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

Social media is abuzz with photos and videos of people confining themselves in their residences.

But a heart warming  video of two children from Nalbari district of lower Assam performing on a popular Assamese love song ‘Ei Hahi Bhaal Laage‘ is being widely shared on social media and is winning hearts.

But the wow-factor in it is the fact that the duo performed the song using a makeshift drum kit.

While the girl sings the song, the boy performs on a makeshift drum kit made up of cardboard boxes, packaging material, banana tree trunks, bamboo and a metal tray.

The broadcast starts with the girl saying, “Namaskar, we are going to do ‘timepass’ by singing”.

She then begins to sing the popular song by singer and former All India Radio artiste Nasreen Halim from Dibrugarh whose lyrics were written by Hemanta Dutta.

The performance by the children broadcast from a Facebook account Rupali Pranamita have  received a positive response of netizens and has been shared by 13,000 plus users and liked by 14,000 users in Facebook  and a lot of people praised them for their creativity and inquisitive mindset.

Another  performance on immortal Assamese numbers ‘Phul Phulise Boxontat‘ and ‘Moina Kun Bidhataai Hajile‘  that has been doing rounds in the social media are by Nandy sisters – Antara and Akita Nandy performing on the occasion of Rongali Bihu in Youtube which has crossed 34,000 views in three days.

The duo presented a ‘Balcony Bihu Concert’ on the first day of Assamese New Year in the YouTube channel ‘ANTARA NANDY’

Playing Ukuleles and drapped in blue and black coloured traditional mekhala-chadors, Antara and Akita Nandy performed on the balcony of a home.

Antara Nandy in her twitter handle @AntaraNandy tweeted, “Bihu is a spirit – We can stay home and yet enjoy Bihu by spreading positivity in our own way – here’s ours! Sending loads of love from Pune to all our Assamese Listeners!”

Complementing for their performance Assam health and finance Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma on his Twitter handle @himantabiswa tweeted,

“After a hectic day, it is refreshing to hear this Soulful Bihu from Antara and Ankita Nandi -Phul Phulise Boxontot | Moina Kun Bidhataai | Nandy Sisters | Bihu Balco…” (sic) while sharing the link of their performance in YouTube.

Much like the printed artefact in 17th-century London, social media has become the public platform of choice for the COVID-19 crisis – the first pandemic of the digital age.

In the last few weeks, digital natives and netizens have thronged social media platforms. And in such large numbers, one might add, that the media influencer’s pipe dream, of breaking the internet, has seemed a genuine possibility. Internet service providers in the UK have seen double-digit increases in traffic amid the coronavirus lockdown, and streaming services from Netflix to Disney+ are cutting bandwidth usage to prevent network congestion.

In the US, there were nearly 20 million mentions of coronavirus-related terms on social media, within hours of the World Health Organisation declaring the COVID-19 crisis a pandemic on March 11. In the following days, the trending hashtag-based campaign #safehandschallenge (also started by the WHO) has seen a host of global celebrities – from Selena Gomez to Deepika Padukone – educate the public on the mundane act of hand-washing through carefully curated social media performances. However, the issues of access and privilege that plague social media platforms, particularly in the Indian context, beg the question: Can spectacular social media platforms handle the quotidian coronavirus crisis?

It is often said that the history of diseases is the history of human civilisation. And the foundation of human civilisation is also the mundanity of manual contact. Everyday and necessary, but often unseen, transactions of money or goods between strangers have driven human progress for millennia. But in exceptional times (like our current crisis of contagion) we have looked for egalitarian and non-human surrogates of information: a (new) media. The search for credible yet democratic media paradigms, however, has rarely been smooth.

In the last century, the movement for democratising mass media was galvanised during the May 1968 unrest in France. These protests led the French situationist Guy Debord to claim in The Society of the Spectacle – a book that has since been translated into nearly a dozen languages – that mass media thrives within an alienated and consumerist fantasy.

Now sitting in the 21st century, a call for discarding all networked mass media may seem delusional. But it is worth revisiting how the shift from traditional mass media to new (social) media has led an era where, to rephrase Andy Warhol, everyone will be world-famous for 60 seconds. An attention economy has catalysed this transition, from low-key chat rooms to 60-second digital extravaganzas. The result: truth and legitimacy most often become collateral damage in these networked spectacles.

Network lessons from quotidian corona

“[T]he quotidian is what is humble…what is taken for granted . . . undated and (apparently) insignificant.”
∼ Henri Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World

The current COVID-19 crisis is by contrast a quotidian disaster – an anti-spectacle. The coronavirus is indifferent about humanity. The perpetrator of this disaster does not identify victims by class, creed, religion or sexuality. It remains invisible to the naked eye but is not miraculous, magical or sacred. The virus is not circulated through hidden test tubes smuggled by secret organisations. Instead, the virus gains enormous latitude through ordinary manual contact with humans and material objects.

Resistance against the coronavirus involves mundane practices like social distancing and washing hands which (without discounting the economic and social privileges involved) society normally categorises as ordinary and banal. Recording the effects of the virus does not involve drone-based targeting of veiled enemy assets or covert sting operations. Chronicling its effects is also unremarkable, laborious and time consuming. It requires a recording of the everyday life cycle of affected victims: a slow and painstaking process by any count.

In other words, the COVID-19 crisis is not a disaster that can be delivered in byte-sized snippets to a globe-trotting populace that constantly puts a premium on shock and titillation.

India, although a recent entrant within the global hierarchy of producing and consuming digital media spectacles, is fast catching up (Indians consume over 11 GB data every month). Nielsen, the market research firm, reports that social media conversations in India around COVID-19 have seen a massive surge of 50x between January and March 2020.

Social media enthusiasts will argue that spectacular campaigns are needed in a country like India, where only two out of 10 poor households use soap. However, questions remain if current social media frameworks can address caste and class privileges, which are key factors behind such dismal personal hygiene statistics amongst underprivileged communities. Such disparities are only augmented by the fact that out of 560 million people in India who have access to the web, only 294 million users use social media. Coupled with such inequality in access, a recent report in The Wire suggests, the COVID-19 crisis has seen a deluge of deliberate misinformation on Indian digital platforms, which has contributed to further marginalisation of at-risk-minorities.

A decade ago, Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the world wide web, had lamented in his prescient article ‘Long Live the Web‘ that the insulating nature of social networking sites is increasingly preventing the democratisation of the web:

“Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands.”

Berners-Lee’s claims are contested by pragmatists like Alexander Galloway, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, who point out that this fragmentation is inevitable since the very foundation of the internet – its protocols – is based in the principles of control and not freedom. In fact as this era of surveillance capitalism shows regularly, shutting down a country’s internet is far less difficult (and increasingly more common) than one would imagine.

So, does the answer lie in moving away from social media in this crisis? Absolutely not.

The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for a re-engagement with everyday threats that are most often beyond the realm of social media spectacles: public health lapses, climate change issues, unequal technological frameworks and discriminatory social, political and legal decisions to name a few. It is an opportune moment to recognise that social media is not just meant to be a “network without a cause”. Indeed, the social media we want should work for everyone and it is up to us to make that happen. And contrary to expectations, such possibilities do exist.

For example, UNESCO’s ‘Horyu’ is “a social network for social good [that takes] a humanistic approach to technology to promote social good through quality content and meaningful interaction”. There are also GnuSocial, OpenSource-SocialNetwork and the Diaspora Foundation, which allow you to create your own social networks with a particular focus on access, freedom and privacy. They offer tangible alternatives to social media platforms, where your data is centrally located and regularly monetised.

Closer home, organisations like Janastu that provide free open-source software solutions and support to non-profits and NGOs as well as the Internet Freedom Foundation, which has championed net neutrality and individual privacy in India (including a recent representation on COVID-19 quarantine lists that are being circulated on social media) show us how in today’s world of networked capitalism, we can be distant without being socially isolated.

The COVID-19 crisis has given us a unique chance to be empathetic ethnographers of the everyday. To amplify the voices of migrant workers who work in our homes and offices, to understand the labour of medical care givers who toil on without expectations, and to acknowledge the polyphony of ordinary subaltern voices who often remain hidden under the spectacular glory of social media heroes.

A democratic and egalitarian social media space that includes a diversity of voices may not be spectacular. It may not thrive on glamour and theatricality but on the mundane and ordinariness of our everyday lives. But it is the space we should strive for.
Because ultimately, heroes are ordinary.

This article republished from The Wire.

In India, Twitter timelines and WhatsApp forwards are chock-full of claims that coronavirus can be treated by homoeopathic drugs promoted by the ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, yoga & naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and homoeopathy). 

In January, the ministry released a public advisory claiming that homoeopathic drugs can be used for the prevention of infection. However, it was later confirmed as false news by the fact-checking website AltNews. There are no vaccines available to cure coronavirus infection, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

In addition to this, social media platforms also have videos promoting cow dung and cow urine as a cure for coronavirus, which has been propagated as gospel for the Hindi heartland. Many such claims of home-made remedies supposedly meant to cure coronavirus are rampant across social media platforms. We found plenty of examples of Twitter and Facebook, which violate the so-called policies in place to stop the spread of misinformation, but these posts have not been taken down.

Social Media’s Efforts To Curb Fake News

In response to the coronavirus misinformation spree, internet giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube had pledged to work with WHO and third-party fact-checking platforms to regulate online content and fish out fake news and misinformation regarding the coronavirus. 

Twitter launched a search prompt for India in collaboration with the ministry of health and family welfare and the World Health Organisation (WHO). This will mean that all Twitter searches for coronavirus or any related terms, will be shown flash links to WHO’s website.

Google, Facebook, and YouTube will also be following the same process. The step will ensure that users are getting their information from more reliable sources. Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers are also reported to have started removing content with claims that have been debunked by WHO and local health authorities. Chinese short video app TikTok too started asking its users to verify facts about coronavirus with trusted sources, by flashing warnings in eight Indian languages. Moreover, the platform is also asking its users to report any content that violates TikTik’s community guidelines.

But how effective are these measures? Beyond searches, links and articles claiming to cure coronavirus have become very commonplace in India. Last week, an Ola driver sent us a video in response to questions about the steps being taken by the company to promote awareness about the infection and the disease. The video showed a religious leader providing home remedies and cures to the coronavirus infection. Such videos are being forwarded with glee by unsuspecting users.

As schools and offices shut down, all international and national business events are being cancelled, there is an obvious panic around the spread of coronavirus, which is being exploited by those looking to capitalise on the panic. In times of such pandemics, the impact of people believing each and every piece of information found online can have severe consequences. For example, the panic has resulted in a shortage of face masks and hand sanitisers — both of which are less than ideal in the fight against the epidemic 

This also raises the question of intermediary liability — should social media companies be held responsible for the spread of false information or does the buck stop with the users? 

The Indian government had proposed a draft of IT intermediary guidelines of December 2018. Under which, it proposed social media sites to remove any “illegal” content within 24 hours, upon being notified by court order or a government agency. 

This article republished from Inc42

Indian animation, for the longest time and still to a very large degree, had the perception of being an outsourced industry. “People imagine that we are like warehouses or sweatshops or call centres essentially, where people send work,” says Nikunj Patel, founder of design consultancy Studio Moebius.

But slowly, that is changing. As more independent artists use their voices and create original content, although it hasn’t reached the mainstream yet, people have certainly started to notice that “we don’t just have animators, we also have storytellers”.

Patel — credited with creating India’s first completely hand-animated music video for the Sandunes track “Exit Strategy” — is among these storytellers, part of a burgeoning independent art scene in India that has been shaped tremendously, along with the design industry, by technology and social media.

“One of the big trends I’ve seen, which I think is really great for the scene, is that a lot of young people right now are happy to start off on their own, when they’re quite young or even straight out of college,” says Avinash Kumar, artist, designer, and co-founder of the design consultancy Quicksand. Young artists today freelance or set up their own studios, prioritising independence. “For me, those are signs that the indie scene is developing.” And feeling independent, they are breaking earlier norms about what work should look and be like. “The work that these people do reflects their independent spirit,” he says.

This independent spirit is also aided by social media and the community of like-minded people it affords.

While about 15 years ago in India it would have been difficult to locate anyone doing experimental, fringe work, in the last five years or so, social media has allowed for fast growing connection between artists. “That I think is quite healthy and from that, conversations are emerging,” says Kumar. Connecting with other artists and sowing the seeds of an integrated scene is much easier now than it used to be.

Besides building a scene, social media is also allowing for a more nuanced form of communication. “Suddenly, you’re finding a lot of unexpected collaborations and partnerships happening,” says Patel. “International collaborations are definitely going to pick up a lot.” As people do experimental work and then congregate online, “there’s this culture that’s developing where talent isn’t being chained and people are essentially moving around the scene. It’s quite inspiring to see,” he adds.

Important for these indie artists is realising that adapting to new technology — instead of adhering to rigid purist fantasies about methods of creations — is vital. For instance, “it’s important for animators to realise that you can’t always be romantic about your creation process,” says Patel, simply because most consumers neither understand, nor care, about the amount of effort going into creating art. “If you could adopt a new way of creating through maybe using coding or generative animation, and create the same thing in a week that may have otherwise taken you six months to turn into a 2D animation film, why wouldn’t you go for the one week option?”

Methods of creation like code-based art and software like Touch-Designer, while allowing for faster work then, are also making certain skills redundant. “There’s a whole lot of tech which is making what used to be specialist activity stuff that a teenager can now do on their phone,” says Kumar.

However, shifting focus from skill is, simultaneously, making art more accessible.

“People who don’t necessarily draw, or sculpt, or carve, are able to explore the same thought process as an artists’,” explains Patel. Essentially, one doesn’t need to spend 10 years mastering a style to be considered an artist or dedicate a lifetime toward acquiring a skill. Such platforms, in essence, empower a variety of non-traditional artists to create art, allowing people to bring the concepts in their mind to life. A computer engineer can do code-based art, an electronic engineer can present installations, a musician can create transmedia art for their live shows, and so on.

This influx of ‘non-artists’ into the indie art scene is largely responsible for its rapid proliferation. While the community around new media has been building in the metros since the late 90s or early 2000s, the growth has increased at a much faster rate in the past five years. Because of these new mediums, which weren’t available before, “a whole new audience is being exposed and a whole new creator network is being formed which is definitely beyond the cities and much more spread out,” says Kumar. “I think in the coming years we’ll see the impact of that as it builds up.”

This rapidly transforming scene, while democratising art, is also impacting creators’ mental health and creativity. “Because everybody has access to so many tools and all the tools are becoming similar… I feel like the overall aesthetic of people is becoming similar,” says Kumar. In a world where everyone can see everything and it all looks similar, the idea of what is creative is starting to be affected, also causing stress and anxiety among creators.

“Before, say in 2010, you could have a blog and make your artwork and put it up, almost like your own diary, have your friends watch it and be happy,” says Kumar. Today, when an artist puts something up, they will either find other artists whose diary looks exactly like theirs, or find that nobody really watches, consumes, or even cares about their art, because everyone has already seen too many things. “The whole thing creates a lot of creative existential dilemma for creators,” adds Kumar.

As a result of living in this repetitive loop, artists’ interest levels also often plummet. “Most people you speak to, they say ‘this has already been done,’ and we’re just human beings, everything will be done,” says Kumar. The difference now is the knowledge that it’s done. “This used to happen before but we didn’t know that somebody sitting in New York is also thinking like us. We just didn’t know it. And now that we know it, we feel it’s boring and it makes us less inspired,” explains Kumar.

Connection on social media is also often limited to the attractive visual work, not allowing for a deeper, human connection that focuses on processes and failures. To combat all this, creators first need an awareness of the issues such platforms create. It’s important for artists to “deliberately disconnect, to preserve your own feeling and not get carried away by all of these things,” says Kumar. “It’s just about having a balanced diet of media.”

It’s also for this reason that Kumar has been organising the EyeMyth Media Arts Festival since 2011, 2019 being the first year that included a two-day conference with over 50 speakers, all their talks focusing on process, vulnerability, and honesty about what life as an artist actually entails. When one listens to so many people going through similar struggles, but still creating artwork, “the learning is very different and much deeper,” says Kumar.

EyeMyth is among the few instances of a critical engagement with the digital arts community in India, and with it, Kumar is making a case for the importance of physical connection. “The community in India around this kind of work is already quite small and we felt like it would be useful to first understand how big that community is and what it is actually doing and get a better sense of them as people. That was the main reason to do the conference,” explains Kumar.

And in spite of the disruption technology and social media have effected in the design industry and indie art scene, for Kumar, the basics remain unchanged. “In the current world, to help people understand, you have to use this vocabulary — like ‘digital’ and things like that,” he says. “But the truth is, it’s art and it’s storytelling and it’s the same that it’s been for hundreds and thousands of years.”

This article was originally published on Firstpost

The requirement comes as governments around the world are trying to hold social media companies more accountable for the content that circulates on their platforms, whether it’s fake news, child porn, racist invective or terrorism-related content. India’s new guidelines go further than most other countries’ by requiring blanket cooperation with government inquiries, no warrant or judicial order required.

India proposed these guidelines in Dec. 2018 and asked for public comment. The Internet and Mobile Association of India, a trade group that counts Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google among its members, responded that the requirements “would be a violation of the right to privacy recognized by the Supreme Court.”

But the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is expected to publish the new rules later this month without major changes, according to a government official familiar with the matter.

“The guidelines for intermediaries are under process,” said N.N. Kaul, the media adviser to the minister of electronics & information technology. “We cannot comment on the guidelines or changes till they are published.”

The provisions in the earlier draft had required platforms such as Google’s YouTube or ByteDance Inc.’s TikTok, Facebook or its Instagram and WhatsApp apps, to help the government trace the origins of a post within 72 hours of a request. The companies would also have to preserve their records for at least 180 days to aid government investigators, establish a brick-and-mortar operation within India and appoint both a grievance officer to deal with user complaints and a government liaison. The Ministry is still finalizing the language and content.

The rules cover all social media and messaging apps with more than 5 million users. India, with 1.3 billion people, has about 500 million internet users. It isn’t clear whether the identities of foreign users would be subject to the Indian government’s inquiries.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have been frustrated by tech companies that have refused to identify users, unlock devices or generally cooperate with government investigations, particularly in cases relating to terrorism.

In India, where the internet — and fake news — are still relatively new phenomenon, a false report of rampant child abduction and organ harvesting circulated widely via WhatsApp, leading to mob violence and over three dozen fatal lynchings in 2017 and 2018.

WhatsApp refused a request from the government to reveal the origins of the rumors, citing its promise of privacy and end-to-end encryption for its 400 million Indian users. It instead offered to fund research into preventing the spread of fake news and mounted a public education campaign in the country, its biggest global market.

WhatsApp will “not compromise on security because that would make people less safe,” it said in a statement Wednesday, adding its global user base had reached over 2 billion. “For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues — without sacrificing privacy.”

At the same time, tech companies and civil rights groups say the new rules are an invitation to abuse and censorship, as well as a burdensome requirement on new and growing companies.

In an open letter to India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, executives from Mozilla Corp., GitHub Inc. and Cloudflare Inc. said the guidelines could lead to “automated censorship” and “increase surveillance.“ In order to be able to trace the originator of content, platforms would basically be required to surveil their users, undermine encryption, and harm the fundamental right to privacy of Indian users, they said.

Companies such as Mozilla or Wikipedia wouldn’t fall under the new rules, the government official said. Browsers, operating systems, and online repositories of knowledge, software development platforms, are all exempt. Only social media platforms and messaging apps will be covered.

Republished from Fortune

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.

According to San Francisco-based tech company Sensor Tower, TikTok crossed 1.5 billion downloads on the App store and Google Play, becoming the third most popular non-gaming app of 2019, sitting atop Facebook and Instagram on the app chart. India clocked in the highest amount of downloads for the app, making up for 31 percent (466.8 million) installs world-wide. The other countries where TikTok accounted for its surge in downloads were China (11.5 percent) and the U.S.A (8.2 percent).

Digital media honcho Samir Bangara (co-founder and MD, Qyuki) believes TikTok has redefined social media in India. He says, “TikTok has crossed 100 million monthly active users and given us new-age super stars like Mr Faisu, Jannat Zubair, Sameeksha Sud, Avneet Kaur who have established their clout not only on TikTok but also on Instagram thanks to their TikTok growth.” Turns out the action is not just online — last month, Qyuki partnered with Paytm Insider and hosted India’s first fan festival focusing on TikTok and Instagram stars in Mumbai. At the hugely successful event, over 4,000 fans mostly between the ages of 12-25 flocked to the JioWorld Garden in BKC to chill with the aforementioned names, paying anything between 2,999 to 7,999 rupees for an exclusive meet-and-greet.

However, TikTok hasn’t thrived without incident in India. Last April, the app was banned for a brief period of time  (three users died after suffering injuries while filming content to post on the app), returning towards the end of the month after TikTok’s parent company ByteDance announced that they would hire local content moderators, increase investment in India and launch more in-built safety features. According to a Reuters report, ByteDance, in a court filing, cited experiencing financial losses of up to $500,000 a day during TikTok’s ban in the country. It’s no bold guess to say that India truly made the app tick. 

As the world applauds and makes sense of the platform, TikTok has checked off some landmark moments in the past few months. 

1. TikTok has given us Grammy-winning breakout musicians

Photo: Christaan Felber for Rolling Stone

How can we talk about viral and chart-topping music in recent times without mentioning Montero Lamar Hill aka Lil Nas X’s hip-hop-country crossover “Old Town Road”? The Atlanta rapper made the track at a whopping cost of $30, releasing the song in December 2018, while also using a snippet of it as a meme on social media. The snippet particularly caught traction on TikTok where people drank ‘Yee-Juice’ and took part in the ‘Yeehaw’ challenge. The song then went viral, witnessing an incredible ascent in views and streams. The result? Lil Nas X was signed by Columbia Records and the single was re-released in March 2019, peaking the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 19 consecutive weeks, rocking expectations and redefining what it takes to make a blazing debut and not-so-sleeper hit. The rapper went on to win two Grammys in 2020, one for the Best Music Video and the other for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. He said in a statement, “TikTok helped me change my life. [It] brought my song to several different audiences at once.” 

@thelawyer

Lawyer by day, cowboy by night. #cowboy #urbancowboy

♬ Old Town Road – Lil Nas X

Closer home, songs that went viral recently on TikTok were Punjabi musicians Jass Manak’s “Lehanga”, Guru Randhawa’s “Slowly Slowly” and Millind Gaba’s “She Don’t Know” among others, while artists like Neha Kakkar, Randhawa and Arjun Kanungo emerged as the top 5 music artists on the platform, using TikTok to promote their music, post comedic skits, take part in challenges and more. 

2. TikTok ushered in social media game changers 

@gima_ashi

bohot hard w/rugeesvini #gullykalakar #myoutfit #bohothard #emyway_bantai #featurethis

♬ original sound – gima_ashi

Just when we thought Instagram’s social media influencers were going to take over the world for good, there emerged a new fold of social media stars through TikTok and this time around, they were a tad bit more relatable. With over 200 million active users spread out over Tier I, II and III cities and the undeniable ripple of the ‘Jio effect’, everyday people turned content creators through the platform. Among those who found a kickstart on the app were TikToker and actor Garima Chaurasia and dancer/choreographer Awez Darbar who made it to TikTok’s top 5 creators list. Chaurasia also posted the most popular video (India) on the platform this year, a dance cover of Mumbai rappers Emiway and Thoratt’s “Boht Hard” which accumulated 120 million views. 

@theofficialgeet

Watch Until End #anger #edutok #edutoklifetips #expectationvsreality #blacknwhite #kayapalat #storytime #mytiktokstory

♬ original sound – Geet

Lawyer and social sector professional Sangeeta Jain too found herself on TikTok’s top creators list, with her videos on motivation, self-care, social justice and English speaking skills gaining her almost 8.3 million followers across two accounts. 

@ammama_kochumon

അമ്മാമയെ ഞാൻ ഇതൊന്ന് എങ്ങനാ പറഞ്ഞു മനസിലാക്കുക എന്റെ ദൈവമേ.#1millonaudition #1mvinesedination

♬ original sound – jinson5436

Cutting across the age demographic, India’s senior citizens too took to the platform, often encouraged by family members. One such octogenarian is Mary Joseph Mampilly, who after posting videos displaying her comedic timing and acting chops to TikTok, landed a role in a Malayalam film titled Sundaran Subash. 

TikTok has opened the floodgates for a new crop of talent to showcase their respective arts. The popularity of TikTok influencers changed the way brands, professionals and organizations approached the platform and how these social media stars leveraged it. 

3. Music labels are casting TikTok starsAlso See  Exclusive Premiere: Rahul Rajkhowa Turns to Reggae on ‘No More Violence (Hello Mr. Martian)’

Major music labels YRF, T-Series, Saregama, Sony Music India and more are seeking TikTokers to star in their artist music videos, bringing in both the views and the engagement that these social media stars’ massive fan bases span. Last year, social media star Faisal Shaikh aka Mr Faisu and Jannat Zubair starred in Ramji Gulati’s music video for “Fruity Lagdi Hai” while popular TikTok group Team 07 comprising Mr Faisu, Hasnain Khan, Adnaan Shaikh and Faiz Baloch (who all go by their first name) and Shadan Farooqui aka Saddu starred in Gulati’s video for “Nazar Na Lag Jaye.” Garima Chaurasia featured in multiple Punjabi music videos (Nawab’s “Tattoo Song”, Ravneet Singh’s “Mashallah” and “Ranjheya”, Madhur Dhir and Shazi Ahmad’s “Munda Baimaan”). 

4. Bollywood has joined the bandwagon

The Indian TikTok wave has been so infectious that it brought even Bollywood stars to the new social media shore. Actor Jacqueline Fernandez topped the app’s year-end list of top 5 celebrities on the platform, with her video for the makeup-centric #TakTakTak challenge amassing 112 millions and holding the number two spot in the top 5 videos listing. She was followed by actor Riteish Deshmukh (who even collaborated with fellow TikTokers Nagma Mirajkar, Faby and Awez Darbar), comedian Kapil Sharma, actor Madhuri Dixit and cricketer-musician DJ Bravo (who collaborated with popular TikTokers Bhavin Bhanushali, Sameeksha Sud, Vishal Pandey and others), taking part in challenges, uploading comedic skits and more.

5. TikTok cements covenant with India through specialized challenges and festival moments 

@ammama_kochumon

അമ്മാമയെ ഞാൻ ഇതൊന്ന് എങ്ങനാ പറഞ്ഞു മനസിലാക്കുക എന്റെ ദൈവമേ.#1millonaudition #1mvinesedination

♬ original sound – jinson5436

One great way TikTok is pushing its creators to engage with the community is through challenges that span the gamut of self-evolution and image, and comedic comparisons. The #2OfMe challenge saw creators use everyday life situations to show the difference between appearances and reality, often comically and topped the list of top 5 viral challenges (all clocking in views in the billions) in the country in 2019. It was followed by the visually evolutionary #MyJourney challenge. Challenges that also made it to the top 5 were the #TakTakTak challenge which took the Beauty Vlogger persona to another level and the #PlayCool challenge which featured hilarious extremities. 

@madhuridixitnene

#myjourney #stargazing

♬ Akhiyaan Milaoon Kabhi (From “Raja”) – Alka Yagnik & Arvind Hasabnish and Udit Narayan

@noman_official

Wait for the end #returnoftiktok #SwagStepChallenge #shareandwin tiktok_india

♬ mohammad_ismail – mohammadismailmas

Diwali, the ICC Cricket World Cup, Independence Day, Holi and Mother’s Day, a weird combo if anything, seemed to bring all the creators to the fore with these festival moments going viral on TikTok. Creators took to the platform to share their own interpretation of these occasions. Fun Fact: Education was the top genre for TikTok India with around 13 million videos being posted on the topic. TikTok also sought to engage its users with social change through campaigns such as #EduTok, #PetBFF (with views going towards donations for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), #SafeHumSafeInternet (which saw users engage with the topic of safe content creation, cyber bullying and more), #WaitASecToReflect (which advocated for responsible content) and more.

@ayan_tiwari

Be safe while Creating tiktok videos don’t hurt yourself #safehumsafeinternet tiktok_india

♬ original sound – ayan_tiwari

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