According to Shamani Joshi at Vice India, “A study finds that Indian content creators have the third-highest number of bought followers, likes and boosted engagement in the world.”
I remember an interaction with a client around 2009 and this was the early days of Twitter in India. It goes like this:
Me: Sir, here are the set of bloggers who have been blogging since 2005 and are really good at what they do.
Client: How many twitter followers do they have?
Only if I had known that this client was setting precedent to what is going to happen in 2019.
Ever wondered what made the influencers buy followers and boost engagement?
I remember a conversation with one of a top beauty blogger who was new to Instagram then feeling the heat from newbie Instagram stars. The brands were flocking to this newbie star & ignoring this top beauty blogger. What would this blogger do? She would have been forced to buy followers to compete & make it a level playing field.
There is a list which floats around all the PR agencies that contain the ‘top’ influencers from each category. Sometimes brands also stumble upon this list and then dictate an agency that they want to work with only these influencers.
What about the content? What about the readers? When will the focus come on these two important aspects?
I hope this cleanup activity will finally bring some sanity to the influencer landscape in India and bring about an order.