2021 will definitely be a year of influencer marketing again: Hitarth Dadia

Shrugging off the disruptions of the year gone by, businesses and agencies are looking for a strong revival in 2021. Over the next few weeks, Adgully – as part of its annual TRENDING NOW endeavour – will be presenting the strategies and views of a cross-section of industry leaders as they go about reclaiming lost time and market opportunities and build for a stronger future, armed with the lessons of 2020.

Hitarth Dadia, Head of Monetization, NOFILTR Group, sees a tremendous growth curve for influencer marketing and video marketing in 2021. He also stresses on the importance of creative and diversified content to keep the audience entertained and informed at the same time.

Outlook for 2021

The market of influencer marketing has already been huge and expanded, and the industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months. The introduction of social media platforms like Snapchat and new features like Instagram Reels has allowed businesses to target customers in such a new amazing manner and content creators to create innovative and creative content online. The year 2021 will definitely be a year of influencer marketing again, with new upcoming trends in the industry and expected to grow double than 2020. Brand are leaning towards content creators more than ever before and spending most of their budget on marketing in this segment because of the outcome received in the past. Content creators are able to build trust and loyalty among the public for the brand and their services.

In the year 2021, creators who believe in creating unique, interactive and diversified content will gain more attention by brands and public alike. We have seen many trends on social media these days, such as ‘This Or That Challenge’, ‘Main Tera Song’, etc., and saw millions of videos created by the population online. Setting a trend on social media can bring your brand on the forefront and can help you beat your competitors.

Video marketing will rule the online community with the newly added features by leading social media channels like Instagram to create video content. Video will attract more audiences than images on social media, which means content creators and brands both have to brainstorm for more and more video content for 2021. Initially, brands were more attracted towards the influencers with a high number of followers posting about their products and services, but with the changing times, content and authenticity are more important aspects to be considered for their campaigns. In short, brands will have to take every user seriously in 2021 regardless of how many followers they have!

Digital trends

Coronaviurs fast forwarded the digital industry at a certain high rate; not only influencer marketing, but the complete digital industry thrived during the pandemic period. Brands also started leaning towards the digital marketing strategies to promote their products and services online.

Influencers came up with amazing creative content by sitting at home. They came up with more diversified content on their social media channels to entertain their followers. Influencer marketing is definitely here to stay and will grow tremendously because of its growing demand among both content creators and brands.

Learnings from 2020

2020 was a year full of ups and downs, not just in terms of business, but in personal lives too. If I have to speak about 2020, there is a lot to say and speak for an industry which witnessed tremendous growth and jump in the last 9-10 months, that is, the influencer marketing industry. Initially, when lockdown was announced, we were anxious about what’s next, but turning the unavoidable situation into an opportunity was one of our major missions to accomplish. COVID-19 forced almost the entire population to be locked up in their homes during the lockdown period, which made most people embrace the digital world in order to keep up a constant stream of communication with friends and family and to stay entertained at the same time. We all have witnessed the growth in terms of user base on short video sharing platforms like TikTok (which has now been banned by the Indian Government) and leading social media channel Instagram, where content creators were creating innovative and unique content for their followers on their social media channels. 

Influencer marketing was a highly likely outcome of the pandemic, not only because of the availability of the campaigns, but also because of the changing ways in which the audience received communications. Demand is shifting, and both brands, as well as content creators, need to understand more about the value of content and what needs to be out in the market to captivate the attention of their targeted audience so as to thrive in a post-COVID-19 world. We are expecting that influencer marketing is here to stay and grow more and more. Brands have started relying more on content creators now to communicate their message to consumers in a more natural way, to maintain their relevance and meet their target audience online. We started working on new campaigns and created diversified content with our content creators and realised the importance of creative, diversified content to keep the audience entertained and informed at the same time.