom line. This is why they pay for your influence and ability to represent the brand instead of likes.

Influence vs Likes — What Brands Should Focus On

It’s important to note that the role of an influencer is similar to the role of a Brand Ambassador and that is why brands should not limit their focus on the number of likes an influencer gets but rather on two very critical elements.

• Does this influencer represent the brand well publicly?
• How does his/her audience respond to posts (quality of conversation)

Counting how many times I have double-tapped on a great picture without checking the caption goes to prove that the like count is a rather shallow engagement metric.

Comments on the other hand, regardless of the number, can tell a brand if the audience finds resonance with an influencer and responds to him/her by ultimately taking “expected” action.

While some business owners may know how important this is to their brand, others often wonder why they need to be clear about these two things before engaging an influencer.

Brands also need to pay attention beyond the number of comments on an influencer’s post — the quality often trumps the quantity of the engagement. From the quality of comments, you can tell whether followers read through the posts.

Here are a few tips on how to tell…

• Do they ask relevant questions based on the post
• Do they contribute to the content information
• Do they start conversations
• Do they share their experience using similar products or services or from similar experiences (the list goes on…)

Advice for Creators/Influencers

Comments are the new likes and the key here is to create relatable content for your audience. This is so far the easiest way to validate yourself and continue to attract collaboration even after likes are gone.

Will this affect Instagram in any way?

Well… I’m not necessarily worried about people leaving the platform when likes disappear…..like every other uninvited change users will quickly get used to it and move on fast.

We will also see more creative and relatable content from brands and influencers etc…..Overall this will make Instagram a mentally healthier place to be.

What do you think about this change and how it may affect you/your business on the platform?

This story by John Moduforo has been republished from here