In this episode of the Thrifty Titans Podcast, we have an insightful conversation with Ankit Agarwal, the visionary founder of Do Your Thng (DYT) – a cutting-edge influencer marketing platform in India that places creators at the forefront and aims to revolutionize the industry.
During our discussion, we delve into various topics including monetization prospects for micro-influencers, the significance of creator marketing for emerging brands, essential considerations for influencer marketers before partnering with a creator, and an intriguing look into the future of influencer marketing platforms in India within the APAC region. Join us as we explore these exciting aspects and much more!
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00:00:10
Saikat Pyne: Hello. I'm sa P marketer Creative and all around Alpha nerd.
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Saikat Pyne: Welcome to the you incorporated podcast On this show, I
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Saikat Pyne: catch up with bad ass entrepreneurs, marketers, storytellers and content
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Saikat Pyne: creators to understand how they built their personal brands, their
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Saikat Pyne: voices their way. If you want to carve out an
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Saikat Pyne: individual agenda with your work and take charge of your
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Saikat Pyne: own narrative, you are in the right place.
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Saikat Pyne: Hello. Hello. Welcome to the you Incorporated podcast. Please join
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Saikat Pyne: me in welcoming Aha! Gaal, the founder of Do Your Thing,
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Saikat Pyne: a creator first tech platform that aims to disrupt the
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Saikat Pyne: influencer marketing industry. The company's mission is to help content
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Saikat Pyne: creators realise, develop and monetize their digital assets.
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Saikat Pyne: A is also an experienced digital marketer and he has
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Saikat Pyne: over a decade of digital marketing, advertising and social media
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Saikat Pyne: management experience with brands the likes of national geography Sony BMW,
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Saikat Pyne: Microsoft and Mary Suzuki, among others. Welcome to the podcast.
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Saikat Pyne: A
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Ankit Agarwal: thank you so much, aka Very, very happy to be here.
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Saikat Pyne: Now tell me on, um the content space has really
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Saikat Pyne: been blowing up in more ways than one. Platforms are
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Saikat Pyne: now warming up to create us in a big big way.
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Saikat Pyne: But in the bigger scheme of things, in terms of
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Saikat Pyne: how the the space of content creation is going to
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Saikat Pyne: evolve on digital, it can't just be the Big East, right?
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Saikat Pyne: There have to be,
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Saikat Pyne: uh, a bunch of people who are not going to
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Saikat Pyne: become the next studios in the digital space. So do
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Saikat Pyne: you really see what's your take on micro influencers and
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Saikat Pyne: their potential given how the digital ecosystem is shaping up
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Saikat Pyne: right now,
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Ankit Agarwal: Right, Right. So actually, before we go to micro influencers,
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Ankit Agarwal: I I'll very quickly tell you about what is the
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Ankit Agarwal: change
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Ankit Agarwal: you are witnessing. And it's a beautiful change, to be
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Ankit Agarwal: honest and which is, uh, which is the reason I
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Ankit Agarwal: don't speak about it? Um, I mean, there used to
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Ankit Agarwal: be a time when you used to consume content done
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Ankit Agarwal: only by bigger studios. I think about, um when there
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Ankit Agarwal: were only two versions and any TV s and aspects
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Ankit Agarwal: of the world, and that was the only content that
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Ankit Agarwal: we are consuming. And and, of course, like on the
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Ankit Agarwal: entertainment side, there were a couple of other studios as well.
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Ankit Agarwal: Um, but what Internet has done and and not just Internet, actually,
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Ankit Agarwal: the penetration of Internet, the low cost smartphones and specifically
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Ankit Agarwal: in the Indian context, the low cost of data. What
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Ankit Agarwal: that has done is it has made everybody a walking studio,
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Ankit Agarwal: a studio which not only creates content but also consumes content.
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Ankit Agarwal: So this democratisation that has happened, OK, gone are those
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Ankit Agarwal: days when now you know, you, you you have basically
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Ankit Agarwal: people doing content which can be as niche as somebody
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Ankit Agarwal: in Chennai speaking about Punjabi food in English language and
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Ankit Agarwal: there is an audience for this guy as well.
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Ankit Agarwal: So there's a huge democratisation that has happened. And the
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Ankit Agarwal: biggest change that has happened is, uh, at the micro
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Ankit Agarwal: slash nanos space. There have been some celebrities which have
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Ankit Agarwal: been made, of course. Um, that's how I mean, that's
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Ankit Agarwal: that's pretty much, uh, the normal route. But the majority
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Ankit Agarwal: of the of the talent the the major chunk, the
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Ankit Agarwal: bigger numbers would lie,
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Ankit Agarwal: uh, in the in the micro and the nano space.
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Ankit Agarwal: So I am a big believer and just not just me, but, um,
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Ankit Agarwal: there are a lot of other guys. In fact, uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: if you see most of the most of the leaders
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Ankit Agarwal: in the Internet space across the globe. All of them
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Ankit Agarwal: are very, very big believers and are very, very bullish
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Ankit Agarwal: about the creative economy space specifically in the long tail,
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Ankit Agarwal: which is the micro and nano creator space. So So, yeah,
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Ankit Agarwal: it has changed. It is evolving. And it is the future,
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Saikat Pyne: right? So tell me, how has this space changed over
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Saikat Pyne: the past year and a half, Especially after covid? Because, uh,
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Saikat Pyne: I'm sure as, uh, business has gone digital marketing has
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Saikat Pyne: also gone digital in a big, big way.
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Saikat Pyne: So how has the pandemic impacted micro influencers? And and
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Saikat Pyne: how have marketers cozied up to, uh, micro influencers and
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Saikat Pyne: in in the in, in this post pandemic reality,
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Ankit Agarwal: Right, Right. So see, uh, covid has changed. Um, almost
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Ankit Agarwal: everything that we see. I mean, it's literally pre-covid and
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Ankit Agarwal: post covid these days.
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Ankit Agarwal: Uh, and one of the biggest gainers, um, was was digital.
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Ankit Agarwal: I mean, digital went big because that was the only
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Ankit Agarwal: way of connecting people when people could not go out.
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Ankit Agarwal: And social media was actually the biggest gain out of
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Ankit Agarwal: this all. Uh, I mean it. It was the silver lining, uh, which,
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Ankit Agarwal: which we always say, uh, during the covid times when
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Ankit Agarwal: everything was bad, social media was kind of flourishing. Big time.
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Ankit Agarwal: Um, a lot of changes have happened since then. Uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: the biggest changes, increased consumption time. So if you see
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Ankit Agarwal: in the Indian context, um, we are, you know, one
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Ankit Agarwal: of the highest, uh, consumers across the globe. In terms
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Ankit Agarwal: of data, there's about 15.7 GB. Data that we consume
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Ankit Agarwal: almost on a monthly basis, which is actually pretty high.
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Ankit Agarwal: The cost is really, really low.
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Ankit Agarwal: And this change came in because of covid covid everybody
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Ankit Agarwal: was home. Uh, the only thing that they could do was, um,
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Ankit Agarwal: you know, consume a lot of content on a variety
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Ankit Agarwal: of screens, and hence the content consumption went up. So
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Ankit Agarwal: that's one major change that happened.
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Ankit Agarwal: Um, the second change which happened is a lot of, uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: relatable content started coming in, and a lot of consumption
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Ankit Agarwal: around relatable content went up. So pre covid, you know,
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Ankit Agarwal: people used to be shy about, uh, the kind of
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Ankit Agarwal: content they used to put, but during covid all of
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Ankit Agarwal: us with our, you know, shabby hair and and you know,
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Ankit Agarwal: those those selfies in our jeans are that
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Ankit Agarwal: in our t-shirts and pyjamas, those became the normal trend.
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Ankit Agarwal: People started putting those up. People made a lot of
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Ankit Agarwal: dishes at home. And no matter how it looked like,
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Ankit Agarwal: they they put those up, you know, without thinking twice
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Ankit Agarwal: and pre covid. It used to be like a big no, no,
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Ankit Agarwal: pre covid. People used to put selective content on social
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Ankit Agarwal: and on digital, uh, which actually changed during covid. And
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Ankit Agarwal: this is something that brands also kind of started getting
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Ankit Agarwal: used to. Uh, I realised, uh or rather I remember Pre-covid.
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Ankit Agarwal: Um most of the brands used to be very, very
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Ankit Agarwal: strict with the guidelines that they would give to the creators. Uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: post covid. That has changed a lot. They've become a
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Ankit Agarwal: lot more subtle. They have. They've mellowed down a lot
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Ankit Agarwal: in terms of the control they would want to have.
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Ankit Agarwal: And everybody now is looking at much more relatable content
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Ankit Agarwal: to be coming in and to be produced and to
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Ankit Agarwal: be to be consumed as compared to those well produced
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Ankit Agarwal: or well crafted content pieces. I mean, those are still happening,
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Ankit Agarwal: and those were those would always happen. They would have
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Ankit Agarwal: their own niche. Um, and they would have their own place. But, uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: you know, with the increased consumption and the increased content creation, uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: the the kind of content which has been created or
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Ankit Agarwal: which has been consumed, has changed
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Ankit Agarwal: because of covid. So these two, I'd say, uh, are
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Ankit Agarwal: two big changes. Um, and of course, uh, I mean,
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Ankit Agarwal: because content consumption, increased content creation at a brand level
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Ankit Agarwal: also increased. Um, And then, you know, we will be
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Ankit Agarwal: seeing a lot of digital adoption. Kind of, uh uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: accelerated because of covid. So that, of course, is another
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Ankit Agarwal: thing that we're looking at. So these are some some
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Ankit Agarwal: of the changes which have happened because of covid, uh,
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Ankit Agarwal: in a good sense,
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Saikat Pyne: right? Right. Now, tell me a Keith. From what I
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Saikat Pyne: understand from what you just said, there has been a
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Saikat Pyne: huge spike in terms of creation of user generated content, right?
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Saikat Pyne: People who are just regular everyday people are now sharing
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Saikat Pyne: their lives minus the philtre on social media, and they,
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Saikat Pyne: over time, are starting to gain traction. So it's no
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Saikat Pyne: longer just about creators who are media professionals with very
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Saikat Pyne: highly sort of specialised skills in photo editing and photo
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Saikat Pyne: manipulation of video editing. It's normal, everyday
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Saikat Pyne: people as well, but in terms of content consumption, tell
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Saikat Pyne: me this. Where do you think the balance is in
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Saikat Pyne: terms of content, consumption trends going forward? Will people keep
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Saikat Pyne: consuming more user generated content? Or will the platforms also,
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Saikat Pyne: over time, start cutting back and say, Hey, maybe a
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Saikat Pyne: part of our content library is going to be slightly
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Saikat Pyne: more cut
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Saikat Pyne: created because there's always people creating content, and that's going
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Saikat Pyne: to be the bigger chunk in terms of our offerings,
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Saikat Pyne: and you can always consume that. But here is a
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Saikat Pyne: more curated library. Do you think there is space for
00:09:04
Saikat Pyne: curation on platforms like YouTube or Instagram? Or is it
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Saikat Pyne: primarily going to be a free for all everybody create
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Saikat Pyne: and this huge playground for everybody to create content on?
00:09:16
Ankit Agarwal: Right. So I guess one of the biggest, uh, behavioural
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Ankit Agarwal: shifts that we have seen is, uh, people,
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Ankit Agarwal: you know, kind of curating what they want to consume
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Ankit Agarwal: by themselves. And this is something which is actually really,
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Ankit Agarwal: really big. So, uh, while the attention spans are reducing
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Ankit Agarwal: the desire to form strong communities, even if it is
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Ankit Agarwal: niche that has gone up multifold. Uh, you know this
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Ankit Agarwal: this this greater emphasis on individuality, on ownership on who
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Ankit Agarwal: you are as a person.
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Ankit Agarwal: Uh, so go on those days when people used to
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Ankit Agarwal: mince words or people used to have, um or other
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Ankit Agarwal: people used to shy away from from saying what they
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Ankit Agarwal: believe in online and that that has changed in a big,
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Ankit Agarwal: big way. People have started being more expressive. People have started, um,
00:10:01
Ankit Agarwal: talking about their creativity, talking about, uh, what they feel about, um,
00:10:05
Ankit Agarwal: you know what is happening across the globe. Uh, and
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Ankit Agarwal: hence there's a lot of authenticity which just started coming
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Ankit Agarwal: in the content that is being created and being consumed online.
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Ankit Agarwal: So while there would always be some space for, uh
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Ankit Agarwal: uh for curated content by third parties and, uh, it
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Ankit Agarwal: would never go down to, you know, point blank zero.
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Ankit Agarwal: Of course. Uh, that's that's something which would definitely appeal
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Ankit Agarwal: to a set of users, and they keep on appealing.
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Ankit Agarwal: But my view here is, uh, you know, this this
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Ankit Agarwal: entire self curation change has become too big to be stopped. Now, people,
00:10:38
Ankit Agarwal: people know what they want to consume. They know where
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Ankit Agarwal: to find or another way to find that content.
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Ankit Agarwal: And they would want to. I mean, you you you understand?
00:10:45
Ankit Agarwal: It used to only be limited to that music phenomenon
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Ankit Agarwal: some time back where people had their own, Um, you know,
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Ankit Agarwal: strong music libraries. They used to curate their own music
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Ankit Agarwal: and listen to it. And they used to find music
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Ankit Agarwal: from different places. And now that has gone outside to
00:10:59
Ankit Agarwal: every kind of content that you're consuming.
00:11:01
Ankit Agarwal: So, um, in in my opinion, uh, self curation would
00:11:05
Ankit Agarwal: become really, really big in the coming years, While, um,
00:11:08
Ankit Agarwal: you know, the the curated content by these platforms would definitely, um,
00:11:12
Ankit Agarwal: also find some place and, um, be out there. It's
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Ankit Agarwal: It's not coming down to zero for sure,
00:11:17
Saikat Pyne: right? Right. So people are now taking on the
00:11:22
Saikat Pyne: of deciding for themselves what they want to consume. They
00:11:26
Saikat Pyne: just want the entire catalogue, and I decide what I consume.
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Saikat Pyne: I don't want anybody else. I don't want the company,
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Saikat Pyne: the social media platform or a special sort of curator,
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Saikat Pyne: some sort of an editor to decide what comes into
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Saikat Pyne: my feed.
00:11:42
Saikat Pyne: I I decide what comes on my feet, right? That's
00:11:45
Ankit Agarwal: yes, Absolutely. See, there can be nudges. They can be
00:11:48
Ankit Agarwal: nudges in terms of Oh, hey, you might like something
00:11:50
Ankit Agarwal: like this, but, uh, I mean, eventually what I'm consuming
00:11:54
Ankit Agarwal: is something that should be in my hands, and I
00:11:56
Ankit Agarwal: should be able to decide. And that's that's a trend
00:11:58
Ankit Agarwal: that we've been seeing increasingly going up and that that's
00:12:00
Ankit Agarwal: a huge, huge behavioural shift which is happening across the Internet,
00:12:04
Ankit Agarwal: not just on on a particular platform. So I'm a
00:12:06
Ankit Agarwal: firm believer of, uh, you know, self curation being really,
00:12:09
Ankit Agarwal: really big in the coming years,
00:12:11
Saikat Pyne: right? Right. Now, tell me as this ecosystem matures because
00:12:17
Saikat Pyne: many of these niches that have come up in India
00:12:21
Saikat Pyne: comedy has become so big over the past couple of years,
00:12:24
Saikat Pyne: right comedians are now as good as some of the
00:12:27
Saikat Pyne: biggest digital creators in India. Even some have started creating movies.
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Saikat Pyne: Some have started writing and directing for movies, and the
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Saikat Pyne: likes musicians have taken on that stage in a big way.
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Saikat Pyne: Do you think that the curated space, the Amazons and
00:12:42
Saikat Pyne: the Netflix of the world would primarily be dedicated towards
00:12:48
Saikat Pyne: the Studio I, the studio affiliated creator, The managed the
00:12:53
Saikat Pyne: creator with the manager sort of guy with a larger following.
00:12:57
Saikat Pyne: And the U G C space will be primarily reserved
00:13:00
Saikat Pyne: for the budding creators and the micro influencers.
00:13:03
Saikat Pyne: Do you think there'll be a segregation in terms of
00:13:05
Saikat Pyne: platforms that these people are going to be in? And
00:13:09
Saikat Pyne: are those divides going to widen? Going forward?
00:13:11
Ankit Agarwal: Actually, no. Um, I mean, it's it's an amalgamation that
00:13:16
Ankit Agarwal: we're seeing at the classic example is, uh, YouTube, one
00:13:19
Ankit Agarwal: of the places where you'd see the established guys as
00:13:22
Ankit Agarwal: well as the smaller guys coming in. And in fact, again,
00:13:25
Ankit Agarwal: if you look at the stats since 2014,
00:13:28
Ankit Agarwal: uh, all the way till about 2020 there were about
00:13:31
Ankit Agarwal: there was about 7400% increase in the number of channels
00:13:35
Ankit Agarwal: which had at least a million subscribers. And that's a
00:13:38
Ankit Agarwal: significant jump. Uh, so it it just purely cannot come
00:13:42
Ankit Agarwal: by established guys. So what I'm trying to put down
00:13:44
Ankit Agarwal: here is, um, every creator goes through a journey from
00:13:47
Ankit Agarwal: when they start, uh, to you know, when they they
00:13:50
Ankit Agarwal: they throw the paint on the wall and see what
00:13:52
Ankit Agarwal: sticks with the audience. And then they essentially find their
00:13:54
Ankit Agarwal: niche and then from there, start to become big.
00:13:57
Ankit Agarwal: Um, and of course, during this entire journey, uh, at
00:13:59
Ankit Agarwal: different points in time or if at different places, they
00:14:03
Ankit Agarwal: would have different platforms that they would prefer.
00:14:06
Ankit Agarwal: Um, but eventually, um, there would be, you know, so
00:14:09
Ankit Agarwal: So there definitely would be some platforms which would be very,
00:14:12
Ankit Agarwal: very specific and would only cater to say, you know,
00:14:15
Ankit Agarwal: these studio led guys. But there definitely would also be
00:14:18
Ankit Agarwal: platforms like YouTube where this amalgamation would be really, really
00:14:22
Ankit Agarwal: beautiful to be seen. So I see, um, there's huge
00:14:26
Ankit Agarwal: head room for both kinds of platforms to coexist. Um,
00:14:30
Ankit Agarwal: I don't think it's an either or or kind of scenario.
00:14:33
Ankit Agarwal: I think both kinds of platforms would,
00:14:35
Ankit Agarwal: And depending on which, uh, stage of the creative journey
00:14:39
Ankit Agarwal: you are in, you would kind of start climbing up
00:14:42
Ankit Agarwal: the ladder and start using the the the platforms, the
00:14:45
Ankit Agarwal: classic example. If I have to throw your would be
00:14:49
Ankit Agarwal: say for um and he used to. And he still
00:14:52
Ankit Agarwal: uses Instagram a lot. He used to use Instagram a
00:14:55
Ankit Agarwal: lot earlier as well, but now he's also on Netflix
00:14:58
Ankit Agarwal: and Amazon, not Amazon. I think he's only on Netflix. But, um,
00:15:02
Ankit Agarwal: what I'm trying to portray here is, um,
00:15:05
Ankit Agarwal: depending on where you are, some of the platforms might
00:15:08
Ankit Agarwal: open gates for you. Uh, even if they don't, uh,
00:15:11
Ankit Agarwal: I think the the platforms which are available for creators
00:15:14
Ankit Agarwal: across are strong enough for any creator to become as
00:15:19
Ankit Agarwal: big as they can. Uh, you know, depending on the
00:15:21
Ankit Agarwal: kind of talent that they pursue. So So there's room
00:15:23
Ankit Agarwal: for both kinds of platforms to be to be coexisting
00:15:26
Ankit Agarwal: with each other.
00:15:27
Ankit Agarwal: Right When
00:15:28
Saikat Pyne: we're speaking of the platform, let's speak about monetization as well, because, uh,
00:15:33
Saikat Pyne: just I think, a couple of weeks ago YouTube came
00:15:36
Saikat Pyne: out with its report with some very, very flashy numbers
00:15:40
Saikat Pyne: in terms of how they have created such a huge
00:15:43
Saikat Pyne: impact on the Indian creator ecosystem and the financial implications
00:15:47
Saikat Pyne: in terms of monetization
00:15:48
Saikat Pyne: opportunities that they have created for Indian content creators. But
00:15:53
Saikat Pyne: when you dig just a bit under the surface, you'd
00:15:56
Saikat Pyne: also realise that YouTube AdSense rates are among the lowest
00:16:00
Saikat Pyne: for creators based out of India and catering to the
00:16:04
Saikat Pyne: Indian audience. So what do you think is the future
00:16:07
Saikat Pyne: of monetization for micro
00:16:10
Saikat Pyne: influencers? Do you think it's still going to be a
00:16:13
Saikat Pyne: side gig, a sort of a hobby for content creators?
00:16:16
Saikat Pyne: Or do you think micro influencers can actually somebody with
00:16:21
Saikat Pyne: a couple of 1000 followers but very loyal followers? Maybe.
00:16:24
Saikat Pyne: Do you think they can actually make a full time
00:16:27
Saikat Pyne: living out of it and do what some of the
00:16:30
Saikat Pyne: bigger creators have done?
00:16:32
Ankit Agarwal: Absolutely. So I'll start by, um, telling you a bit
00:16:36
Ankit Agarwal: about the entire creative universe in the Indian context. And
00:16:39
Ankit Agarwal: then I'll answer the question about, uh, you know, the
00:16:41
Ankit Agarwal: kind of monetization are now available for the long micro guys.
00:16:46
Ankit Agarwal: So if you look at the Indian numbers, uh, based
00:16:48
Ankit Agarwal: on a very recent report from, uh, Kari, there are
00:16:51
Ankit Agarwal: about 80 million reported creators in India with only 100
00:16:54
Ankit Agarwal: and 50 being, uh being termed as professional creators. OK,
00:16:58
Ankit Agarwal: uh, so these professional creators that I'm talking about would
00:17:01
Ankit Agarwal: have an average earning of about 200 odd dollars, uh,
00:17:04
Ankit Agarwal: every month, which is almost nothing, considering the kind of
00:17:07
Ankit Agarwal: effort and time they would be putting in OK um,
00:17:10
Ankit Agarwal: so if you speak about right now, uh, definitely, they don't, uh,
00:17:15
Ankit Agarwal: have a lot of, uh, monetization coming their way. So
00:17:19
Ankit Agarwal: most of them are still relying about. In fact, about
00:17:21
Ankit Agarwal: 77 78% are still relying on the brand deals. Uh,
00:17:25
Ankit Agarwal: which is the typical
00:17:26
Ankit Agarwal: The marketing deals that you do, Um, and and, you know,
00:17:28
Ankit Agarwal: the rest of the universe, Uh, the entire 30 33%
00:17:32
Ankit Agarwal: which is remaining, um, would comprise of everything else put together,
00:17:35
Ankit Agarwal: including a a share, including your subscribers, including, you know,
00:17:38
Ankit Agarwal: all the newer pieces that are coming in. Um,
00:17:42
Ankit Agarwal: but what we're seeing is, um, this trend kind of
00:17:44
Ankit Agarwal: going up quickly, in fact, very, very quickly. Just just
00:17:48
Ankit Agarwal: about six months or seven months, or maybe about a
00:17:50
Ankit Agarwal: year back. Um, the 77% used to be 95 96%.
00:17:54
Ankit Agarwal: There were no port apart from that brand deals for
00:17:57
Ankit Agarwal: these creators. But now you see, uh, there's n f t. There's, uh,
00:18:00
Ankit Agarwal: you know, earning money from your subscribers. There are just
00:18:03
Ankit Agarwal: newer platforms which are coming in. So the whole lot
00:18:06
Ankit Agarwal: more opportunities which are opening up, and,
00:18:09
Ankit Agarwal: uh, we are also in a like living in a
00:18:12
Ankit Agarwal: stage where number of followers are slightly becoming insignificant at
00:18:16
Ankit Agarwal: a smaller level, even if you have 2000 followers or
00:18:19
Ankit Agarwal: 4000 followers or maybe even 5000 followers, what matters in
00:18:23
Ankit Agarwal: that stage is what is the kind of content that
00:18:25
Ankit Agarwal: you're creating and whether the content is making a difference
00:18:28
Ankit Agarwal: to those 4 9000 followers or not if if it
00:18:31
Ankit Agarwal: is making a difference and you have a very loyal
00:18:33
Ankit Agarwal: family
00:18:33
Ankit Agarwal: of 9000 followers and we'd be able to monetize by
00:18:36
Ankit Agarwal: a variety of ways. OK, um, and specifically say if
00:18:40
Ankit Agarwal: you're a niche creator with even with a small number of,
00:18:43
Ankit Agarwal: uh uh, communities, even with a small community, you'd still
00:18:46
Ankit Agarwal: be able to manage, Uh uh or still be able
00:18:49
Ankit Agarwal: to monetize this community. So what I'm trying to tell
00:18:51
Ankit Agarwal: you here is one. There are newer opportunities which are
00:18:55
Ankit Agarwal: coming in, which did not exist earlier.
00:18:58
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, and a lot of these would not take the
00:19:01
Ankit Agarwal: number of followers into consideration, and hence these smaller guys
00:19:04
Ankit Agarwal: would have an equal opportunity of earning money.
00:19:06
Ankit Agarwal: Um, you know, things like creating content for a brand
00:19:09
Ankit Agarwal: where regardless of how big or how small you are
00:19:12
Ankit Agarwal: If the content quality is good, you can earn, you know,
00:19:15
Ankit Agarwal: a sort of steady monthly income, Uh, with with some
00:19:18
Ankit Agarwal: content pieces creating being created for the brand and these
00:19:21
Ankit Agarwal: content pieces the brand can use on their profiles on
00:19:23
Ankit Agarwal: the on the media properties bla bla bla So so
00:19:26
Ankit Agarwal: those kind of a important piece are coming up, and
00:19:28
Ankit Agarwal: then these newer ones are There
00:19:29
Ankit Agarwal: are N F t s where you can like depending
00:19:32
Ankit Agarwal: on the kind of talent you have, you can mint
00:19:34
Ankit Agarwal: n f T s and you might be able to
00:19:35
Ankit Agarwal: earn a huge sum of money, which is one n f.
00:19:38
Ankit Agarwal: T being sold. Uh, so those opportunities are coming in,
00:19:41
Ankit Agarwal: and those are coming in real hot and real big. Um,
00:19:44
Ankit Agarwal: so my opinion, uh, while there would be slight diversification
00:19:48
Ankit Agarwal: in terms of, uh where all smaller creators can earn
00:19:52
Ankit Agarwal: money from,
00:19:53
Ankit Agarwal: But that definitely is a huge, huge potential in terms
00:19:57
Ankit Agarwal: of these guys being able to earn a steady income,
00:20:01
Ankit Agarwal: or rather be being being able to kind of, uh,
00:20:04
Ankit Agarwal: you know, earn an income which which can take their
00:20:06
Ankit Agarwal: monthly expenses by what they do online. So the biggest
00:20:09
Ankit Agarwal: belief that we have is and this is not just me,
00:20:12
Ankit Agarwal: but a lot of like global leaders across the globe,
00:20:14
Ankit Agarwal: also speaking with the same thing
00:20:16
Ankit Agarwal: that this decade would belong to people who would make
00:20:18
Ankit Agarwal: a living off the Internet and this 80 million number
00:20:21
Ankit Agarwal: that I told you about. So while 80 million creators
00:20:23
Ankit Agarwal: are right now in India, only 100 and 50 are
00:20:25
Ankit Agarwal: to that professional. So the the room for growth is
00:20:28
Ankit Agarwal: just immense. The talent is just immense. Uh, once these
00:20:32
Ankit Agarwal: opportunities start to seep in, you would see like super
00:20:36
Ankit Agarwal: super wonderful stories kind of coming in where smaller guys
00:20:39
Ankit Agarwal: would have made more money than bigger guys.
00:20:41
Saikat Pyne: Right? And how do you look at the AdSense versus
00:20:46
Saikat Pyne: other monetization opportunities that balance working out in the near future?
00:20:52
Saikat Pyne: Do you see AdSense to start to become less important
00:20:58
Saikat Pyne: for micro influencers? And the AdSense game would be a
00:21:01
Saikat Pyne: game primarily relegated to bigger players who play on scale,
00:21:06
Saikat Pyne: just like the bigger some of the bigger O TT platform,
00:21:09
Saikat Pyne: Samson in India are able to offer discounted content because
00:21:13
Saikat Pyne: they are on an ad led model. Do you see
00:21:15
Saikat Pyne: creators going down that route as well? That the share
00:21:18
Saikat Pyne: of AdSense would be bigger for bigger creators and the
00:21:21
Saikat Pyne: share of AdSense would be lower and, you know, more
00:21:24
Saikat Pyne: focused on brand deals and more focused on their own
00:21:27
Saikat Pyne: ways of monetization, community focused ways of monetization? Would that
00:21:32
Saikat Pyne: be
00:21:33
Saikat Pyne: become bigger for smaller creators
00:21:35
Ankit Agarwal: going forward? So so, Unfortunately, fortunately, we are in a
00:21:39
Ankit Agarwal: country where the ad rates are surprisingly low as compared
00:21:44
Ankit Agarwal: to our international counterparts. And because the ad rates are
00:21:47
Ankit Agarwal: surprisingly low, the ad sense income that you can get
00:21:50
Ankit Agarwal: as a creator also is surprisingly low. OK,
00:21:54
Ankit Agarwal: now, AdSense generally would make sense once you have reached
00:21:57
Ankit Agarwal: a certain scale. When you are small, you don't have
00:21:59
Ankit Agarwal: a lot of traffic coming in. And the amount of, uh,
00:22:02
Ankit Agarwal: like the the the money that you can generate, the
00:22:05
Ankit Agarwal: dollars that you can generate within AdSense would be almost negligible.
00:22:08
Ankit Agarwal: And hence, uh, if you see again these stats, uh,
00:22:11
Ankit Agarwal: you know, most most of the micro nano influencers. About
00:22:13
Ankit Agarwal: 70 80% of these guys are reliant on the brand
00:22:16
Ankit Agarwal: deals on the brand influencer marketing deals or content creation
00:22:19
Ankit Agarwal: deals to get the money from right
00:22:22
Ankit Agarwal: in the near future as well. I see the same
00:22:25
Ankit Agarwal: trend coming in or going going out there. So for
00:22:28
Ankit Agarwal: the bigger guys, definitely AdSense can become a good chunk
00:22:32
Ankit Agarwal: of money coming in.
00:22:34
Ankit Agarwal: But for the smaller guys, they would have to diversify
00:22:36
Ankit Agarwal: to other areas. So, you know, things like, um, subscriptions
00:22:41
Ankit Agarwal: from from their community or things like, uh, uh, monetary
00:22:44
Ankit Agarwal: tapes and tricks. You know, having a paid telegram channel
00:22:47
Ankit Agarwal: or a paid WhatsApp channel, Uh, or a paid instagram community, Um,
00:22:52
Ankit Agarwal: or even starting your own brand, you know, doing merchandizing.
00:22:56
Ankit Agarwal: So those are the things which, um, which I feel
00:22:59
Ankit Agarwal: most of the creators would diversify it, too.
00:23:01
Ankit Agarwal: A sense would definitely remain as a silent, uh, you know,
00:23:05
Ankit Agarwal: kind of, uh, partner out there and would always, like,
00:23:08
Ankit Agarwal: keep on contributing some sort of money to some extent,
00:23:11
Ankit Agarwal: to these creators. And once they become big, of course,
00:23:14
Ankit Agarwal: this this chunk can can start to grow from, uh
00:23:17
Ankit Agarwal: where they are right now. But in this smaller game,
00:23:19
Ankit Agarwal: I think diversification is more important and while you diversify,
00:23:22
Ankit Agarwal: you have to find your niche. Uh, so you'd have
00:23:24
Ankit Agarwal: to find one particular piece that you really want to
00:23:27
Ankit Agarwal: focus on. Say, if you want to do merchandizing and
00:23:29
Ankit Agarwal: you know you would. If you want to build your
00:23:30
Ankit Agarwal: own brand,
00:23:31
Ankit Agarwal: then that's something that you should be focusing on. And
00:23:34
Ankit Agarwal: a like I said can be a in play, uh,
00:23:35
Ankit Agarwal: always keep, you know, kind of giving you some sort
00:23:38
Ankit Agarwal: of base amount of income that you can get on
00:23:40
Ankit Agarwal: a monthly basis. So So that's the model, I think,
00:23:42
Ankit Agarwal: which would really work for, especially for the for the
00:23:44
Ankit Agarwal: smaller guys. Um, for bigger guys, of course. Uh, AdSense
00:23:48
Ankit Agarwal: can definitely play a play a very important role because
00:23:50
Ankit Agarwal: they can get some some big bucks out there, right?
00:23:53
Saikat Pyne: Right.
00:23:54
Saikat Pyne: In terms of monetization. If you worked with so many
00:23:58
Saikat Pyne: creators as a part of your work at, uh, do
00:24:01
Saikat Pyne: your thing and also in your professional experience as a
00:24:05
Saikat Pyne: digital marketer, tell me when is a good time for
00:24:10
Saikat Pyne: a creator to start monetizing
00:24:13
Saikat Pyne: his or her content? Is it slightly earlier? What is
00:24:18
Saikat Pyne: a landmark? Do you think would be a good benchmark
00:24:22
Saikat Pyne: for people to decide. Now it is the time for
00:24:25
Saikat Pyne: them to take a monetization bit a bit more seriously,
00:24:29
Ankit Agarwal: right. I'm glad that you've asked this question like that
00:24:32
Ankit Agarwal: because this is one of the tricky ones and a
00:24:34
Ankit Agarwal: lot of people fall down the trap. Uh, in fact,
00:24:36
Ankit Agarwal: I've seen, uh and I've I've met, and I've spoken
00:24:39
Ankit Agarwal: with a lot of guys and a lot of girls
00:24:41
Ankit Agarwal: who would start a new Instagram channel purely with the, uh,
00:24:45
Ankit Agarwal: objective of earning money out of it. Um, so one
00:24:48
Ankit Agarwal: of the things that I'd want to be very, very
00:24:49
Ankit Agarwal: clear about here is,
00:24:51
Ankit Agarwal: uh it's all about creation of that community. OK, monetization
00:24:54
Ankit Agarwal: is an add on or is is something which would
00:24:58
Ankit Agarwal: come in once you've created a community, it's all about saying, Oh, hey,
00:25:01
Ankit Agarwal: I have whatever x number of people who are following me,
00:25:04
Ankit Agarwal: me and who are in my community and who would
00:25:06
Ankit Agarwal: listen to me, and hence I'd be able to monetize
00:25:09
Ankit Agarwal: if you start with the objective of
00:25:12
Ankit Agarwal: as the as the sole purpose. Um, it's not a
00:25:15
Ankit Agarwal: very healthy way to start. Uh, you know, one of
00:25:18
Ankit Agarwal: the reasons behind that and a very strong reason is
00:25:21
Ankit Agarwal: when you start monetizing the organic or the authenticity of
00:25:25
Ankit Agarwal: the content starts to go down automatically, like you might
00:25:28
Ankit Agarwal: not feel it as a creator, but your audience would
00:25:30
Ankit Agarwal: definitely start to feel it.
00:25:32
Ankit Agarwal: Um, as And when you start putting promoted content, um,
00:25:35
Ankit Agarwal: on your feed, um, the authenticity starts to go down
00:25:39
Ankit Agarwal: on the non promoted content pieces as well.
00:25:42
Ankit Agarwal: So I would I mean, my suggestion to all the creators,
00:25:46
Ankit Agarwal: um would be Do not monetize till the time you
00:25:50
Ankit Agarwal: you really feel that you want that money or monetize
00:25:53
Ankit Agarwal: in a sense, um, where you know, you you're not
00:25:56
Ankit Agarwal: kind of, uh uh disregarding the community. Who, which is
00:26:01
Ankit Agarwal: following you for a particular reason. So it's it's all
00:26:03
Ankit Agarwal: about creation or creation.
00:26:05
Ankit Agarwal: That community keep creating the community. Uh, and once you're
00:26:09
Ankit Agarwal: confident of that, OK, my community is super strong. I
00:26:12
Ankit Agarwal: have very loyal fans. Then maybe, you know, start with
00:26:15
Ankit Agarwal: a couple of monetization or a couple of promoted content
00:26:19
Ankit Agarwal: here and there and see the reaction be very, very
00:26:22
Ankit Agarwal: clear and screen the reactions, uh, very closely, because once
00:26:26
Ankit Agarwal: they start to kind of go
00:26:28
Ankit Agarwal: of, um, again like a Like I said, it's not
00:26:31
Ankit Agarwal: a very healthy situation to be in. So for me,
00:26:33
Ankit Agarwal: I don't think there's a, like, a hard benchmark that pay.
00:26:37
Ankit Agarwal: If you cross 50 followers, you should start monetizing. No,
00:26:40
Ankit Agarwal: that's not the case. Um, I would say Try to
00:26:43
Ankit Agarwal: delay it, especially on the on the promoted content front.
00:26:47
Ankit Agarwal: Try to delay it as much as you can. Try
00:26:49
Ankit Agarwal: to be as authentic as you can. And uh
00:26:52
Ankit Agarwal: uh, you know, once once you know that your audience
00:26:55
Ankit Agarwal: is pretty loyal you'd all like you'd automatically kind of
00:26:58
Ankit Agarwal: get that hint that OK, I can kind of, uh,
00:27:01
Ankit Agarwal: you know, start with some monetization and be very, very
00:27:04
Ankit Agarwal: critical screen everything very, very like with a very close eye.
00:27:09
Ankit Agarwal: Once you start monetizing and depending on what the audience
00:27:11
Ankit Agarwal: and how the audience is reacting, you can then take
00:27:14
Ankit Agarwal: the next steps
00:27:15
Saikat Pyne: right now from the creative front, let's move a bit
00:27:19
Saikat Pyne: into the brand front. How important is it for a
00:27:24
Saikat Pyne: budding brand to have a budget for influencer marketing? Because
00:27:32
Saikat Pyne: influencer marketing is pegged as a top of the funnel effort,
00:27:38
Saikat Pyne: often by marketers right,
00:27:40
Saikat Pyne: And it also there's also a group of marketers who
00:27:46
Saikat Pyne: claim that it is slightly pegged according to what the
00:27:50
Saikat Pyne: market rates are. So, given that the space is evolving creators,
00:27:56
Saikat Pyne: the rates for placing your product on their content will
00:28:00
Saikat Pyne: also fluctuate. It's a very volatile market.
00:28:02
Saikat Pyne: OK, so there are markets. Who would say that there's
00:28:06
Saikat Pyne: more r o I in performance marketing. There's more r
00:28:09
Saikat Pyne: o I, you know, putting your money somewhere else. How
00:28:12
Saikat Pyne: do you look at it? Do you think that it
00:28:14
Saikat Pyne: is important for a budding brand to have creators on
00:28:18
Saikat Pyne: their payroll?
00:28:19
Ankit Agarwal: Correct.
00:28:20
Ankit Agarwal: So, um, blanket statement. I think every brand, regardless of, uh,
00:28:26
Ankit Agarwal: which state they are in should be looking at, uh,
00:28:29
Ankit Agarwal: influencer marketing or people marketing, as I put it, Um,
00:28:33
Ankit Agarwal: and and this is like I said, blanket. Despite of
00:28:36
Ankit Agarwal: the state they are in from the moment that you even,
00:28:39
Ankit Agarwal: you know, do your first product. Um, you should have, uh,
00:28:42
Ankit Agarwal: this at the back of your mind. And you should
00:28:44
Ankit Agarwal: be you should be getting connected with people to see
00:28:47
Ankit Agarwal: how they can help you out in terms of marketing.
00:28:49
Ankit Agarwal: The brand
00:28:50
Ankit Agarwal: and I also tell you, uh or rather I'll also
00:28:52
Ankit Agarwal: explain the reason why I'm saying this. See, influencer marketing
00:28:55
Ankit Agarwal: is actually termed in a very singular way. When you
00:28:59
Ankit Agarwal: say influencer marketing, most of the world would would think about,
00:29:03
Ankit Agarwal: you know, people with 300 million followers, uh, kind of
00:29:07
Ankit Agarwal: talking about a particular brand and and charging hefty amount
00:29:11
Ankit Agarwal: to do that. And towards the end, nothing happens. Like
00:29:14
Ankit Agarwal: they would create a content piece that will go on
00:29:16
Ankit Agarwal: their social media profiles, channels. Um, the brand
00:29:19
Ankit Agarwal: might get some link clicks, um, might get some some
00:29:22
Ankit Agarwal: sort of brand we call, and that's where it ends. Um, well, actually,
00:29:25
Ankit Agarwal: it is not the case. Uh, influencer marketing is a
00:29:29
Ankit Agarwal: small you know, of a bigger pie, which is, uh,
00:29:32
Ankit Agarwal: people marketing or which is creative marketing. And it is
00:29:36
Ankit Agarwal: It is. I mean, it's not new phenomena. It's been
00:29:37
Ankit Agarwal: happening from ages. Uh, it's typically the word of mouth
00:29:40
Ankit Agarwal: scenario that we have been very, very used to.
00:29:43
Ankit Agarwal: So, um, as a brand, depending on which state you
00:29:46
Ankit Agarwal: are in, you should be looking at what kind of
00:29:48
Ankit Agarwal: people marketing you should be doing. Uh, and and then maybe,
00:29:52
Ankit Agarwal: you know, eventually graduate to what people call influencer marketing
00:29:56
Ankit Agarwal: these days. Uh, if you do influencer marketing from the
00:29:59
Ankit Agarwal: very first day and again when I say influencer marketing,
00:30:01
Ankit Agarwal: I'm meaning what people understand of influencer marketing right now.
00:30:05
Ankit Agarwal: If you want to do that on the very first day,
00:30:06
Ankit Agarwal: it might not give you the result.
00:30:08
Ankit Agarwal: Um, you have to gradually, you know, kind of warm
00:30:11
Ankit Agarwal: up to that, climb up that ladder and then see,
00:30:13
Ankit Agarwal: how do you evolve from where you are and to
00:30:16
Ankit Agarwal: give you an example? Say, if you are a new
00:30:18
Ankit Agarwal: age D two c brand, uh, you might not want to, uh,
00:30:22
Ankit Agarwal: do you know, paid influencer marketing? But you might want
00:30:25
Ankit Agarwal: people to come on board, uh, and and do you
00:30:28
Ankit Agarwal: know sort of barter collaborations with you? And when I
00:30:30
Ankit Agarwal: say barter of people who are buying your product can
00:30:32
Ankit Agarwal: speak about you, uh, they can say, Oh, hey,
00:30:35
Ankit Agarwal: I bought this product and it's a very good product.
00:30:37
Ankit Agarwal: And against that, the brand can kind of, uh, you know,
00:30:40
Ankit Agarwal: give them some sort of benefit, say, a 20% discount
00:30:42
Ankit Agarwal: coupon on the next purchase or something else. Now, this
00:30:46
Ankit Agarwal: doesn't pinch the brand at all, because, uh, you know,
00:30:49
Ankit Agarwal: if they're giving a 20% discount coupon on the next purchase,
00:30:51
Ankit Agarwal: there's another purchase, which is waiting to happen by the
00:30:53
Ankit Agarwal: same guy.
00:30:54
Ankit Agarwal: And it's also supremely authentic because somebody is buying the, uh,
00:30:57
Ankit Agarwal: the the product is speaking about the product. The content,
00:31:00
Ankit Agarwal: on the other hand, in this case, might not be
00:31:02
Ankit Agarwal: the best. Might might be a very, you know, user
00:31:05
Ankit Agarwal: generated content kind of thing, but, um, but again, Hey,
00:31:08
Ankit Agarwal: I mean, it's it's high on authenticity. That's what the
00:31:11
Ankit Agarwal: brand needs at that point in time. So a brand
00:31:13
Ankit Agarwal: can start with something as simple as that
00:31:15
Ankit Agarwal: and can can start to graduate, let's say, into content
00:31:19
Ankit Agarwal: creation by creators. So so they can have say, about 10, 15,
00:31:23
Ankit Agarwal: 20 people creating content rather than having these advertising agencies.
00:31:28
Ankit Agarwal: And pardon me, I'm also an advertising ex advertising guy.
00:31:31
Ankit Agarwal: So by no means
00:31:32
Ankit Agarwal: I I'm trying to demean them. But, um, rather than
00:31:34
Ankit Agarwal: having these advertising agencies create content, you can have relatable
00:31:38
Ankit Agarwal: content being created by these creators. So you can you know,
00:31:40
Ankit Agarwal: you can graduate to that level. And maybe when you
00:31:43
Ankit Agarwal: start becoming big when you start having a lot of
00:31:45
Ankit Agarwal: sales and when you start like when you want to
00:31:47
Ankit Agarwal: reach out to a whole lot of people, um, you
00:31:49
Ankit Agarwal: can have, uh, influencer marketing. As as people term it
00:31:53
Ankit Agarwal: as kind of being involved in the marketing bouquet as well. Um,
00:31:57
Ankit Agarwal: one of the things which, uh, you definitely have to
00:31:59
Ankit Agarwal: keep in mind from the very first day is
00:32:02
Ankit Agarwal: what are you expecting it to do? I mean, influencer
00:32:04
Ankit Agarwal: marketing is not magic wand. Uh, it will not give
00:32:07
Ankit Agarwal: you sales, uh, right away. So this is not performance marketing.
00:32:10
Ankit Agarwal: Let's be very, very clear with that performance marketing would
00:32:13
Ankit Agarwal: depend on how many sales are you getting? But performance
00:32:16
Ankit Agarwal: marketing again also is is is very non emotional. There
00:32:21
Ankit Agarwal: is no connect that you're creating It is somebody coming
00:32:23
Ankit Agarwal: in very transactional. Somebody coming in, buying the product, going off. Uh,
00:32:27
Ankit Agarwal: so So for that person
00:32:28
Ankit Agarwal: who has bought your product to buy in, the brand
00:32:32
Ankit Agarwal: is it's it's zero value. He's just bought a product.
00:32:35
Ankit Agarwal: And tomorrow, if he's getting, say, a competition product at 10% discount,
00:32:39
Ankit Agarwal: most certainly he would go for that because there's no
00:32:41
Ankit Agarwal: brand value that you have created. So what you have
00:32:44
Ankit Agarwal: to understand is for any brand to succeed, you'd have
00:32:46
Ankit Agarwal: to do a combination of, uh, performance, marketing and brand marketing.
00:32:51
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, performance marketing is what will give you initial numbers.
00:32:54
Ankit Agarwal: But brand marketing is what would retain these. These guys
00:32:57
Ankit Agarwal: to you, What would, uh, make them overspend with you?
00:33:00
Ankit Agarwal: What would make them spend again and again and buy,
00:33:03
Ankit Agarwal: You know, more and more products with you and these
00:33:05
Ankit Agarwal: These this brand marketing would involve and should involve other
00:33:08
Ankit Agarwal: influencer marketing to a large extent because you're telling the
00:33:11
Ankit Agarwal: world via creators or via people you're telling the world that,
00:33:14
Ankit Agarwal: you know, this brand is a very, very good plan.
00:33:16
Ankit Agarwal: So I think, um, again, I'd stick to my blanket statement.
00:33:19
Ankit Agarwal: Every brand, regardless of which state you are in, should
00:33:23
Ankit Agarwal: be looking at marketing via people. Um, what you should
00:33:27
Ankit Agarwal: be doing is something that, uh, that would be defined
00:33:30
Ankit Agarwal: by what your goals are. Which state are you in? And, um,
00:33:34
Ankit Agarwal: what is it that you're willing to take up in
00:33:37
Ankit Agarwal: terms of the budget?
00:33:38
Saikat Pyne: So when you say that ideally, every brand should have
00:33:43
Saikat Pyne: a budget for influencer marketing or creative marketing like you
00:33:46
Saikat Pyne: called it. Would it be more beneficial for brands to
00:33:50
Saikat Pyne: have content partners?
00:33:53
Saikat Pyne: We've seen multiple content creators like and you know, who
00:33:58
Saikat Pyne: have started to invest in startups. They have started to
00:34:02
Saikat Pyne: become a very integral part of the marketing machinery of
00:34:06
Saikat Pyne: brands like right. Or do you think marketers,
00:34:10
Saikat Pyne: at least in the earlier stages of a brand's evolution,
00:34:13
Saikat Pyne: should focus on a P S U go sort of
00:34:16
Saikat Pyne: a model? Which is the case with most brands these days?
00:34:19
Saikat Pyne: Which is, You know, whenever there's a marketing campaign, there's
00:34:23
Saikat Pyne: some budget kept for content creators. What would deliver the
00:34:26
Saikat Pyne: highest r O I. You think
00:34:28
Ankit Agarwal: right? So there's no, you know, one method out of
00:34:32
Ankit Agarwal: these two that you'd be following it. It always has
00:34:35
Ankit Agarwal: to be a mix of these two, and, um, again,
00:34:38
Ankit Agarwal: I'll give you an example. There there is a, uh,
00:34:40
Ankit Agarwal: there's an approach which was devised by Google a couple
00:34:43
Ankit Agarwal: of years back called hero approach. And a lot of
00:34:46
Ankit Agarwal: marketers use that approach as as as a Bible to
00:34:49
Ankit Agarwal: content creation.
00:34:51
Ankit Agarwal: Um, so I just take that as a as a back,
00:34:54
Ankit Agarwal: Uh or rather, a backdrop to what I'm trying to explain,
00:34:57
Ankit Agarwal: you know? So whenever you're creating a brand, uh, you
00:35:00
Ankit Agarwal: would always need a couple of, uh, content pieces which are,
00:35:04
Ankit Agarwal: which are your hero assets, you know, which are content
00:35:07
Ankit Agarwal: pieces which would define your brand over years to come.
00:35:10
Ankit Agarwal: And and again now that you have mentioned re think
00:35:13
Ankit Agarwal: about the advertisements that, uh, the brand has produced, I mean,
00:35:16
Ankit Agarwal: these ads would define the brand for years and years
00:35:20
Ankit Agarwal: to come,
00:35:21
Ankit Agarwal: and those content pieces cannot become like cannot come cannot
00:35:25
Ankit Agarwal: be produced on a pay as you go model. It
00:35:27
Ankit Agarwal: is just supremely difficult to do something, something that beautiful
00:35:32
Ankit Agarwal: or something that immersed in the brand in a pay
00:35:35
Ankit Agarwal: as you go model. So you definitely need people who
00:35:38
Ankit Agarwal: are partners with you, um, for a longer period of time.
00:35:41
Ankit Agarwal: But at the same point in time, these hero assets
00:35:43
Ankit Agarwal: are limited in number. How many ads can you produce
00:35:45
Ankit Agarwal: in a year of 234, maybe five?
00:35:48
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, maybe six or maybe 10 if you have a
00:35:50
Ankit Agarwal: lot of budgets. But in today's age, when you're speaking
00:35:53
Ankit Agarwal: about reaching out to people on digital platforms and social
00:35:57
Ankit Agarwal: media channels. Content gets outdated by the art, not even
00:36:00
Ankit Agarwal: by the day. So you need a lot of content
00:36:02
Ankit Agarwal: to be created on a
00:36:04
Ankit Agarwal: regular basis. Um, uh, to to reach out to consumers.
00:36:08
Ankit Agarwal: And that's your hub and hygiene content pieces. And you
00:36:10
Ankit Agarwal: can't have, uh, you know, long term content partners all
00:36:14
Ankit Agarwal: the time for hub and hygiene content pieces. Now, this
00:36:17
Ankit Agarwal: is where your pay as you go model kind of
00:36:19
Ankit Agarwal: kitchen really, really well. And the beauty about pay as
00:36:22
Ankit Agarwal: you go model is it's very flexible. So say, um,
00:36:26
Ankit Agarwal: if today you need a lot more content, you can just,
00:36:29
Ankit Agarwal: you know, pump, pump in some more money and get
00:36:31
Ankit Agarwal: some more creators on board, get a lot of content done,
00:36:34
Ankit Agarwal: uh, and and then again come to a lean and,
00:36:37
Ankit Agarwal: you know, kind of clean model. Uh, so definitely it
00:36:39
Ankit Agarwal: has to be a mix and match, uh, the hero content,
00:36:42
Ankit Agarwal: like you said, which is which is really close to
00:36:45
Ankit Agarwal: the brand, you know, typically supremely immersed in what the
00:36:48
Ankit Agarwal: brand stands for, Uh, that would need a longer term
00:36:51
Ankit Agarwal: content partnership. Uh, but for the shoulder content pieces for
00:36:55
Ankit Agarwal: the offshoots for one off, you definitely would would need
00:36:59
Ankit Agarwal: to have go go with the pay as you go model.
00:37:01
Saikat Pyne: Right. So tell me,
00:37:04
Saikat Pyne: if I am a marketer, how do I judge if
00:37:09
Saikat Pyne: a creator is suited for my brand?
00:37:13
Saikat Pyne: How do I vet a creator's authenticity? Because at a
00:37:17
Saikat Pyne: certain level, he or she might be creating content that
00:37:21
Saikat Pyne: I feel might overlap with my audience. But there are
00:37:26
Saikat Pyne: also other factors in terms of what I actually get
00:37:30
Saikat Pyne: out of this engagement. Right? So tell me, what is
00:37:34
Saikat Pyne: like a checklist for a marketer? Any time he's having,
00:37:38
Saikat Pyne: he or she is having a conversation
00:37:40
Saikat Pyne: with the creator,
00:37:40
Ankit Agarwal: right? Right. Uh, actually, very, very, uh, interesting questions I got.
00:37:45
Ankit Agarwal: And a lot of people kind of get confused or
00:37:48
Ankit Agarwal: get boggled down by a lot of these, uh, you know,
00:37:51
Ankit Agarwal: parameters which are available, reach engagement and fake followers and
00:37:54
Ankit Agarwal: actual followers. Um, and that that's you know, I mean,
00:37:58
Ankit Agarwal: that's the truth of of of this particular industry. So
00:38:00
Ankit Agarwal: I would want to actually divide this into two categories.
00:38:03
Ankit Agarwal: One is your hard parameters and the other one would
00:38:05
Ankit Agarwal: be your soft parameters.
00:38:07
Ankit Agarwal: So hard parameters would would include, you know, things like
00:38:10
Ankit Agarwal: your number of followers, your engagement, the kind of you
00:38:13
Ankit Agarwal: get the kind of link clicks you can deliver blah, blah, blah.
00:38:16
Ankit Agarwal: And nowadays, there are enough and more technologies which are available.
00:38:19
Ankit Agarwal: You know, there's a lot of a I in fusion
00:38:21
Ankit Agarwal: that has happened. So you you'd be able to understand
00:38:23
Ankit Agarwal: these numbers about literally anybody on this on this planet.
00:38:26
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, whichever profile you're looking at in a GP. And
00:38:29
Ankit Agarwal: it's it's very, very, like, very simple to find these guys. Um,
00:38:33
Ankit Agarwal: the important aspect is the other part, which is the
00:38:36
Ankit Agarwal: soft parameters where you say that, OK, it doesn't matter
00:38:40
Ankit Agarwal: if you have 10 followers or 100 followers. Who are
00:38:42
Ankit Agarwal: you as a person?
00:38:44
Ankit Agarwal: What kind of content have you been creating? What is
00:38:46
Ankit Agarwal: your persona online? Uh, what do you believe in? Uh,
00:38:50
Ankit Agarwal: you know, those are the things that you need to
00:38:52
Ankit Agarwal: keep in mind. Uh, while while selecting the right guys
00:38:55
Ankit Agarwal: for you, the numbers can differ. I mean, for the
00:38:58
Ankit Agarwal: same kind of profile, you can have a variety of
00:39:00
Ankit Agarwal: people falling in, You know, the smaller category, the bigger
00:39:03
Ankit Agarwal: category or the mid level category those all all those
00:39:05
Ankit Agarwal: guys can be available.
00:39:07
Ankit Agarwal: But, uh, I think the most important piece is to
00:39:09
Ankit Agarwal: understand whether this creator, uh, can authentically deliver the brand's message.
00:39:16
Ankit Agarwal: And And when asked about, uh, you know, the brand
00:39:18
Ankit Agarwal: or the product can authentically, uh, tell the world that OK, hey,
00:39:22
Ankit Agarwal: this is the reason why I'm promoting this brand and
00:39:24
Ankit Agarwal: I'm I'm I'm a consumer, I'm an advocate. Then that's
00:39:27
Ankit Agarwal: where the beauty is. That's That's something that is supremely important,
00:39:31
Ankit Agarwal: which every marketer should keep in mind.
00:39:33
Ankit Agarwal: And, of course, like I said, So parameters are definitely
00:39:35
Ankit Agarwal: out there, uh, which can be taken into consideration at
00:39:38
Ankit Agarwal: any point in time,
00:39:39
Saikat Pyne: right? Right, Right now, tell me we have spoken about
00:39:45
Saikat Pyne: creators and and how creators have been coming up in
00:39:48
Saikat Pyne: a big, big way. But where there's we there's also
00:39:51
Saikat Pyne: a bit of shaft right. There's also a bit of
00:39:54
Saikat Pyne: distortion when anytime there's music, there's also a bit of
00:39:57
Saikat Pyne: distortion you can't really like, get away from it. So
00:40:00
Saikat Pyne: what's
00:40:01
Saikat Pyne: your take on the flaky creator? So to say, there
00:40:06
Saikat Pyne: is also this celebrity culture that has come up with
00:40:11
Saikat Pyne: the amount of social media that we consume, where there
00:40:14
Saikat Pyne: are creators who are just famous for being famous. Right?
00:40:18
Saikat Pyne: We have seen this in the West. We've We've seen
00:40:20
Saikat Pyne: this in Hollywood. We've seen this in the in the
00:40:22
Saikat Pyne: global and
00:40:23
Saikat Pyne: entertainment industry and that a bit of that culture is also, uh, uh,
00:40:28
Saikat Pyne: slipping in. So do you think that what do you
00:40:31
Saikat Pyne: think would be the future of these creators? Creators who
00:40:34
Saikat Pyne: might not necessarily be catering to a certain niche but
00:40:38
Saikat Pyne: still have a very sizable audience who are just willing
00:40:41
Saikat Pyne: to follow them regardless of whether they are delivering any
00:40:44
Saikat Pyne: value or not?
00:40:45
Ankit Agarwal: Right. See, these guys would stay around, Of course. Uh,
00:40:49
Ankit Agarwal: it's It's typically, you know, the division, which is which
00:40:52
Ankit Agarwal: is across, uh, any particular industry. You would have smaller guys,
00:40:55
Ankit Agarwal: you'd have midlevel guys and then you'll have, uh, bigger guys,
00:40:58
Ankit Agarwal: and then you'll have stars and stars are followed for
00:41:00
Ankit Agarwal: the start and nothing else. And the kind of content
00:41:02
Ankit Agarwal: they create can be,
00:41:03
Ankit Agarwal: I mean, can be can be useless if I have
00:41:06
Ankit Agarwal: to put it that way. But people still follow them. Um,
00:41:09
Ankit Agarwal: and we've seen that in Bollywood. There's a lot of stars, uh,
00:41:13
Ankit Agarwal: where you know, the kind of movies which are being
00:41:14
Ankit Agarwal: produced are actually, I mean, not something that you and
00:41:17
Ankit Agarwal: I would want to watch. But then there is some
00:41:20
Ankit Agarwal: sort of audience that would want to watch those kind
00:41:21
Ankit Agarwal: of movies, uh, purely because of their stardom, because purely
00:41:24
Ankit Agarwal: or purely because of a lot of other reasons. So
00:41:26
Ankit Agarwal: these stars are bound to remain, um, and would remain
00:41:29
Ankit Agarwal: and ideally, should remain as well. Uh, and I'll tell
00:41:32
Ankit Agarwal: you why they should remain,
00:41:33
Ankit Agarwal: uh, because it also gives you some some sort of
00:41:36
Ankit Agarwal: epitome me to the to the budding creators. It tells
00:41:39
Ankit Agarwal: the budding creators that, hey, you can reach this particular place.
00:41:43
Ankit Agarwal: You know, if you are aspirational enough, if you're talented
00:41:45
Ankit Agarwal: enough or if you are, uh, I mean, if you
00:41:47
Ankit Agarwal: if you are smart enough, you can You can reach
00:41:50
Ankit Agarwal: this stage of star
00:41:51
Ankit Agarwal: where I am at this point and and some of
00:41:53
Ankit Agarwal: the examples And of course I'm again not not putting
00:41:56
Ankit Agarwal: these examples in terms of, uh, you know, them being
00:41:59
Ankit Agarwal: followed just because they're celebrities, but actually people who have
00:42:02
Ankit Agarwal: turned celebrities after being content creators, guys like Boba and
00:42:06
Ankit Agarwal: Dolly sing. I mean, they produce beautiful content
00:42:09
Ankit Agarwal: and they've now become stars. So, uh, you know, they
00:42:12
Ankit Agarwal: they've created that that niche that zone, that epidemic that Hey,
00:42:15
Ankit Agarwal: if you're a budding creator, this is where you can
00:42:17
Ankit Agarwal: be on one fine day. In fact, there are studies.
00:42:20
Ankit Agarwal: I was just reading an article a couple of days
00:42:22
Ankit Agarwal: back where there was a study that said, in the
00:42:24
Ankit Agarwal: United States, Now, more Children,
00:42:25
Ankit Agarwal: you know, more teams would want to take a bigger
00:42:27
Ankit Agarwal: career as a being a creator as a full time
00:42:30
Ankit Agarwal: career option as compared to being an astronaut, which used
00:42:32
Ankit Agarwal: to be the most lucrative career option just a couple
00:42:36
Ankit Agarwal: of years back. So So that's the kind of, um,
00:42:39
Ankit Agarwal: you know, aura, which the bigger creators have created.
00:42:42
Ankit Agarwal: And of course, there are all ways would be creators
00:42:45
Ankit Agarwal: who are not followed for the kind of content they're doing,
00:42:48
Ankit Agarwal: but purely on on the stardom that they have a
00:42:51
Ankit Agarwal: purely on the celeb value that they have. And that's, uh,
00:42:54
Ankit Agarwal: that's that's the reality of life. You you can't have
00:42:57
Ankit Agarwal: all diamonds. I mean, they would be carbon, right?
00:42:59
Saikat Pyne: Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. When you look at the future a kid,
00:43:04
Saikat Pyne: how much of the influencer space do you think would
00:43:08
Saikat Pyne: be taken up by solo creators?
00:43:11
Saikat Pyne: And how much do you think would be taken up
00:43:13
Saikat Pyne: by these managed studio affiliated sort of becoming studios? Sort
00:43:20
Saikat Pyne: of creators. You know, the likes of Mr Beast. Let's
00:43:23
Saikat Pyne: say right, Mr Beast has his own studio. Uh, you
00:43:26
Saikat Pyne: look at M k B h d. He has his
00:43:27
Saikat Pyne: own studio. Some of the biggest creators globally have They
00:43:30
Saikat Pyne: have media studios. They have a fledgling brand around themselves.
00:43:34
Saikat Pyne: So do you think that majority of the space is
00:43:38
Saikat Pyne: going to be taken up by solo creators? Or do
00:43:40
Saikat Pyne: you think, at least in terms of the monetary benefits,
00:43:44
Saikat Pyne: the the bigger guys will be rewarded disproportionately,
00:43:48
Ankit Agarwal: right? See, in terms of, uh, the numbers and this
00:43:52
Ankit Agarwal: is not monetary benefits, but in terms of the number
00:43:54
Ankit Agarwal: of creators about, um I'd say about 80 to maybe
00:43:58
Ankit Agarwal: about 85% would be solo guys purely because,
00:44:01
Ankit Agarwal: uh, the the universe is huge and out of that universe. Um,
00:44:04
Ankit Agarwal: I expect only 10 to 15% to become, uh, big
00:44:08
Ankit Agarwal: enough to have their own studios like N K B.
00:44:10
Ankit Agarwal: H D is one of the biggest guys across the globe.
00:44:12
Ankit Agarwal: Big fan. I'm a big fan, but But for for
00:44:16
Ankit Agarwal: guys like him to read where he I mean, he
00:44:18
Ankit Agarwal: he has been reviewing tech products since he was about
00:44:20
Ankit Agarwal: eight years old. If I'm not wrong, so that's just insane.
00:44:23
Ankit Agarwal: You don't find such stories every day, right?
00:44:28
Ankit Agarwal: So I think about 10 to 15% would become, uh,
00:44:30
Ankit Agarwal: big enough to have their own studios and to have, uh,
00:44:35
Ankit Agarwal: uh I mean, to reach that kind of status purely
00:44:37
Ankit Agarwal: in terms of numbers, in terms of monetization, definitely these
00:44:42
Ankit Agarwal: bigger guys would demand bigger numbers and hence there would
00:44:45
Ankit Agarwal: be a slight skew.
00:44:47
Ankit Agarwal: So I'm expecting around like about a 40 60 or rather,
00:44:50
Ankit Agarwal: 60 40 split where 60% goes, uh, to the to
00:44:54
Ankit Agarwal: the mass in general, or maybe 65%. And about 35
00:44:58
Ankit Agarwal: to about 40% goes in combination to this 10 to 15%
00:45:02
Ankit Agarwal: bigger creator pie. So that's that's the kind of split
00:45:05
Ankit Agarwal: I expect,
00:45:06
Ankit Agarwal: uh, at least in the next couple of years. Um, maybe,
00:45:10
Ankit Agarwal: um you know, with with N f. T s coming
00:45:11
Ankit Agarwal: in and with, uh, subscriptions and all coming in Maybe
00:45:14
Ankit Agarwal: this trend might change because, and like the beauty about
00:45:17
Ankit Agarwal: an N f t is Doesn't matter. You're big or small.
00:45:19
Ankit Agarwal: If you have good content piece, you can earn millions
00:45:21
Ankit Agarwal: literally with with one art form. So, um, with N f.
00:45:25
Ankit Agarwal: T s becoming popular, maybe in a couple of years, say,
00:45:27
Ankit Agarwal: three or four years from today, this might just just
00:45:31
Ankit Agarwal: just switch.
00:45:32
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, but yeah, for the next, uh, two or three years,
00:45:34
Ankit Agarwal: I think this is, uh, what the trend is going
00:45:37
Ankit Agarwal: to be content
00:45:38
Saikat Pyne: is also, you know, very format and platform specific. Right?
00:45:44
Saikat Pyne: So given that a lot of these online platforms, social
00:45:50
Saikat Pyne: media platforms have now been focusing very heavily on short
00:45:54
Saikat Pyne: form content, what do you think
00:45:57
Saikat Pyne: is the future of content consumption of digital? How does
00:46:02
Saikat Pyne: it look in terms of a longer form content versus
00:46:06
Saikat Pyne: a shorter form content format? Do you think shorter form
00:46:09
Saikat Pyne: content would take over video consumption and content, consumption patterns,
00:46:15
Saikat Pyne: content consumption, You know, the lion share of it going
00:46:18
Saikat Pyne: forward Or do you think long form content will still
00:46:21
Saikat Pyne: hold its crown?
00:46:23
Ankit Agarwal: If you see, uh, there's a beautiful trend which has
00:46:25
Ankit Agarwal: started to happen. And that's, uh, you know, two poles
00:46:30
Ankit Agarwal: of content consumption being created. So there's a clear polarisation
00:46:33
Ankit Agarwal: which has started happening in terms of content consumption. Uh,
00:46:36
Ankit Agarwal: and it totally depends on the kind of audience that
00:46:39
Ankit Agarwal: you are. So there's one kind of audience which would,
00:46:42
Ankit Agarwal: um which would want to, you know, have bite size
00:46:44
Ankit Agarwal: content which would not want to put in all of
00:46:47
Ankit Agarwal: their senses in the content. So, you know, podcast and
00:46:50
Ankit Agarwal: and, uh, you know, verbal content, like hearing and, you know,
00:46:54
Ankit Agarwal: audio books. And all of these things are kind of very,
00:46:56
Ankit Agarwal: very famous and very popular. Short form content, short form
00:46:59
Ankit Agarwal: video content, specifically is again very popular with these guys.
00:47:03
Ankit Agarwal: And then there is now a new class, which is
00:47:05
Ankit Agarwal: which is being developed or other, which is growing at
00:47:09
Ankit Agarwal: a very fast pace because of meta wars and a
00:47:11
Ankit Agarwal: lot of these immersive technologies coming in that people are
00:47:14
Ankit Agarwal: getting immersed in the content that they're consuming. So for
00:47:17
Ankit Agarwal: these guys, the podcast would not cut through Or maybe
00:47:19
Ankit Agarwal: like in
00:47:20
Ankit Agarwal: in a given day, They would have, um, say, uh,
00:47:23
Ankit Agarwal: podcast was worth about, what, 23 hours or maybe four
00:47:27
Ankit Agarwal: hours that they would consume. And they would have about
00:47:29
Ankit Agarwal: half an hour or maybe about an hour of a
00:47:32
Ankit Agarwal: very detailed, immersive content consumption happening, which is, you know, the,
00:47:37
Ankit Agarwal: um
00:47:37
Ankit Agarwal: the meta vertices of the world. Um, the you know,
00:47:40
Ankit Agarwal: a r and v r of the world. Uh so
00:47:43
Ankit Agarwal: So I see a good polarisation happening. In that sense,
00:47:46
Ankit Agarwal: there would be both kinds of content pieces which would
00:47:49
Ankit Agarwal: be coexisting and not when I say coexisting like the
00:47:52
Ankit Agarwal: same guy would be consuming both kinds of content content
00:47:55
Ankit Agarwal: pieces at different events or at different,
00:47:58
Ankit Agarwal: uh, times of the day. Uh, you know, So while say,
00:48:01
Ankit Agarwal: you know, while while commuting to work, I might want
00:48:03
Ankit Agarwal: to get up to a podcast. But when I'm back
00:48:06
Ankit Agarwal: from office and I want to kind of relax for
00:48:08
Ankit Agarwal: about half an hour, I might want to get into
00:48:10
Ankit Agarwal: some sort of immersive, immersive game or some sort of
00:48:12
Ankit Agarwal: immersive story.
00:48:13
Ankit Agarwal: Um, so So that's the kind of trend I see happening, Uh, very,
00:48:17
Ankit Agarwal: very clearly in the coming couple of years, and and
00:48:20
Ankit Agarwal: those can be long form. Um, like the immersive content
00:48:23
Ankit Agarwal: can be long form. Can be, um, can be supremely
00:48:26
Ankit Agarwal: immersive or semi immersive. I mean that that, like all
00:48:29
Ankit Agarwal: those are like too early to say, uh, kind of
00:48:31
Ankit Agarwal: trends which are evolving. But
00:48:32
Ankit Agarwal: there clearly would be slight polarisation. And the same guy
00:48:35
Ankit Agarwal: would be consuming both kind of right in
00:48:38
Saikat Pyne: terms of creators and creators building a business around themselves,
00:48:44
Saikat Pyne: becoming faces of their own brands. When is the right
00:48:50
Saikat Pyne: time for
00:48:51
Saikat Pyne: a creator to start building a team around themselves? Because
00:48:55
Saikat Pyne: even when you look at solo creators, the seemingly solo creators,
00:49:00
Saikat Pyne: most of them have a team around themselves, right? So
00:49:04
Saikat Pyne: when they might not have, like a fledgling studio, they
00:49:07
Saikat Pyne: might not have, you know, multiple sources of revenue. But
00:49:11
Saikat Pyne: most creators have a very core bunch of people helping
00:49:16
Saikat Pyne: them create content. So when when is a good time
00:49:19
Saikat Pyne: to start investing in in a team?
00:49:21
Ankit Agarwal: So again, No hard answer to this. Um, I see
00:49:25
Ankit Agarwal: I'll I'll actually draw a here, and there's something called
00:49:28
Ankit Agarwal: a tech debt uh, which is very. And I'm sure
00:49:31
Ankit Agarwal: I mean, you you speak to a lot of tech
00:49:32
Ankit Agarwal: founders and a lot of guys who have been building
00:49:34
Ankit Agarwal: tech products. So I'm sure you would be aware of
00:49:36
Ankit Agarwal: this term. Um, but you know what? What happens is,
00:49:40
Ankit Agarwal: um and and again, I'm I'm drawing a pale to
00:49:42
Ankit Agarwal: tech debt because a lot of people understand or they
00:49:44
Ankit Agarwal: don't understand that when you start to build technology, there's
00:49:48
Ankit Agarwal: a debt also, that you're creating at the same point
00:49:50
Ankit Agarwal: in time,
00:49:51
Ankit Agarwal: uh, which needs to be kind of filled in every
00:49:53
Ankit Agarwal: now and then. And that's exactly how a content creators journey.
00:49:57
Ankit Agarwal: Also kind of resonate. So So when you are lean
00:50:00
Ankit Agarwal: when you're young, when you are, you know, very small, uh,
00:50:03
Ankit Agarwal: in terms of the team, you can be very, very agile.
00:50:06
Ankit Agarwal: You can create new kinds of content pieces. Uh, you
00:50:10
Ankit Agarwal: can you can do a lot more in terms of experimentation,
00:50:14
Ankit Agarwal: but as in when you start to create a team
00:50:17
Ankit Agarwal: of your own,
00:50:18
Ankit Agarwal: you you you start becoming kind of restricted with that team. Uh,
00:50:23
Ankit Agarwal: that you have, and the team, by all means, can
00:50:26
Ankit Agarwal: be the best team across the globe, but every team
00:50:27
Ankit Agarwal: would have their own restrictions. So as a free creator,
00:50:31
Ankit Agarwal: you can collaborate with a lot of other creators and
00:50:34
Ankit Agarwal: do a lot of brilliant stuff. Um uh, and at
00:50:37
Ankit Agarwal: the same point in time with the team, you might
00:50:39
Ankit Agarwal: be restricted from that perspective. But again, looking at the
00:50:42
Ankit Agarwal: other side of the of the of the, uh, table
00:50:45
Ankit Agarwal: here with the team, you can do
00:50:47
Ankit Agarwal: a lot better content creation as compared to what you
00:50:51
Ankit Agarwal: can do solo. So there are pros and cons to
00:50:54
Ankit Agarwal: both sides. Uh, most of, uh, most of the creators
00:50:57
Ankit Agarwal: would graduate from being a solo creator to having a team.
00:51:01
Ankit Agarwal: But what we've seen, uh,
00:51:03
Ankit Agarwal: now is the trend actually going opposite as well. I've
00:51:07
Ankit Agarwal: seen a lot of creators who have dropped their teams, uh,
00:51:10
Ankit Agarwal: dropped the, you know, extra fat and become become as
00:51:13
Ankit Agarwal: lean as they could. And this is specifically during covid times. Um,
00:51:17
Ankit Agarwal: you know, a lot of a lot of these guys
00:51:19
Ankit Agarwal: that dropped their,
00:51:20
Ankit Agarwal: um, photographers dropped their editors and and started doing things
00:51:24
Ankit Agarwal: on their own. So this this opposite trend is also happening,
00:51:27
Ankit Agarwal: so I would say, Um, you know, there's no So
00:51:30
Ankit Agarwal: it's It's not like you're better off with the team
00:51:33
Ankit Agarwal: or it's not like you're better off being a solo guy. Uh,
00:51:35
Ankit Agarwal: both has, um, their pros. And
00:51:38
Ankit Agarwal: so, as a creator, there's no hard definition on when
00:51:42
Ankit Agarwal: you should go solo or when you should have a team.
00:51:44
Ankit Agarwal: It totally depends on the kind of content you're doing. Uh,
00:51:46
Ankit Agarwal: totally depends on what is the future. You know, you
00:51:50
Ankit Agarwal: have planned for yourself if you if you need a
00:51:51
Ankit Agarwal: lot of, uh, well produced content pieces, then you definitely
00:51:54
Ankit Agarwal: need a team.
00:51:55
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, if you don't, uh, then, of course, uh, I'd
00:51:58
Ankit Agarwal: I'd like I really suggest everybody to go solo because,
00:52:01
Ankit Agarwal: I mean, being solo is like as independent or maybe
00:52:04
Ankit Agarwal: like not just solo, but maybe in a couple like
00:52:06
Ankit Agarwal: two people coming together, it's It's like as independent as
00:52:09
Ankit Agarwal: you can be. So So, yeah, that's my take on, uh,
00:52:11
Ankit Agarwal: you know, getting a team or not getting a team, right?
00:52:14
Saikat Pyne: Right.
00:52:15
Saikat Pyne: If I'm a budding creator and I feel it's time
00:52:18
Saikat Pyne: for me to start monetizing my content, what are the
00:52:21
Saikat Pyne: avenues for me in terms of approaching brands for monetization.
00:52:27
Saikat Pyne: Am I better off? You know, making a direct sort
00:52:30
Saikat Pyne: of
00:52:30
Saikat Pyne: of reach out. Would I be better off affiliating with
00:52:35
Saikat Pyne: with platforms like yourself? Uh, what can a micro influencer
00:52:41
Saikat Pyne: do to line the best and, uh, and most relevant
00:52:45
Saikat Pyne: brand deal?
00:52:46
Ankit Agarwal: Right? See, I'd say, And this is not me saying
00:52:49
Ankit Agarwal: because I'm, like, associated with D i t. But I'd
00:52:52
Ankit Agarwal: genuinely say, um, you know, go with the platform a
00:52:55
Ankit Agarwal: couple of reasons behind that. When you're budding creator, you'd
00:52:59
Ankit Agarwal: not know a lot of things that you'd not one
00:53:01
Ankit Agarwal: you'd not know your value. The kind of money you
00:53:03
Ankit Agarwal: should be charging. Or should you be
00:53:05
Ankit Agarwal: doing campaigns? Uh or, you know, uh, what kind of
00:53:09
Ankit Agarwal: brands you should be approaching? So, uh, you know that
00:53:11
Ankit Agarwal: that platform would help you out a lot in terms
00:53:14
Ankit Agarwal: of understanding your past history, understanding your past content and maybe,
00:53:17
Ankit Agarwal: you know, giving you recommendations in terms of the kind
00:53:19
Ankit Agarwal: of brands you should be going after the kind of
00:53:21
Ankit Agarwal: campaigns you should be participating in. Uh, then there are
00:53:24
Ankit Agarwal: a lot of other final pieces. Uh, which a solo
00:53:27
Ankit Agarwal: creator specifically during the early ages might not know about.
00:53:30
Ankit Agarwal: So things like, you know, the kind of legal contracts
00:53:32
Ankit Agarwal: I should be signing in.
00:53:33
Ankit Agarwal: Um or, I mean, is there anything else that I
00:53:35
Ankit Agarwal: should be keeping in mind? So all all of those, uh,
00:53:38
Ankit Agarwal: you know, kind of the the platforms can, uh, take
00:53:41
Ankit Agarwal: care of. I mean, it's like angel investing when you invest.
00:53:44
Ankit Agarwal: Uh uh, as an angel in startups, you generally, uh,
00:53:47
Ankit Agarwal: would prefer to go with some sort of angel group
00:53:50
Ankit Agarwal: or some sort of platform because they would do their
00:53:52
Ankit Agarwal: due diligence and everything on the angels behalf, as as
00:53:54
Ankit Agarwal: a single angel you like. It's very difficult to do
00:53:56
Ankit Agarwal: the due diligence. And that's the same,
00:53:58
Ankit Agarwal: um, with the with the solo creator as well. I mean, say,
00:54:01
Ankit Agarwal: tomorrow if you don't get the money, uh, from the
00:54:03
Ankit Agarwal: brand in the stipulated time, then as a solo creator,
00:54:06
Ankit Agarwal: you pretty much can't do anything literally. Genuinely. You can't
00:54:09
Ankit Agarwal: do anything. Uh, but if you are a part of
00:54:11
Ankit Agarwal: the platform and the platform would make sure that you're
00:54:13
Ankit Agarwal: getting that money would also make sure that you're signing
00:54:15
Ankit Agarwal: the right contract. Would also, you know, kind of help
00:54:17
Ankit Agarwal: you with a with a bunch of deals as compared
00:54:19
Ankit Agarwal: to just going with one particular plan.
00:54:21
Ankit Agarwal: So I would genuinely advise, uh, younger guys to, uh,
00:54:25
Ankit Agarwal: to go and, you know, kind of explore these platforms.
00:54:28
Ankit Agarwal: There are a lot of, um, educational pieces also which
00:54:31
Ankit Agarwal: have now kind of started coming in on on most
00:54:34
Ankit Agarwal: of the platforms. As a creator, you have the possibility
00:54:37
Ankit Agarwal: to grow much faster. You have the possibility to have
00:54:41
Ankit Agarwal: many more campaign as compared to what you could, uh, separately.
00:54:45
Ankit Agarwal: And you also are kind of safeguarded in terms of
00:54:48
Ankit Agarwal: the creator rights and everything.
00:54:49
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, so that that would be my, uh, you know, viewpoint. Uh,
00:54:53
Ankit Agarwal: like I said, this is like, irrespective of, uh, me
00:54:56
Ankit Agarwal: being associated with D I t. Um, this is this
00:54:59
Ankit Agarwal: is something that I would genuinely tell a creator to
00:55:01
Ankit Agarwal: kind of follow,
00:55:02
Saikat Pyne: right. And let's do some crystal ball gazing in terms
00:55:06
Saikat Pyne: of influence marketing trends. Now, when you look at
00:55:10
Saikat Pyne: the next decade for entrance marketing in the Asia Pacific region,
00:55:14
Saikat Pyne: what are the biggest trends that pop out to you
00:55:17
Saikat Pyne: right off the bat?
00:55:19
Ankit Agarwal: Newer content pieces. Um, so audios on a R. Uh, video,
00:55:24
Ankit Agarwal: of course, would continue to kind of, uh, be be
00:55:27
Ankit Agarwal: looking out there a newer, um, platforms coming in. So
00:55:31
Ankit Agarwal: a lot of, uh, you know, podcasts going big specifically
00:55:34
Ankit Agarwal: in the region.
00:55:35
Ankit Agarwal: Uh, so those those are some of the trends which, um,
00:55:38
Ankit Agarwal: definitely would be really, really big, Uh, one of the
00:55:41
Ankit Agarwal: key trends specifically in the Indian context, uh, would be
00:55:44
Ankit Agarwal: regional content. Uh, And and there's just I mean, the
00:55:47
Ankit Agarwal: consumption is all on an all time high. Tier two
00:55:50
Ankit Agarwal: tier three would see huge growth. Uh, and and, you know,
00:55:54
Ankit Agarwal: regional content Would would go really, really big. Uh, not
00:55:57
Ankit Agarwal: just in terms of content creation, but in terms of
00:55:58
Ankit Agarwal: influence of marketing as well. Right?
00:56:00
Saikat Pyne: So definitely
00:56:02
Saikat Pyne: exciting times to be a creator in India and in
00:56:05
Ankit Agarwal: Napa, right? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Absolutely. It's It's the
00:56:09
Ankit Agarwal: place to be right. Time right place. Um, in the
00:56:12
Ankit Agarwal: right category. I'm happy you're doing this. I can. You
00:56:14
Ankit Agarwal: You go. Really big bye. Very soon.
00:56:17
Saikat Pyne: Thank you. Thank you so much. And on that note,
00:56:21
Saikat Pyne: it's a wrap. Thank you for being on the podcast.
00:56:24
Saikat Pyne: It was lovely having you over
00:56:27
Saikat Pyne: uh, please tune in next week for the next episode
00:56:31
Saikat Pyne: of the U Incorporated podcast.
00:56:41
Saikat Pyne: Thank you for tuning into the you incorporated podcast with
00:56:45
Saikat Pyne: me sack.
00:56:47
Saikat Pyne: You can write to me at contact at the rate
00:56:50
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00:56:54
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00:56:58
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00:57:02
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00:57:07
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