 So hello everybody. A very good evening to all of you. Welcome to the e4m content jam. I'm Khyapi Kawa, your host and very delighted to extend a very warm welcome to all of you. e4m content jam, the content marketing gig, a virtual conference where we are live on Zoom, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. So right away your questions because we have some amazing influencers, brands and a moderator who's going to steer this very interesting conversation today. So content marketing has become an integral part of a brand's marketing plan, but with COVID-19, content marketing is bigger than ever before. With mainstream marketing coming to a grinding halt, content of course continues to play a pivotal role in ensuring brand salience. Today our panel is going to discuss on building brands via influencers decoding that magic formula. With Hal with us, the moderator of this session, Mr. Pranay Swaroop. Pranay is a founder and CEO of chatterbox.com, India's leading influencer marketing agency and technology platform. He was previously co-founder and COO of Let's Intern.com from 2010 until its acquisition in 2000. Under his leadership, Let's Intern became the world's most visited internship platform and catered to over 450,000 students and 23,000 employers. Pranay has also won the Economic Times Power of Ideas, NASCAR, Immersion Internet.org, Social Innovation Challenge among other accolades. A very warm welcome to you, Pranay. Thanks. Thank you. And we have with us a stellar panelist as well. Some of the names that you are so well-versed with. You know them, you've seen them, you are following them. Yes. So ladies and gentlemen, we have with us the TV presenter that we all love and adore, Ms. Mini Mathur. Very, very warm welcome to you, ma'am. Thank you. And with us, the darling of Indian live industry as well as an actor, you've all loved her in so many web series. Now, Ms. Kubera Sate. Very warm welcome to you too. And we have with us a travel duo who's been traveling around the world and currently staying out of India as well stuck in the lockdown. The bruised passports, Savi and the with are with us. Very, very warm welcome to you too. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we have with us the country manager of India and Gulf Tourism Australia. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Nishant Kashikar. A very warm welcome to you, sir. Thank you so much, Cathy. So we'll have some panelists joining in in just a bit but right now I would ask Pranay to take over the conversation. Thank you, Cathy. Hey, hi everyone. Thank you for tuning in and thank you for all our awesome panelists to join us here as well. Cathy's already covered a part of what I was going to say and introduce all of you. So I'm going to skip that part and jump straight into the discussion. Just for the audience to know, we are having this discussion in two parts. First, we have Nishant, Kubera, Savi and Vib, Mini Mathur here with us. And then we'll be joining, we'll be starting part two with Shlok, with Team Nachh and Madan Gauri later on as well. So thanks everyone for joining in. Hey, hi, Sonal. Good to see you as well. Hi. So my first question is jumping straight into it is more for Kubera and Mini. And then we'll move to the other panelists as well. But both of you have been celebrities and influencers outside of the digital world. We're very keen to know your journey and how it's been to go from there and turn into these digital influencers that you are today and how have you transitioned? How has that experience been? What have you learned through that? And yeah, just take us through a little bit of that and introduce your journeys with us and we'll move into the harder questions after that. Kubera, let you go first. Well, I think the voice in my head attacks your tiny voice in my big head. And it will always say, hey, you know what, one day success would be defined if you become an endorser. But I think by the time I went from stage to television to a film or in whichever order you may choose to, you know, put it, I mean, even including the years I worked at Microsoft as a marketer. I think by the time I reached the stage where, you know, you basically said, you know, you're like celebrities. I think by that time, the word endorser had changed into influencer. And I'm like, one second, what does this seem really different from what I knew? You know, it was about a product, you hold it, you smile, and it's a selling shot. You know, it's like a marketing shot. All you had an ad voice. I can hydrate myself, but now it's not bad. Now you're an influencer. And it's about relearning the tricks from the book. And I think one of the tricks that I've learned is if this water is really not hydrating you, then please don't talk about it. And I think that's been pretty much my journey as an influencer. That's far. I'm still learning and unraveling the secrets as we go by. Awesome. Thanks, Kuber. I'll come back to you. Many of you, you know, you've, you know, you've done it all, you know, in the film industry and the television industry and, you know, on MTV all the way. And now you're a mom. You are, you know, doing some amazing content on your social media channels as well. Would love to know how, you know, how that journey has been for you. Was it easy? And how do you go about that? So Pranay, for me, it's never been a goal. And I frankly speaking, I'm quite the reluctant influencer. So even when somebody calls me, hey, you know, you influencers, I look behind me and say, who me? Did you say this to me? Because I think what I do on social media is really actually a reflection of what I do outside it. And that's always where the career has been. And I started out using, in fact, I started off on Instagram way after everyone else had discovered it. And that was more of a, you know, Twitter and activist person on that platform. But I, for me, it's always been about accessibility. So even when I, my television persona is not that of, you know, a star or an aspirational person, I think I've always been someone people related to and could speak to. And, you know, I could open my, so my, my social media has really been, it started off being a reflection of who I am. So I didn't forcefully post because it would have looked good, or it would have set a trend. I just, you know, once in a while whenever I felt like I thought I was being real. And somewhere I feel that that, that real connects with people, you know, like-minded people feel motivated, they feel happy. And I don't restrict, so until today I feel I'm like a jack of all trades. I still don't know where to put my finger and say, am I a TV host? Or am I an actor? Or am I an influencer? Or am I a jack of all? So it's literally master of none, you know, if I had to give my book a name, it would be that. And I think doing a little bit of this, little bit of that makes people feel like I'm as followable as them. And I think for me, connection and accessibility has been the one mantra that has led me to have people who actually enjoy what I post. So it's been a very reluctant journey. And I'm glad that now, I mean, of course, I'm thanking my stars for it, because now that we're locked down, it's the only expression that one is left, you know, if I'm missing work. So I'm doing ads and I'm hosting webinars and I'm doing all kinds of work, but everybody else including a filmmaker husband is sitting jobless. So I'm really very thankful for social media. That's awesome, Mini. And you know, we often keep saying this that social media has always been about expressing. And I think, you know, you both of you, Kubra and Mini have been doing it so well, just like bringing your personalities and vibes to your fans. And that's amazing. Thank you for doing that. We've got a couple of other folks who have been doing that really well as well. So yeah, Savi and Vid, we'd love to hear a little bit more from you. But you know, how did you guys, you know, go from nothing nowhere? I mean, I didn't know about you guys till you became like these amazing travel influencers that you are. So what's been your story? And yeah, tell us a little bit about what's going on these days as well. Pranay, Pranay, very disappointed to know that you didn't know about us, man. Sorry. Did I not meet you both on a plane somewhere? That's why I met you guys, right? I think I connect so deeply with what both Mini and Kubra said, because like Mini said, you know, the term influencer has become such a pejorative word these days that you almost don't want to connect with that. But in a very strange sort of way, we actually started because when we were traveling to all these really remote places, as Mini said, we have no other human connect, you know, so we thought we are passionate about traveling, why don't we post our stories? Maybe they enable people. So we started influencing because we wanted to enable and empower people who might be scared to go to an Iceland because it was minus 30 degrees or scared to venture into the remote parts of Bolivia because there was no human souls around. So we wanted our stories to reach to them somehow. And this was such an amazing medium because it would instantly connect with everybody. And I think that the most empowering thing about social media is that or being an influencer, I'm sorry to use the end point. But the thing that you control your narrative, it's not an elaborate production team, it's nobody. So all your imperfections, all your the messiness, the individuality as well as the good content or the polished stuff that is your work. So your CV is there as well as your individual self and that dichotomy to me is what makes influencing really special. If I may just add a sentence or two, it's basically what Mini said about being relatable. So when we started doing this, a lot of people would ask us, so don't you feel scared when you go to Iceland and isn't it too cold? Or just questions that people are apprehensive about traveling to remote places. And that is when we learned that when people see other people doing something, then they feel more comfortable. So based on that, I love photography, Savi is a writer. So it was a nice team as well. And we had a lot of content from the countries that we had traveled to. So it was kind of building on that. And then as they say, rest is history, but there's a lot of that to be made as well. Sure. Thanks. I love the fact that we're all quoting influencer marketing on an influencer marketing panel discussion. I feel like if we have to keep doing that, it's going to be a long day. But even for us, when we actually started, I started working on a startup which works on influencer marketing. We thought the word influencers were super like abused or overused. And hence we started to use creators, we use people with influence. We call it people powered marketing. But the truth here is you guys are so influential. And that's the essence of that word. There is so much responsibility, so much value that you guys offer to your audiences. And it's awesome. And brands have been able to tap into this. So while we've got a lot of people today listening in who are young, emerging and aspiring influencers, we've also got a lot of marketers who are really trying to understand what's this magic formula behind putting these two pieces together. So we've got Nishant, who's, again, coming from a really strong marketing background. He's currently the country head of Shared Tourism. Nishant would love to know a little bit more about you've done it all in marketing. You've also now, of late, started to work with a lot of influencers. What's been your experience? How's it going? Yeah. And take us through that. Thanks so much for that. So I recently celebrated my decade-long association with Tourism Australia. Wow. It's been a fantastic journey. And I've just explored maybe 50 or 60 percent of Australia. There's still a long way to go. And therefore I feel I've got a much long, longer journey ahead with Tourism Australia as well. But having said that, I've seen numbers from India to Australia literally quadrupled over the last decade. And this has been primarily because of effective use or not use, but working closely with influencers. You may want to call them advocates. You want to call them opinion leaders or ambassadors for that matter. But they've been a strong supporter of foundation who have helped us to build a strong people-to-people links between India and Australia. Now, I would like to quote a pretty interesting statement made by Paul Hogan, the crocodile dandy man, a famous Australian actor and comedian. And he said that if you visit someone's place and you have a good time, it's because of the company and not because of the furniture. And you travel to a particular country for whatever their task to offer. Aquatic and coastal experiences, natural beauty, food and wine. But what's more important is the people-to-people links. And that can only be enhanced when you have strong influencers and strong advocates who keep talking about your destination, who keep inspiring people, or keep giving them some holiday ideas and holiday goals to achieve. And those four more inducing experiences, which maybe Savy and Vid do it so effectively on their platform. So it's been a story of whatever growth that you've seen has been driven purely by influencers for now. Interesting. Thanks, Sushant. I'm sure you guys have used a lot of influencers outside of the kangaroo and the koala bear being your first original influencers. Gubra, have you been to Australia? Or have you, in my question being- I swear to whatever higher power exists out there, I was about to DM Savy and asked you guys to connect me to Nishant. Thank you. I left my case. You've got my answer. Gubra, okay. We're going to design your holiday. Awesome. So Gubra, my question to you is, and then after that with Mini as well, is how do you decide what do you post about? What's that process? And at the same time, when you get so many brand requests to endorse or to talk about, what is the filter that you apply, we'd love to know a little bit more about how you plan that. And I know you started on Twitter a lot more than now. And now you're doing great content on Instagram. And that's your most active channel if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, tell us a little bit more about what's your process of content creation and do you have time to do it? And do you take help to do it? I'd love to know a little bit more of that. Are you talking to me or Gubra first? To Gubra first. Oh, sorry. I said that. Okay, fine. I like the way Mini and Gubra ask the same questions and then we are left to figure out who's going to post. Wow, what was your question? No, I'm kidding. Wow, no, really, what was the question? How do you decide what content do you like posting? Oh, yeah. So first of all, I try not to have such a short span of attention. That's the first thing I try to do when I'm working and I'm getting paid for it. The other thing is that, you know, for example, I have to say this Mini posts a lot of pictures of her stories in Raw Mango and that has actually made me write Raw Mango in my list of designers that I aspire to wear. Nice. And I think that comes from such authenticity and it shows a reflection of who she is that it automatically steers me in that direction. So I think it was Madman and he says something like, if you're feeling it, then it's self. So if you receive a brand, what I try to do is understand where do I fit in? You know, for example, why do microphones sell so well when a singer endorses them or places it as a part of their act? It's because they do it and it sounds right and they have real feedback about it. Like for example, I know I'm doing something with a phone, but it's really hard for me to operate that phone. So I'm literally on the phone every day trying to understand how does this actually work? Because if it doesn't work the way I understand it, I'm unable to sell it or I'm unable to do anything with it. So I think I need to feel the story of what the connection is between the brand and me. It could be small, it could be something that I'm ready to explore, but it needs to have a connection to me. And I think then the narrative which comes from a personal space because it has to be something that's me. It has to be a story that I can authentically tell. If I can't say it with that kind of honesty and that kind of belief, then I would be called out on it. And I don't think you want to be in that space where you're doing something just for the money and not ingenuity. Sometimes you can tell when it's money. You can tell the ingenuity and you need to make peace with yourself. But the majority of the deals would be... Would it in a way be the opposite of how you decide you're acting for characters? They need to be far different and I know you do a lot of versatile kind of work and this is of course you. It does not get mixed up when brands are looking at you and they're thinking, oh, you are a particular character in a particular movie or a show and that's your personality versus this is your real personality and this is who Kubera is. Do your audiences also get confused between those two things? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If I try to like fudge them with a story, they're going to literally splatter the fudge on my face. They will be like, oh, how much money do you have? Straight away. There's no mention of words out there. They're very clear. How much money do you have? How much money do you have? Oh, okay. So you go off that. So that's something that you get called out on straight away. But just to mention, I think because I've had some seriously good fortune that I worked with Anurag Kashyap, he always says acting is honest business. You need to be honest in that moment. If you're not honest then don't act. And I'm sure Kabir would say that to all these actors or even, you know, Bruce Passport, guys, if you're not feeling it in that moment, you just can't take a picture in front of a waterfall. Somebody will be like, do it. Yeah, true. I think accountability is one of the hallmarks of the whole influencing industry because the relatability, that's the other side of the relatability. You have to be accountable and responsible for your actions or what you promote. Yeah, absolutely. Meanie, how about for you? I mean, how do you decide how to post your content? I noticed like, you know, Meanie, your Kubra was also saying that you've had, you know, your kids participate in your content. It's really good because, you know, this way we're getting to see, you know, you and your life in a much richer way. How do you decide and how do you go about that? So probably for me, the mantra is really simple. Okay, I do not promote anything that I personally wouldn't be proud to be using or going or wearing or whatever. So because like you said, you can easily make out fakes on social media. Okay, I see so many accounts of people posting about, you know, various things I can tell, you can tell the fakes. And now I believe there's data to tell you whether, you know, you've got followers that are bought or whether your followers are organic or whether the brands are really getting something out of your, you know, out of spending on our influencers. So for me personally, I don't want to project or sell anything or market anything on that would look like I wouldn't really be using it. And therefore, whenever brands approach me, my first fight with them is the same thing. Are you going to let me say it my way? Or do I have to say it your way? Because if you're going to have it your way, it's not going to work for you. And if I'm taking your money, I want to make sure that you get something out of it because that's the only way I build credibility for myself as an influencer. So I personally have given up stuff saying this is I'm the wrong person to be doing your brand. So for me, quality is always number one. I've always for no amount of money will I do something that I feel edgy about. Okay, so it'll always have to be and I'm not sounding snooty when I say this, it could be a vegetable wash for heaven's sake, but it has to be something that represents quality credibility. Now, if a brand tells me okay, X amount of hashtags and there has to be a call to action and you have to say this and they'll know my viewers, my followers will know that this is something that I'm being made to say and hey, I sold out, I have taken money. If you allow me to say give me some credibility, I've built my own brand, I will tell you that if you let me do it my way, my followers will be able to say okay, she does it and it looks so organic and so nice. Let me give it a shot. Coincidentally, I'll slip in a swipe up link. You know what I mean and they'll thank me for it. So you have to use the creative intelligence of individual. Now, I hate it when people come to me and say, you know, like a rate list, okay, give us your rates for this one. I said there are no freaking rates get lost. Okay, there is no dobi list here. When your brand tells me, I'm sure people are very nervous around a party because I tell them, when your brand know it's me they want, I will charge you half the money but I'll do a kick ass campaign. That's where I get my kicks from. Okay, let me give a quote an example. I did two of India's first travel shows, Indian Holiday and Namaste India. Everywhere we went, we were associated with a hotel or a chain and we had to necessarily promote them and I went through years of trauma saying this is not nice. Why am I saying this is so nice? So much so that I went and I produced my own travel show with my kid which is Mini Me which when I travel, I don't take anyone's money. I don't take anyone's sponsorship. I go and review the entire place. I made two TV shows of two seasons out of it and everyone's it's been a win-win for everyone because the viewers have connected with the fact that what I'm saying is real and the same thing comes back to all my, you know, my me on social media. It has to be real. It has to be believable. It has to be organic. It should not look superfluous. True that. You know, one of the biggest things we've faced the challenge is, you know, and I think most marketeers come with the perspective of saying that, you know, they're used to buying media and they look at influencers like media and we hate that. I hate that shit. Absolutely. And yeah, you know, so I think it's... Everyone is different. You have to learn how to differentiate. You have to know that if it's a Hawaii chapel brand, go with the bottom of the pyramid, somebody who has 10 million followers plus, where you just have to spread the word. You just have to say, okay, this chapel is in the market, please go and buy it. But if you're coming up the pyramid where it's quality, go target yourself. Well, marketers now it's not about influencers, it's about brands who need to figure out where they want to go and with who and who represents what to them. I'm sure there's enough data now out there to tell them, you know, who's going to take them to that place, you know, and what translates to their sales at the end of the day. Cool. Thanks for sharing that, you know, Savy and Vir, what do you guys, how do you guys go about collaborating with brands, you know, if you want to talk about something specific, you know, examples, that would be really interesting to hear as well. I think that the two things that are important is don't ever underestimate the intelligence of the audience, which is something a lot of campaigns, a lot of brands do. And I find that really annoying. So that is the first thing. And the second thing is that brands and when brands choose to work with influencers, they should be working with influencers right now. The philosophy of a lot of brands is that influencers are working for them, which is why you get these scripts and stuff. And those scripts like Mini said, just sound so inauthentic, you know, so authenticity should be one of the corner stones and flexibility as well, because a lot of brands come with this predisposed idea that you have to catch it or whatever. And that just doesn't work in the digital marketing space. So that kind of flexibility going forward with slightly more nuanced campaigns are so much more important. There is no one plan fits all that is the bottom line. So you have to work with the influencer and understand from their perspective what will work for their audience, what might not, what is their style. So that's why it's not good to have those, I mean, those mass campaigns where, you know, everyone is doing the same thing. Have you guys started to see that change a little bit? Like at least in my experience, three years ago to what we are seeing in the last now one year, especially in these last few months, I think one of the most exciting things about, I can't even say that with lockdown has been that, you know, authenticity has even come out even in a more richer way, because you're not going out to fancy places. So yeah, are you seeing that right now? Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, even when three years ago, when this whole thing was kind of picking up in India, you know, trying to leverage the power of an influencer to market your brand, even then, you know, people were still learning, brands were still learning, it was that, you know, okay, let's get 10 of these to do the same thing. And maybe it will work. But we had started doing this right from back then that you know, a lot of fights about brands. We turned away a lot of brands because of that, because at the end of the day, see, your audience is your God. And you have to make sure that something that you're doing is benefiting them, benefiting yourself and the brand. It has to be a win-win for everyone. Absolutely. Yeah. Nishant, these guys, I mean, all influencers, we don't like brands, okay? And I don't know. That's not true. Authentic experiences with real people talking about their real stories and real experiences. That's what matters. Absolutely. If I may interject, in fact, I think Savi was just going to take an example of a campaign that he did last year with the Tourism Queensland. You know, by far it has been one of our most favorite campaigns, not because we got to travel, but also because they worked with us. They were flexible that they understood what kind of experiences we like to portray to our audiences. And we worked together to make a nice itinerary. And the results of that were for everyone to see. The readers loved it. The brands that were linked in with this campaign loved it. And we obviously loved it because we love Australia. I think brands did some homework. They need to do some homework before they approach influencers. What work for them? Just spend two hours on somebody's page and figure out what is the tone that they use. I think Nishant is just going to say sorry and leave. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, someone has really pissed many off in the last few weeks. I'm telling you that. All the wrong brands have gone to work. All right, so let me talk about our journey at Tourism Australia. And as I said earlier, it's been a solid foundation. Thank you so much for that. Okay, so in 2010, when I joined Tourism Australia, there was a campaign called There's Nothing Like Australia. And there were like 30,000 citizens of Australia who gave people reasons to come to Australia. So there were 30,000 reasons given by the citizens of Australia. And the people of Australia were actually the advocates or influencers inviting the world to come and visit their place. In 2014, we launched a wonderful campaign called Restaurant Australia. It was all about positioning Australia as a culinary capital of the world. We've all been followers of MasterChef Australia and the work that Matt, Gary, and George have done in the Indian kitchens these days. So they were instrumental in reinforcing that image of Australia as a great culinary destination. During that year, we appointed Sanjeev Kapoor as a friend of Australia. And Sanjeev, as you all know, is like the final word of an expert in this business. And Sanjeev did a phenomenal job for us. He helped us raise the profile of Australia as a great destination food and drinks. We collaborated with almost 15 top food and wine influencers from the country, right? From Rashmiudai Singh to Vee Sanjeev, to Kunal Kapoor, Ranvir Bra, Rocky and Mayur, you know, Mariam Reshi. You name it, and the influencer got a chance to visit Australia and experience the food and wine culture. It was an amalgamation of people, place, and produce. It was not just about dining in a fantastic restaurant, but it was dining against a fantastic backdrop. You know, it was having breakfast with the kangaroos or a champagne breakfast after a great hot table and experience or a private island picnic in the Great Barrier Reef or dining against the spectacular backdrop of the Sydney Opera House. So it was all experiential led and we effectively work with influencers to showcase, you know, the best of Australian food and wine experiences. And as a result of that, when we launched the campaign, India, Indians rated Australia to become to be the seven biggest destination food and wine. Today, all the high value travelers in India rate Australia as the number one destination food and wine. And that has happened over a period of five to six years, seven since we launched this campaign. Cricket in Australia, I guess, there's a common passion between these two countries, you know, and in 2015, when Australia closed the ICCT20 World Cup, not a T20, but the 50 over World Cup, we worked with Harsha Boghley. And Harsha is again, you know, the voice of voice of Indian cricket. He has achieved that epitome of success. So in terms of attracting the right audiences, he was like a perfect ambassador for us. He was a great advocate for us. And he created some great content for us on not just on the social media platform, but also we worked with star sports, created some amazing content, you know, which was titled postcards from Australia, we did some pre match post match telecast at some wonderful attractions. And that year saw some amazing results, we grew by almost 20% in arrivals and 40% in terms of spend. And most recently, when we when Australia hosted the ICCT20 Women's World Cup, we worked with Mithali Raj, the captain of the Indian cricket team, the Odia and the Test cricket team. And she was there to raise the profile of women's sports, not just in India, but globally, and we achieved record attendance for the game. And, you know, ICC was extremely delighted with the kind of outcome that they got at the MCG on the 8th of March, you know, which was the International Women's Day. So it's, it's the relativity, the resonance and the relevance of that influencer, which really matters that helps you to write results. And that's what I guess all of you all are trying to trying to, you know, share as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. So just to add, in 2010, and you know, doing this early years, we were so much focused on television, we worked very closely with Ekta Kapoor and Balaji Telefilms and wherever Ekta has taken her top-rated program to Australia. The show has got an all-time high rating, so it was all about seamlessly integrating the destination as a part of the storylines and the script of the family source. But now things have changed, things have evolved. It's all driven by the OTT platforms and social media and the micro-influencer. So we've been working with the likes of, you know, Bruce Passport. We've worked with, you know, the ID was, you know, Dolly Singh and Kusha Kapila. We've worked with a regional influencers called Bhadipa, the Bharati Digital Party. We're looking at partnering with the likes of Amazon Prime or, you know, Netflix and Hot Stars and ESP and Crick & Force. So as the consumption habits of people have changed, we've also moved away from traditional advertising to more, you know, the new age advertising platforms. Awesome, Anish. And so it's good to know that you guys have been doing so much work with influencers and, you know, such right influencers as well for your category. Could you end the high note till you get Kobra Sethan Mini on it? We have a long way to go. We have a long, long way to go. So there's plenty of opportunities in the future, for sure. Just have to say it, Kobra. And this is the objective of this panel discussion. Just to add to what Anish had. This is my shameless integration. This is what I'm talking about. Totally, totally shameless. Organic integration, right? So Anish, just to add to what this particular conversation, as Ishaan was saying, it's so amazing the ways in which ROI manifests itself if the brand works correctly with influencers, you know, really strange ways that we have seen in our over the past few years is that if the right influencer mentions a wine as it were on their social media or a vinyad perhaps, that vinyad gets sold out, as in the admissions are charged completely. I remember this one time when we posted the room number of our villa in Seychelles and we had gone there for a thing with the Seychelles Tourism Board, that hotel actually mailed us and said, could you please take the room number off your website because everybody, all the villas are the same, but everybody's asking for that particular villa, you know. So if a harnessed correctly, digital has such great impact, but that's the important thing, harnessing it correctly in a positive and fruitful kind of way. Absolutely. I mean, this Zoom call could only handle a certain number of people and then we crossed that and we had to figure out, you know, another extension of this because everybody, you know, all of you guys spoke about it. So thanks for that. Coopra, I mean, you know, while, you know, brands have their own, you know, limitations in the way they understand influencers and what they want. And I think they're coming from that perspective where, like I said, like, you know, they see them as media, they see them, you know, my logo needs to be a little bit bigger. The questions that they're asking are very fair questions, right? Because they have to figure out how do their budgets move around and how do they drive our way, right? And I think, and I don't mean to make this divide, but I've seen that a lot of influencers versus celebrities, if I may say so, sorry, don't mind me saying that, but influencers started to get this, right? Because they started to understand that they have to drive our way in order to, for it to be their business. Celebrities are so up on that pyramid and rightly so, they're not questioning that today, right? And they're not, they don't feel like they're responsible towards that. Do you feel, is that something that, you know, you feel responsible towards? Again, I'm sorry, I'm asking the wrong question here, but do you feel like, you know, if your social media is being used by another brand, are you responsible to deliver something? Or is it the other way around? I think I could definitely speak for myself when I say this. I was recently associated with Olay for example, right? And I remember they said we're going to do a digital cover and they said it's going to be without any makeup and they had four of us, all four influencers. So I think there was the biker girl with Priyanka, the biker girl, one more person and then there was Masawa in myself. And when I put out the picture from the photo shoot, I got so much flack for like no reason. They're like, oh, it's a touch-up. And I actually stood up. It's not my business to, you know, turn around and my job is done technically, you know, I put out the post and it's done, right? But I actually went on every comment and I said, I'm sorry, you can't turn around and tell me that this picture is just because it isn't. I was right there. This is my face and I'm not lying. So I'm not going to tolerate you guys, you know, I mean, of course you're hurting the reputation of a brand, but you're also hurting my reputation saying I am, you know, someone who's letting something pass. And I'm not okay with that. So if you do want your comments, please take it somewhere else. Take it to the brand if you don't believe it, but not leave it on my wall in my space. So I think I stand up for what I think is right. And sometimes brands get it right. Absolutely. They really do, you know. And when brands get it right, like for example, only in this case, when they get it right, you want to do your bit as well. And that's not an ask. It's not a, you know, it's not for like, oh, let's, it's taken for granted. They do the job so sincerely that you want to go back and give it back to them as well. Absolutely. It's not necessary that all brands across the board will be, you know, that won't give you that kind of support. But I think when a brand does it, it's actually nice. And you also want to give back to the brand. No, I absolutely agree more, Pranay. And honestly, for me, maybe it's my advertising and management background free media days that, that makes me very competitive and completely on the side of the brand when I'm doing this. So I take it as a personal contest when a brand is choosing me. So I need to basically feel that you did your research and you got me and now I'm on your side. And now let's work as a team. Case in point B, a brand that I endorse called Dyson, a very high-end home brand. And I truly, I truly love, so if I go beyond the brief, okay, every time I put in stuff that I've not been asked to do and so much so that I personally have become sort of, I keep calling them and saying, you have to give me a sales cut because the amount of machines I have personally counseled people into selling through DM and through WhatsApp and through phone calls because they just look at me as a representative of the entire brand. So which model should I get it? So I get into the, you know, the vein of the whole brand and I love that. I love that sense of competition of when it's really worked for the brand and it's worked for me. I love that high. Absolutely. We're seeing, you know, and this is why I was asking like three years ago, it was a little bit more transactional and now it's becoming a lot more relationships with influencers, more long-term, you know, partnerships as well because that's where, you know, the influencer falls in love with the brand and the products and understands the issues. Like discovery campaign together and going back to the same situation. Yeah, annual banner. Yeah, that's true. Savin, I mean, you want to talk about some of the, you know, new formats maybe that you guys are exploring. There's just so much always going on in social media and, you know, and I'd love to know a little bit more about these last few months. I know it's been crazy for everyone. I don't want to go into that topic immediately, but, you know, we'd love to know how, you know, you're seeing things in the travel industry right now. And yeah, I'm just going to also add here, the only influencer content that I've tried to shoot, my wife and I, was the beard one that you guys had done. So you're doing new formats and all of that as well now. So I'd love to, you know, know a little bit about how that's going and how things are in London for you guys right now. Oh, at the beginning it was quite claustrophobic because it kind of rained on our plans, but I think as you mentioned, the shift over the past three months has been towards more meaningful content. Of course, the tourism industry is at a standstill for now, but everybody's already envisaging the future. And I think the overarching need is to go beyond platitudes, you know, because I think the COVID situation has told all of us something we already knew that tourism needs to be more meaningful. It needs to be more sustainable. We need to look at long-term alternatives. So I think in general, a lot of hotels and tourism boards are looking at, you know, a Bhutan as an example of sustainable, long-term, good, healthy tourism. But in terms of our content, we've been having so much fun in quarantine. I can't even tell you. We're quite used to spending time together. So it's about that because when this started in the first month, we got so many messages from couples in particular, one of them saying that my spouse is driving me mad. How do you guys deal with spending all the time with each other? So that's what we were trying to say that, you know, for us, we've been doing this for almost seven years now. We've pretty much spent every waking second together. So that comes naturally. And we've just been improvising with our content, making some at-home content, and then obviously rehashing some travel content, because people still want to dream and aspire to travel someday. And I think that's going to happen. I think the primary need in humans is to make new connections, is to travel, see new places. So I think everybody is really craving that escape right now. So we've been able to tread that fine line by making little series, like cook with us at home, things that we've learned on our travels, or travel virtually with us and things so that people can still get that escape, but also get a little look into what we're doing on a daily basis, which we usually put on, say, YouTube or stories, has now gone to the Instagram feed too. Thanks. I have a question for Srin. Savi and Red. I didn't mix your names up because you guys were like such- Perfectly logical. Sounds great. That's more perfect than Savit, which sounds, you know, synonymous with COVID. No, but my question is, so you're telling me, never, ever, like in the last seven years and the years that you've known each other, it's never happened that one of you has said, baby, what do we have for dinner? And the other person says, Kuchbi, it has never happened. It happens. In fact, that is what happens, you know, because we live as well. No, no, really, I mean, I'm not saying we don't. Now know how to get over that because we've known each other for so long. Yeah. Awesome. I want to talk to you about this, really, my wife and I are together. Guys, last question for this part of our panel, and then, you know, you guys are very welcome to hang back with us for part two as well. But, you know, we'd love to know what you guys are up to in these days and, you know, what do you think is going to happen next as your last thoughts in these months? You know, what's obviously crazy happened is that more people are more engaged on social and that seems like such a large part of our world right now is scary. But we'd love to know a little bit more about, you know, if you guys are, you know, working on ODD platforms that you're working on, you know, your own digital content. Yeah. And yeah, so just your last thoughts on this entire topic and we'll chat more on this. Nish, go first. Who wants to go first? Nish goes first. Nishan, go for it. Nishan goes first. All right. So we believe that, you know, the entire situation at this point of time has been due to travel. And while travel was the first thing to stop, it's going to be the last thing to come back to normal as well. So our job at this point of time is to inspire our target audiences to think about Australia as soon as the board is open. So we're doing a lot of stuff in the dreaming phase, giving people some ideas, holiday ideas, working on various platforms like, you know, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. We've recently launched a campaign called With Love From Australia and giving people some holiday ideas to travel as soon as the situation comes back to normalcy. Because I believe I'm an eternal optimist and I believe that as soon as the board is open or if you find a vaccine or there's some cure for this particular pandemic, we're going to get into this revenge travel. People are going to travel like mad, you know. And we are just at the tipping point as a country where everyone wants to travel. We are a young country and in a pre-COVID scenario, we were the fastest growing economy in the world with the fastest growing outbound travel market in the world with the fastest growing middle class. So and as we speak, just 0.2% of India actually goes on an international holiday. So potential is immense and to drive that aspiration and to take that first step or give some holiday goals for individuals, influences are going to play a significant role and that's what we're doing at this point of time as well, giving people holiday ideas so that they can travel to Australia. And we are preparing ourselves as soon as the board is open when we are into that rising optimism or freedom of movement. We'll be all out with our partners to launch our campaigns, so working with the airlines, working with the online travel agents, our key distribution partners, there's a Bore Gawaskar series which is planned at the end of the year in Australia. It's going to be a great contest with Smith and Warner back in the side. So and that's going to be another big event after the World Cup. So and that's going to showcase and tell the world that Australia is open for business if the tournament goes ahead and it's likely to go ahead in December and January based on what cricket Australia and VCCI have to tell us. So there's some exciting lineup of activities happening in Australia. Australia is really well prepared. They manage to flatten the curve. Things are looking pretty good out there. And maybe by July, August, that's the stage three of the unlock measures that they've undertaken where they may see, they may invite people from certain countries and they're creating kind of a travel bubble which will firstly they travel between those two countries. So it's going to be positive. It's going to be all good. And looking forward to an exciting future ahead. Awesome. Thanks Chantan. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. My God. Thank you so much guys. Pleasure. Yeah. Who wants to go next? Mini goes next. Mini goes next. Okay. So for me, when lockdown started, I was poised to be hosting a quiz show. I was doing season two of something else that I acted on Amazon. I had lots of like, if March was supposed to be like a busy month and then it all got locked down and we found ourselves figuring out who's going to do Jharupocha and who's going to take over the laundry. So I thought I made lemonade when light gave me lemons and we converted, you know, everything turned over to social media, which I still get. I must add, I get very stressed out every time I feel I have to post something. Okay, I just cannot do it because I have to do something. But I think what we've done is we've done a lot of reflection. We've connected with the kids during the lockdown really well. Having everyone at home has been a real boon. It's been a real discovery. So we've cataloged a lot of that also for ourselves, you know, journal and written, a script has been written out of this house. A conference is being planned out of this house. So there's like, we're running the show basically right now. So I'm really positive about what this effect is going to have on people personally. I'm personally getting a bit tired of scrolling left right, you know, up and down. I think it saps a lot of your energy if you are on it the whole day. And you know, I think you can't be doing what the Joneses are doing. This is a time to introspect and reflect and we try to do that. But hopefully once it all opens up, we're back to business. I have a show to sell and one other one to make. Nice. Thanks. Wise words from Maximum Mini, like Nishan said earlier. Why don't we have Madan Gauri here? Madan Gauri. Yeah, we do. What's up, Madan? Hi. Hi, Madan Gauri. What's up? It's very awesome. No, it is weird. Okay, we ignored him. Like, please, please, he is not fit and spin too. Yeah, we're gonna, I think Kathy's gonna come in and introduce the second part of the panel again. But Gauri, do you have any thoughts? Go, go, go, Savy and Vid, go. I mean, we already talked about what we have been doing. Obviously, a lot of our trips were cancelled during this lockdown. So work took a significant hit. But then we also talk about lifestyle and stuff. So you know, it comes to when it comes to travel, I think in the near future, it will be more slow and domestic. But as Nishan said that, you know, once it's safe to travel internationally as well, I think people are going to go all out. And that's the phase we are looking forward to, because we'll be the guinea pigs to give people that confidence that you know, it's okay to document that journey that okay, airlines are taking precautions, hotels are taking precautions, it's safe to travel. So we look forward to that. But in the meantime, I think it's very important to just keep your sanity and your mental health. We've actually gotten the chance to work on projects that we've had on our minds for a while. So all this time has given us a lot of time for introspection and diversification as well. So we've been keeping ourselves busy with looking forward to the future. Thank you. Yeah, I think the wise blocks on the screen have said everything that I possibly wanted to say. Yes, it just started off as the most optimistic year ever. It was like, this is your year. And then it was nobody we are all of a sudden, like everybody was just like, what does it mean? So I think, you know, I think I've traveled to nooks and corners of my house. I've actually used this apartment to pull it now in the last four months and I haven't in the last 10 years of being in this city. So make sure we get closer this time, allowing me to know what's where and how I could like, you know, pull up some magical trick from my hat and have a new backdrop for all I care. And it's been wonderful. But what I've also seen is that brands are now coming home because we're at the phase of unlock 1.0. And brands are willing to come home. And like, you know, like minimum number of people, a quick shoot, so we can still, you know, have your thoughts, have your mind and yet have like a acceptable video on board. So I'm quite happy with the way things are. I mean, innovation is not happening only from our end, but also at the end of brands. And I think as Nishant very likely said, and I think as many and, you know, savvy and agree. Visa. I get, I get sit with all the time. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And I just followed you. No, I mean, all of that. I think what all of us agree is that we can't do this alone. We need to do this with a good partnership and a relationship, you know, where everyone wins and everyone feels like they're getting a better deal. And when that is happening, I think automatically content creation will be at its best. And we will also justify what we are getting paid for with or without a rate card if I can sum it up. Thanks to brother. That's great. Okay. Are you guys hanging back with us for a while or you got busy? Please do it. You can switch off our video, right? Thank you. Thank you so much. I just followed you on Instagram. So I'm going to enjoy everything that everywhere you travel. I'm on it. Thank you. Thank you. You know, we are also dipsites, Mini. Hey, high five. Dude, the party is still going on. I'm not leaving. We're going to get coffee and get back. Yeah, I'm getting a coffee. Lovely speaking with you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. And you know, this is what I think I can sum it up as that if influencers, brands, agencies come together as a family and work together, it is like a party. We can see that right here. So I'm just going to quickly introduce you guys to our next panelists. Some of our panelists from the previous session will stay with us. So we have with us team Nach, Sonal and Nicole. Sonal and Nicola here. And we also have Madan Gauri, who's a YouTuber, a youth icon. We also have with us Shlok Shrivastava, Tech Wala Banda, who jokes me, Marta is what his Instagram handle description says, but very warm welcome to all of you. Thanks. Thanks, Cathy. Is Sonal on as well? I can't see her right now. Hey, hi, Sonal. Good to see you. Is it okay? Welcome to part two of this panel. And you all look great. And thank you for joining. So I'm not used to not seeing you both together, but you know, forget that you guys have different homes. Okay, so quickly, you know, great to have you, we've had one part of the discussion already. And we're going to just throw you right into that discussion. And, you know, we'll talk a lot more. What's common about us, all of you are, you're fantastically, I mean, the most epic creators I know. And you're all really big both on YouTube as well as Instagram, right? So it's, it's really great to know a lot, you know, so many of our audiences are emerging and aspiring influencers, we're going to, we're going to talk to you about, you know, your tips, your tricks, and then, you know, how things are. So yeah, just to jump straight into it. What I'd love to start out with is if you can all share a little bit about your journey about how you begin influencers, I mean, that's always such an epic story because, you know, and that was a little bit about you. So, Madan, we'll start with you. You're doing such epic content. And it's so diverse, right? You're talking about, I mean, science, you're talking about social causes. You know, yeah, and, you know, motivational, inspirational, that's how do you start doing this and what's been a journey so far? So my idea when I started this was, I started my channel before geo happened in India. So I had this thought that someday, whatever, so I saw the revolution from awkward to Facebook, and from Facebook to Instagram. So it was always in my mind that what would be the next big thing if I really want to follow my passion, which is just talking, we don't really have much platforms in our country. So I like to talk about everything. We talk about everything in our house. We don't just talk about tech, we don't just talk about beauty, we don't just talk about cooking, we talk about everything. So I wanted to create a platform where everyone can talk about everything. So I wanted to create something like that. And I kind of predicted that YouTube will be the next big thing. So I predicted that video is going to be the next big thing because we came from our putting up status to putting up photos. So the next thing is obviously videos. So I predicted that. But what I thought was it would happen by 2020, but then geo came and it happened like four years in advance. So yeah, in the process, it clicked for me. Rana, your mic. Yeah, sorry, my internet's can you guys hear me? Okay, awesome. So I missed a little bit of that in the end, but thanks for sharing that. I'll come back to you and ask you a bunch of questions. So, you know, Nicole and Sonal, we'll move to you both. And all of you, this is a question that I mean, you guys are all like these three million plus like subscribers and like 500,000 and like, it's how does this happen? How are we, where does it start? Do you think this could happen when you start out? And how do you like, what's been the journey? Just take us through a little on that. It's, you know, it's so cool. It is very cool, Pranay because neither Sonal nor I had the intention of ever, you know, becoming influencers. That was never a thing, right? We mean, for us, we started off as dance teachers, which we currently are as well. But we use YouTube as a platform to just kind of market our classes. That's where it all began. And then we slowly realize that people are consuming dance content. They want to learn off the internet. Like Madan said, like, you know, video is the next big thing. And it's slowly kind of, you know, we realize we have to create specific kind of dance content and put out there so that people will consume more. And that's exactly what happened to us. We grew, we started off, our growth started on YouTube and then trickled. And you know, it slowly is now Instagram is also growing along with it. So that's been our, you know, long story short. Thanks for sharing that, Nicole. So do you want to add something to that or I'll come back to you? It's the same thing only like we started YouTube honestly, because we wanted students in our class, and he wanted someone to watch our videos and come to class watching those videos. And luckily it worked, you know, it was just as a marketing tool, we had no idea that, you know, it could be YouTubers or influencers or anything like that. It was just to market what, you know, our talent or our teaching skills and startup business that way. Awesome. Hey, Shlok, hi. Thanks for joining us. How did tech burner happen? And tell us a little bit more about that. I kind of agree with everyone on this one, because like, it all just happens. And although I did anticipate this coming, like, you could like, guess the amount of subscribers you would have like, after an year or maybe two years, but like, you don't know how it feels like you have like, so many people following you. And the impact is a lot more than like normal people would be able to imagine. But yeah, it's a, I started off just like normal people. I just tried to show something cool that I did on my phone to like five or six of my friends and I put it out to you. But like, after that, you just get like addicted to it. You just keep doing it and keep doing it. And you just fall in love with creating content in general. And as when you do that, you can't get out of it. It's something that takes you in and you start creating for Instagram, for Facebook, for all these social media platforms. The next thing you know, you're like, everybody knows you, you go out of the house and people already know you. So it's kind of nice. And it's very overwhelming as well sometimes. You can only imagine, man. That's amazing. You know, so Mother, are you guys shooting content these days? I see, Shope, you've got what looks like some sort of a video set up behind you. How's lockdown been guys? Let's start with that. And how, you know, Mother, you want to tell us a little bit about, are you shooting content these days? How have you guys last three months been challenging? Okay, I shoot one video every day. I upload one video every day. So that's my format. So before you think that it's really a tough job, I don't make much of editing in my videos. So I present the content in a very simple way. In fact, I still do not know editing on a premium program. I still have, I don't have a single Mac book to work with. I have a Mac book, but I just use it to watch movies. All I do, editing and shooting, I do everything in my phone. So I strongly believe that the mobile technology is evolving. So I'm really good at doing something in a very small time. That's what I'm really good at. And before I explain further, I have to tell that I'm a huge fan of Stech Burner and Team Nach. So I follow like most of your content. Yeah, especially Stech Burner, I know when you were actually making videos in the, you know, in your basement, I guess, in the car parking I have seen your videos even then. Yeah. And the team Nach, I once I came to Mumbai, so in a YouTube pop-up event, I saw you both. I was just too shy to comment on, but then I saw you both then. So I follow all your work. So the thing about me personally, to answer your question, I make one video every day. So actually, during lockdown, my viewership has gone up by at least 120% and my subscribers have gone up by another 200% is something. That's great. Sora and Nikhil, I mean, classes might not be happening these days, but digitally loss must be going on, right? Actually, classes are happening more than now. Yeah. Like for us, before on a weekend on average, we used to teach in Bombay, mainly because we used to teach in Bombay. We used to teach like 200 students over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but now because you're teaching online, it's gone up to 900 and 600 students. That's awesome. So for us, at least that's what classes because Zoom has opened us to all over the world, you know, people from everywhere can access our class now. So we have started teaching much more and we are also luckily not been that lazy and we have been creating content as well. So both have been on. I'm going to confess, I've done a dance workout to one of your videos in this last couple of months. My wife and I have done it. So yeah, you know, it's a good time to be putting out like, you know, fun content like this. So I mean, what's your, can this still happen for people who are now starting out to be influencers? Like, you know, you guys didn't imagine this to happen. It kind of happened by default. You made the right moves, right time, right place. Can that still happen? That opportunity is kind of lost, right? You guys have already like conquered it and you've got it. And what's the, there's so many of these, you know, emerging influencers, people who want to be like you, right? What's your tips and advice to them? I feel, first of all, I feel like COVID, this COVID situation has taught us so many things. Initially, they were just like this shock, what's going to happen? Nobody knew anything or the brand stopped, everything stopped. But like after one month, that's what we do. We're YouTube was we're creating content or new platform that changes every day. So of course, we are going to adapt. We're going to create content that is different. And we did take some time. And we, I did also adapt. We used to working with like a team in a single studio, but now because everybody is like trapped in their homes, so we had to adapt and all of that. But I think it is one of the best times to start because I see a lot of people are right now just at their homes playing PUBG and or just like doing something that might not be as productive, but growing a personal brand or starting something that you believe in, I think there's the best time for it. And because like a lot of people who are having jobs also are just trapped in their homes and they have nothing to do. So I think it's also a great time to experiment anything that you want. And the Indian audience is also supporting Indian creators, Indian brands, Indian products. So I think like it's one of the best times. And of course, great content pops up any day it will be anything that is going on. So if you have like, if you are able to create content that creates an impact, does not matter how many subscribers you have, how many views you have, the market will support you. And that has been the case. And that's how like all the people grow. That's awesome. Are you guys doing a lot of brand collaborations these days? How's the dhanda? How's the, you know, business side of things, you know, while obviously so many sectors are hit, that is, you know, what we've seen is that so many don't have, they don't have a choice what to work with influences these days. And it's a great win because you guys can turn out content, you know, daily or a, you know, a couple of content pieces a day. So how's the business side of things these days, you know, left you here with from that? It's going pretty well. I mean, obviously, there was a time like Shlok said, the first one month no one knew what's going to happen if brands want to like, you know, collaborate and how are we even going to collaborate with these brands. But I think slowly steadily, everyone's used to now, you know, influencers creating stuff at home. And, you know, they're willing to, you know, work along with us to in order to make sure how we can project their brand in the best way possible. So it's pretty decent right now, I think. Do you want to tell us a little bit about some of the, you know, brands that you guys have collaborated with some, you know, case studies, some campaigns that you really think have done well. And then, you know, what, if, you know, there is some magic formula behind this, right? Like, how do we get this right? We keep asking us what's the best way to collaborate with influencers. And it's a great time to hear it from, you know, all of you directly. One thing I would suggest from my experience is that a brand can come up with what they really want to promote and let the creator do his magic. What happens is brands come with a set of script and ask the creator to repeat the same script. And it does not work. You know, it might look good on paper because the word is repeated multiple times or they buy on, but a creator knows their audience best. Maybe there are certain creators to whom that might work, but the larger you grow, the more influence you have. It's really tough to, you know, just put out anything blatantly on people. So I think a brand can come up and what they really want to convey to the audience and the creators can work along with them rather than just broadcasting it. And that would be a great step to, you know, have a collaboration that can be enjoyed by audience too, you know. True that. You know, and we're seeing that as well, like, you know, the, and one of the bigger challenges is to tell brands that they don't control the content what the influencers do, right? And then I'm sure you guys face these issues pretty often as well. Specifically, I mean, I'd love to know if you guys have, you know, done some certain brand collaborations that you thought were done in the right way because you were given the, you know, the authority to come up with the concept or, you know, maybe even come up with the content cities or something, which is slightly more engaging, more elaborate. Any thoughts on that? Anyone? Shlok? Yeah. I think like just like Madan said, I completely agree with him. It's like a collaborative effort between three things, like three entities. It's like the brands and the influencer and the audience. If all of these three are aligned together, only then the content works. So right now, the audience is changing. The influencer changes very quickly. But if the brands don't catch up, they kind of lose. So if you don't match the sentiment of the audience, you, your brand deals don't work. So if you right now, a lot of people are into this India versus China thing and a lot of Chinese brands who are receptive to it have found out ways, have made changes to how they manufacture their products and all of that. And it has brought up a positive outlet to them. And a lot of brands like Samsung, I've worked with Samsung, who have started manufacturing in India. A lot of people don't know the biggest mobile manufacturing like the chip level is in India and it's owned by Samsung. A lot of other brands like educational brands, Upgrad, they provide education online, they provide courses on all of that. We have worked with them, Realme, Huawei, OPPO and all of these tech brands, we like continuously work with them. And it's more like a friendship that we have with all these brands. It's not like a deal. It's like an ongoing process. So we support them when their time is not right. And they support us when we are not going in the best way possible. So it's like a collaborative effort between these three entities. And it has worked out great for us. And we have, we didn't have any problems during lockdown or even now. That's great to hear, man. And you know, we've been speaking about this in the part of the session as well, that it's not any more transactional thing between influencers and brands. It's more about a relationship. We're also seeing such great collaborations happen, you know, even between influencers in these last few months. And then, you know, Nicole and Sonan, I know you've done collaborations that I don't know Will Smith and Madhuri Dixit and whatnot. Tell us a little bit more about maybe some of the fun collaborations. How has it been? Have you been, you know, being able to work with each other? Well, during these last few, you know, weeks, how's that going? Yeah. So we've been working with each other in terms of we created one YouTube video where we were together in the frame. But obviously, we've not come together because of, you know, COVID. And we couldn't shoot together because there's no cameraman, there's no nothing. We couldn't shoot. But otherwise, when it comes to brands for us, generally, for our YouTube channel, we promote a lot of music labels. So music labels still do contact us to create contact for them, primarily because, you know, we are dance influencers on YouTube. And what happens is when we shoot a dance video, we have like 1000 people, more than 1000, 2000 people create the same choreography and put out the video and make the song more popular. So that's still on, you know, so we are even on Instagram and you're working personally with brands. On Instagram, our audience is different. It's a mix of everything. Like, you know, people follow the person on Instagram, right? So, you know, if you are talking continuously about maybe review, you review movies or you review shows, you know, then you work with a hot star or you work with I generally, for myself, I'm talking, I love wearing ethnic wear. So you work with a mohe. So it's, it's that like, you know, you what, what you resonate as a person, your audience knows you and you can work with such brands. Because if you, you know, you are generally talking about something else and then you your brand, what you are showcasing is something totally different and it's not you, people can easily point out and catch you. So, you know, it's to be authentic as as much as you guys decline campaigns and brands because they don't like why, you know, meet your personality or does that happen? For sure, certain certain brands, they really want some very weird as promotion methods where you hold the product like this and then take and you know, it doesn't work most of the times and also like for me, I would put not personally promote any fairness creams or such things. So you would decline such brands. Cool. So we're gonna just say this. And for all the brands who are listening guys, give more control to the influences, they will move needles for you far better than, you know, just, you know, I don't know, got a defined message to be delivered by influences. I think those days were maybe what house celebrities on the television days, you know, they had a script and everything that followed you guys are, you know, and you guys are full, like agency on your own, right? And individual itself is producing content, writing content, acting, doing everything together. So I think, and that's the beauty, right? That's what our audiences in your audience is really like you for because it's honest, it's real, and it's coming without filters. One of my next questions is, there's so much going on in the social media platforms itself, right? That is fleets coming out from Twitter, that is, you know, a new social media platform popping up every day. You know, of course, there's the whole opportunity to talk that's coming in, you know, in a big way in the last couple of years in India. You have primarily focused on your niche YouTube and now Instagram. How do you decide, you know, what formats to kind of explore, not explore? Yeah, tell us a little bit about that because there's so many influences today who are wanting to, you know, figure this out and I'm sure they'll learn a lot from your thoughts. So I think personally, you make your choice like where you want to be. I think team match would be a huge success in TikTok, you know, they can they can move mountains in TikTok. I can move a stone in TikTok, but I can move mountains in Twitter. So, you know, based on what you do, you can choose the platform that you want to be in. But the thing about beauty of YouTube generally is that YouTube is like Google, it will be there. There can be so many other platforms that come and go, but it's going to be there forever. There's no replacement for Google in the past 20 years. So YouTube will not, it's not going anywhere for another 20 years. It will be there. So when it comes to the platform, YouTube is permanent. And as you know, already team match mentioned up, when it comes to YouTube, people will be more open to brand collaboration. When it comes to Instagram, it is very personal because when someone follows you, they follow to know about that particular person. So when a brand comes and says that you have to show a particular product or say, yeah, they're selling this and they have a comment section, you know, right below there, people will give it back right at you because, you know, when people, when we, when you, when someone calls us influences, people are letting us influence them. So it's a very personal thing. Probably YouTuber, the biggest YouTuber in India can sell something more than the biggest actor in India because YouTube is very personal, internet is very personal. The creator connects directly with the audience. So when it comes to this phase, right, the platform, YouTube, it's going to be constant and any other platform, it's up to the creators of convenience, I guess, where they can promote and how they can promote ends up with the creator side. So Nikola, you guys are big on TikTok and is that a big plan? I have been active on TikTok since a while. The thing is with TikTok, it grows much faster than Instagram, like, you know, as a platform. But Instagram is a more, the audience is totally different. I don't know how it works. Honestly, I've never figured it out. But TikTok also is a platform where people showcase anything and everything. So you have dance content, you have fitness content, you have even just random content. So you can't pinpoint what works or doesn't work. As being mainly a dancer, I have just been putting dance content on TikTok and that has been doing decently well. So planning to continue that only. Interesting. Welcome back. I'm so sorry, I don't know what you decided to start all of a sudden. All of us have faced that, all of us have faced that. If you're having a tech issue, I mean, you don't have a tech issue. It's the best time to have a tech issue. You know, what's next for you guys, you know, where do you, you know, it's a question that I'm really interested to understand, like, and there's such a, such a, I mean, influences is new, right? In comparison, we've seen this industry like pick up in India and the last like maybe five years. And it's sitting in such an important phase because you all have been able to create, you know, I wouldn't even call it influence. You've just been able to build these relationships with audiences, which are just so rich, which are so true, right? What's, what comes next after this for all of you? And, and I'm going to, you know, point out, okay, so answer this question and I'll ask another question after that. Yeah. We have like a very intimate relationship with the audience. We know them on a personal level. Sometimes they even share their deepest darkest secrets on like Instagram on the DMs and stuff. But yeah, it all starts with the audience and it all ends with the audience. If I have seen a lot of people who focus on creating great content, but at the end of the day, it's just about understanding the audience better, understanding how their emotional sentiment is and just providing value on their current state. So I, I have tried to do that and it has worked for me. I don't know if it's the right way to go or not, but I just like to have a very personal connection with my audience and know them on a personal level and know what they want or what they would need and just create content according to that. And I think that has worked quite well. Awesome. My question specifically also is what do you guys see happening with your profiles with you, right? I mean, with your personal brands now, where do you see this going in the next like, I don't know, five years, 10 years. I'm just very curious to understand. And then what is this evolution of influencer marketing that's going to happen? And I'm going to talk a little bit about how this is happening in China, right? I'm sure all of you know this, in many cases, better than I do, that there's this whole Wang Hong economy that's come up, right? Where there are brands being built around influencers. They're also having much deeper partnerships with influencers where it's not just saying that I'll do branded content for you, but I will also be aligned in such a way that I'm linked to the performance of sales on those, on those particular, you know, categories of products that you completely resonated with, right? So do you see that happening in India? Are those conversations already happening? Are you guys already thinking on these lines? I'd love to hear and ask you that. We are actually riding tight, I would say, because, you know, all of us, we never thought we would be having these many followers in 2020, none of us when we started, right? We would have not thought anything like this. Maybe we started this because we like what we did. So we started doing the same thing on internet and we clicked. So it just happened. We were passionate about what we did. So if you really look at the Indian internet arena over the past four years, ever since you came in, this is something bigger than what is going on in US or Europe. You can go to any country, any other part of the world, and this kind of internet revolution has not happened anywhere. I have seen people who actually struggle to make their ends meet, they watch YouTube, they connect with you. So this kind of influence or this kind of reach is not seen in anywhere, maybe in China because of the population and very similar demographics, but other than that, it's a very big thing. So and actually this corona, this COVID lockdown has pushed us even further. We didn't expect this kind of, you know, team nach would have never thought they would be doing virtual dance sessions. Jeff Burner would have never thought that he would be facing a challenge of reviewing a Chinese product or not. So we, you know, whatever we do, the lockdown has pushed us even further. We are being pushed into the future. So whatever we thought might be happening after five years is actually happening right now. I thought of all these things, but I thought maybe this might be happening after five years, but happening so fast and the thing to do right now is to hold on to the wave. Actually no one knows where this will end. No one really knows where this will be tomorrow. No one knows how this is going to go. We have no idea how long this lockdown will be. So when we talk about YouTubers, when we talk about content creators, imagine this. We are creating content when the biggest industries of the world like Bollywood, Hollywood, everything is locked up. We are creating content. So the demographic is changing and no one really knows where this will go in my opinion. Fair points. Sona Nikol, do you want to tell us what's on, where do you see, you know, influencer marketing, being creators, where do you see that evolving to? What's the future? So I feel honestly that, you know, if, you know, if we are able to bring sales to a brand that we resonate with, even if it's a small or big brand, I look at it as a big positive. So it's, it's like, you know, a target achieved, you know, so many small brands also what we work with, you know, even if we wear their clothes, suddenly their sales increases a lot like a lot of, they get a lot of queries or we want to wear what Nikol and Sona have worn in that dance video. So it's ratification for us that we could help them out as well. And it's like a win-win situation, you know, for us, even when if you're working with bigger brands, it is nice that if we genuinely resonate with a brand and we really like the brand and we could add to their sales and marketing, I look at it as a plus and a positive that, you know, also how much we can push to help the brand and how it's, it's kind of a fun challenge. Like, and even for Future, I, you said, which is a country you said that in China, if we could, I don't know how, what is the app or what is the algorithm they use to find out how much sales that we have brought to them or to their platform, but it would be a nice way to understand what is your influence actually when it comes to brands that you need to learn. So maybe if it starts in India, it's great. Awesome. So, you know, just to add to that, and you're slightly talking about this in the previous discussion also, is that what we feel is that one of the things, you know, influences always have an issue with brands is that they don't get our tonality and they don't deliver our key message. They don't, they want us to deliver the message, not in our own unique style. On the film side, what brands are always questioning is that, hey, it's great that I'm getting reach and impressions, right? It's great that I'm getting far better engagement than I do when I sponsor posts also. But what's next, right? And that's what even we are trying to answer for these brands. And then that's, as an example, what I was saying was that social commerce seems to be one big future that's happening, right? Which is absolutely, mother agree with you that day, what we are seeing right now is the, is such a deep relationship and engagement, I think the way it can translate into the business side of things, right, is where you're also like, Sonal Nicole, you're saying that, hey, it's not just about coming and saying that listen, this is my dance. This is what you can do. This is who I am, right? And these are the products that I love wearing when I'm dancing or when I'm performing or, you know, this is the makeup I use. So this is who I am. I think those products is what really will become, you know, easily accessible by consumers because it's something that has been recommended by you guys, right? So I think that's a big, big future. So I was curious to see if you guys feel that you could participate in that and if your audiences would want that from you, right? So, so Shloka, I mean, you've been reviewing products, right? And then you do such a great job at that. And then how do consumers now maybe consider buying the product from your website or from your e-commerce site, right? Have you given that a thought or you see that that's happening? 100% yes, of course, because like we're in the tech field. So we know like our every video is about like, we are actually selling a product, whatever video we are creating content around products. So we know how the impact saves and how the mentality works when they're buying a product. So the thing that you're talking about where the collaboration is not just like a video base, it's like the influencer owns a part of the brand and the brand collaborates or maybe creates a separate sub-brand where the influencer is a part of that. And we have seen that in India with celebrities already like Virat Kohli has done with Puma. But I'm very sure that it's going to happen very soon with influencers. But with influencers, the thing is it's different because our word has a lot more value as compared to actors or as compared to other people who just promote products planned blatantly. Because if we say we're using this product, the audience believes it. They know like he's actually using it and all of that. And the connection is also a lot more intimate. Although we do get the same views, but we have a lot more authenticity and a lot more power to set. And that's what brands have been realizing during this lockdown period. And just like a few examples, Joe Rogan's podcast just sold for 100 million US dollars to Spotify. And it's not even like he has fully sold it. He has just given exclusive rights to Spotify to produce organic content. So that just and because that the Spotify share rose to like 5 billion, so that just tells you like an 8 million channel has worth of 5 billion dollars for Spotify. So that is what brands are realizing right now. And we'll see that in the near future. And I personally, I like creating my own brands. And we have been working on creating applications and products for people that are Indian made. And it has worked super well. I've been in love with the process of creating stuff. So yeah. Awesome man. Thanks for sharing that. Mother, one of the questions I had for you was that I know you do a lot of your content in Tamil, right? Are you seeing the emergence of these newer platforms, which are, you know, regional platforms and, you know, there's share chat, there's hello. Are you exploring those channels as well? And you see that there is a new, you know, a wave of new users that are coming onto social media as well, who have not necessarily been on YouTube for the last maybe, you know, five, 10 years as well. So your thoughts on that? Something funny happened since you asked this, I can tell. Someone messaged me recently on Instagram saying that Mother, your share chat is so cool. Your account is so cool. And I don't have a share chat account. So I was like, wait, okay, let me, let me check what is going on in share chat. And that seems to be a profile with my face, with my name, that has like four lakh followers. And I was like, what? I don't even know that this existed. So the same thing happens in life, same thing happens in, you know, most of the regional language, social media, they are, they're booming. But I'm not there right now. And I don't know how they boom, but they're booming. Yeah, they're booming. And I think mostly people who have a problem with the language, you know, especially the language, be it Instagram or be it TikTok or Facebook, they are all predominantly in English. So what these social media, the new social media do is they break that language barrier and they give that in the local flavor. And how I came to know all these apps is even by looking at my relative's WhatsApp status, you know, they all have this, shared from like, or shared from share chat. That's how I know that they even exist. So that's how the influence is, it is targeting people who are in 40s and people who have a problem with language. And the people who want to, you know, send WhatsApp forward, you know, it's mostly the adult in India, that audience are the target market. And I think it must be happening in India too, I guess. Awesome. So sorry, I'm curious to know. So this person who created your account on share chat, was this, they were also posting your content over there? Yeah, they were posting my content. I hope you were taking some legal action on that, right? No, no, no, I didn't take any action. As long as people watch my content, I don't really mind. They will come to YouTube someday. They will find me. So let them watch as long as they can. Interesting. Awesome. So Nikol, I mean, you know, you guys have now branched into doing classes virtually, right? It's unlocked this entirely new medium for you. Is that been something that, you know, you guys have found easy to do in these times? And is that a big part of what you see happening for you guys as well? You guys? We never expected, you know, teaching online. Okay, we never thought of it because he was so involved with, you know, going to class and going to a studio. That's always what we, you know, imagined. But this whole experience of teaching at home, like me sitting in my room over here or, you know, teaching a class in this very room, I never thought of it. And to have students joining from across the world. Okay, there are, so our students are predominantly women, okay, and the women joining from all across the world dancing together. And it's some kind of content that you have created and posted on YouTube or on Instagram. And you know, to just see everyone wanting to come together and dance, it's been beautiful. And I think it's something that we will continue doing even post whenever this pandemic ever gets over, we will continue doing it. Because it's a great platform to, you know, I mean, interact with students. The only time we've interacted with students outside Mumbai is when we have traveled for workshops. And that's something that's taken a hit, obviously, because we can no longer travel and we've had to cancel our workshops and stuff like that. But it's great, you can now do this, it's in your own house. So it's And I'm telling you this from experience, right? I was telling you earlier that I mean, my wife and I, my wife's American, so she likes Hollywood music and, you know, likes to dance to that. So we've actually, you know, put it up and done dance workout sessions to your content. And, you know, it's opening up such a new way of engaging. And I think that's probably one of the most exciting positives that have come out of lockdown. There's just so much time, right? And so you can choose how to use that time to do things which earlier lost in traffic or just in, you know, I don't know, things, you know, I don't know, getting ready to go outside, you know, you can do panel discussions and boxer shorts. It's a lot easier. I think, you know, that's been one of the nicest things that's come out. One of the other things, and I see it around me a lot is that influencers like all of you have really also stepped out in these last three months and used your influence for positive, good, you know, and, you know, we call it chatter for good in a chatterbox. But how do you see, you know, that happening? It's that cliche, Spiderman code, which is more responsibility, more power and influence comes with responsibilities. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your stories in the last couple of months. If, you know, if you guys have seen yourselves or influencers around you participate in something, you know, help charities and jewels, anything of that sort. I know, Madan, you do a lot of social work. I thought you were turning the panel discussion into a dance workshop for us. So, yeah, Madan, if you want to address that or anybody who wants to talk a little bit more about what you guys are doing for social good as influencers. Okay, so what happened was I recently had this workshop with, I mean, not a workshop. So there was this one nation thing that YouTube did. So, you know, and during that, I think they paid some creators as a gratitude. So what I did was I just passed it on to the prime minister's fund. The problem with me as a, you know, my channel is that I'm just one person. I don't have a team that is working for me. Even though I talk a lot about social issues, my biggest challenge has been, you know, establishing anything in the ground level. So that is probably one thing that I want to do post COVID. And I want to probably set up a team. I never really thought I would be needing a team, but I think this is times where it's not just about monitoring. You have to get down and do some work. You know, being an influencer, I think it's the most important thing for all of us, irrespective of the field we are in to get down and really help people out there. So that is something that I'm planning to do once this COVID ends. Awesome, man. Thank you. Any of you want to add? Good. I feel like this is one thing that someone of good authority told me that rather than doing something behind the camera, I feel he said, you're more useful if you're in front of the camera and doing it. Because the impact that we have through our audience is a lot more powerful than if we donate. Absolutely. Doing on-ground work or something like that. I love to do that and I do that a lot just because it feels nice. But creating content that inspires a positive change in millions of people is a lot more useful than helping 500 people. I've been doing both and I've been donating as well to the PMK. I donated 5 lakh rupees for that. But optimizing my content to reduce the negativity and helping people create positivity out of their lives, helping them increase their productivity has been my main goal all these past two or three months. And everything I create, I try to put out some information that is useful or something that would help them achieve something in their lives. So that's what I've been trying to do for the past two months. And it is through entertainment, but that's the main narrative of our brand. We believe in edutainment. Awesome. Okay, that's my last question for you guys for today. And I love to keep talking, but we'll pass actually our time. And just wanted to take your last thoughts on this entire space of influencer marketing. And what are your tips or last thoughts for all the brands who are listening to us today? And what are the best ways to use influencers? Or if you want to tell our audiences who are influencers, giving them your tips on how to become bigger influencers, either of those two topics you could touch upon and share your last thoughts with us today. Okay, I think when it comes to influencer branding, what happens is there are two brands that I look at when they approach me. One is the one that has headquarters above Maharashtra and the other that has headquarters below Maharashtra. So what I'm trying to say is even the branding is influencing or putting out an advertisement is more sensitive down south compared to north because I see some videos of creators in the north and I was like, how did he do that? I can never do that in my video. I see very similar people pull out an advertisement easily in the north, easy collaborations in south. It's very difficult. You can look at even the biggest actors in south. Rajinikanth has not done a single advertisement. Kamal does not do advertisement. So it's in south, especially when people look at you and let you be an influencer. It is really challenging to put an influential advertisement or a brand collaboration. So that's one thing. And the second thing is what you brought about the Chinese example is really nice because I think it will be easy also for the creator when there is a particular brand with whom you can associate for a longer term than multiple brands in a short term because you can associate with the brand. You can give feedback on how this is working. They can get feedback from you. It would be a culture. Just like Shah Rukh Khan is getting signed for GEO or some number at the oil, it's for a long term. It's not just for one advertisement. When you do that for one advertisement and they see another person doing the same advertisement in a different way, it actually loses the influence. So a long term collaboration would be the ideal way to go about. Thank you. Thanks for those tips. So there are two things I want to say. One is regarding for the brands to always work with the influencer, understand how is it that they portray and how is it that they convey their content with their audience because if you treat team much the way we put out content would be different the way Madan would put out content, Shlokhi, Sonal and I individually the way we put out content would be very different. So every brand needs to understand who their influencer is and why are you collaborating with that influencer not just because of the numbers that they have but because they probably resonate to your brand and that's the person you want to work with. So that was one. Second thing is for everyone out there who's asking questions, how do I become an influencer? This is also me, I also want to become one. I'll tell you something very honestly, team NAT started six years ago and before that I used to work in PR and it was digital PR and I used to manage bloggers and influencers and I was one of those people who would get in touch with the bloggers and influencers and be like you know this is the brand and they want you to do this. Obviously then too I always wondered gosh I was an influencer and because that time it was all about getting free stuff. Brands will give you free stuff so it looked it sounded very you know I'm going to get free, it sounded so nice. I think that's the impression that most people have now when they see influencers is that oh they get everything for free and you know they have so many followers and they have so many views on their videos but it all starts from somewhere. You have to create some kind of content which is some kind of quality content. You have to be innovative. You're not just going to like one day wake up and say yes I'm an influencer. You've created that community of people who follow you who you know want to watch your work that's why you've gotten this tag of influencer. So people if you think that you know I'm just going to wake up one day and be an influencer I mean it's not that's not how it works. Create something of value that you know people would really want to see be inspired from and then you can take it forward to wherever. Thanks Nikola that's really very good insights. Shokh, Thonul do you guys have last thoughts for today? So when it comes to being an influencer and all that for people who want to get into social media and want to I think the number and reason everyone gets into social media is because they want to put their work out there like they want people to see what they do right and I've seen like on TikTok I'm seeing like people from small villages they have like two million followers because they're putting amazing either dance videos or content videos and it's genuinely good you know. It doesn't matter where you're from or what your financial background is anyone who has genuine talent and also consistency and hard work they can become an influencer. So you know you don't need a big setup or gadgets and laptop expensive things even if you have a phone I think now nowadays you can shoot content easily and you can put out your content easily. So for people who are starting out you don't just you don't overthink the situation make sure that you know exactly what you want to put out and for the brands just talk to the influencer and know what works with their audience because they know their audience is the best and understand also what the person or the brand is talking about and you know work properly. Thanks so we're going to share that with all our brands as well. I want to add one thing before I know before a slug talk. I have to add one thing which is very important for brands also to understand just because a channel or a person are so-and-so followers probably two million three million he is not influencing three million people he has three million followers influencer you know you can you can probably sign the biggest you know biggest and biggest followers they might have 10 million followers but they might not convert that into personal but that can be someone who has probably one black follower and has the influence to convert that to 50 000 states. So this influence that the followers are not influence you know actually the real representation of influence you know you have on people sometimes people follow someone just for the sake of it you know it's fun to follow someone they are not really getting influenced by that so this is something that brands might really start looking at you know. I think they have to get engagement how many people are engaging with the people also yeah brands are looking at not only the number game but also like how many people are engaging with each post and what you're talking about and if it's relevant to what the brand is. So actually now we've started to build a lot of technology to even assess beyond engagements as to what happens with those engaged users right how do they actually are they going in to different e-commerce sites buying your products I see a big evolution now happening towards that right we've seen the industry being built up so far by creating a lot of awareness and brand salience now we're going to start to see a lot more importance towards not just saying that hey this is a great product but if it is a great product and you can offer a really amazing discount to your audience through your unique code that becomes really important as well and that value addition is also not now then goes beyond just the content that you guys do but also it gives solutions to our consumers you know on a day to day basis well and so I think that's really going to be the next big wave slope your thoughts and we'll do this again. Yeah sure. What I think is for the brands choosing the right influencer is the best way to go and sometimes just like Madan and just like Sona said it's not about the views it's not about the subscribers it's not about the numbers sometimes a person who has thousand views or thousand followers is a lot better influencer than someone who has 10 million followers if you want to sell one million dollar car or something like a bungalow then targeting someone who has an audience that is not catering for that is not the right way to go if you're you would be better off like asking Vijay Malia to promote it to his friends if he promotes it to like 50 of his friends I'm just giving an example just people who have money are the best way to go for that type of people so just like that every brand has to know what influencer is right for them he might not have the subscribers but he will be able to create the impact that you desire and then just let the influencer take over because a good influencer knows how to sell he would just do the job very well. You guys are rock stars and thank you so much for you know joining us here we really look forward to you know talking to you more about these topics and take care to the audience thank you for joining us Yathi do you want to say bye to folks and anything? Yes in fact I wanted to check if we can take another five minutes because we've got over 60 questions in our Q&A from our audience who all are wanting to know the tips and tricks on how to become a better influencer so there are some very basic questions also so let's begin with that and any one of you can take over that question somebody's asking something super basic like is it necessary to have a theme for the feed do you think like designing your feed is something that's important? I don't know who over here has a very well themed feed we for sure don't have any theme on our feeds because we post whatever we like so if today I feel like posting a picture or a video or whatever I will post that and it doesn't have to be color coordinated or theme on my profile I don't know about the rest of you honestly I think it depends on a person like some people care about what their feed exactly looks like and some people are super artist about it like I've seen some people's feed look amazing like you know full aesthetic feed and you know it's a talent to do that so people who like to do it great but we like it takes a lot of time and effort to just create an aesthetic feed so I feel that for us I don't think it's the most important thing but if you are if you enjoy doing it and you want to do it you should be doing it yeah okay great like there's so much noise you can't really create something that is very original there's someone who has done it a lot better than you I think it's all about sending a message or just aligning your brand values with your content and that's just how it works if if you are able to send a message through each and every post you will automatically have a feed that connects with the audience and that's just it's not about the colors it's not about like how it looks and all of that it's just about the emotional connect that you know and sorry just to add to that so many brands don't get this either and that's what we keep telling them that hey run your Facebook or you know Instagram pages like how influencers do they're not trying to go after the aesthetics and you know sell your product in each and every you know post it's about creating value it's about you know creating you know something something of value each time stroke so I 100% agree with you guys on that you know sort of I'm gonna take just like one last one here because I see a lot of comments and similar questions have also come in so this quick question is which is more important the on the feed is it the quantity of the feed or the quality in the beginning at least when they're starting out so because I see like mother you do a video every day while some of them do it like once a week or once a fortnightly so how it is when they're just starting out so I actually made a video yesterday what sells in India so I was just discussing about this Chinese boycott so boycott China but still probably all of us have Chinese goods in our home and probably we'll have it even after a week or two the truth is Indian you know if we given an option we will go for an alternative but generally what we look for in any product be it a video or a product that we can touch and feel is value you know it really doesn't matter how often you give the product or how many gaps you have between our know each product so what really matters is if someone is going to give you 10 minutes of their time is that content is what that 10 minutes will you watch it so that's one thing I always follow if I'm making a video I always try to put something interesting in that video that I would be interested in watching and I know the good thing about all of us here is that our audiences are very similar to us so that's why an influencer sells something or shows something they buy it because you know you will buy it so the people if you easily so I think what really matters is value if you can give value to the audience be it even one hour if you can give value to audience every one hour you can do it or if you think you can give value to an audience only once in a year so it's all up to know the value that you give to the audience right but okay again just reframing that question for all of you what if they don't have that audience and they're trying to build that audience right now they are building that community that will follow them eventually so during that time what is more important do you have like a consistent need to consistently post quality content like you know if you are if you are able to create good quality content every day then create if you then you can post every day or then if you can create once in 10 days or once in a week it's up to you what you are you know able to do but make sure it is good and you know it adds value to people who are watching it because if you put five videos which don't make sense person is not going to watch the sixth video for sure so make sure each post you do you have put some kind of thought process into it and it makes sense to the viewers so consistently posting good content is important for people who are starting out yeah I think one advantage that people have you know or we had over all the creators who are getting into you know the space now is that we didn't have much of a competition when we got in compared to the competition right now today every mom in Indian household is a youtuber you know they shoot something they cook something they put it on it and you compete with everything you know a creator someone gets on youtube has an option to click on watch how a grandma cooks probably 30 lamps and also to watch a tech video so everyone is a competition so I would I would probably say I'm not really good at giving an answer to this so I have to pass on Shlok you were saying something yeah I feel like initially you just have to pretend like you have like thousand people watching and you'll be like hey guys what is up and this is one viewer that's your mom but like that's just how it is initially you just try to provide the most value consistently and it's I don't think you just need to pump out videos if even if you create like one video a week that is good and you're improving on the videos and providing value I think that works but like I think it's more about the passion with which you're creating content and not just like if you're just disappointed that you're not getting views and then you're creating a video it won't work you have to pretend that this is going to be the next viral hit and create that in fact I'll just add on to that point because you mentioned that that somebody like a lot of people had the same question on how did you guys become influencers like did you already have a set of following or how did that build up did you pretend and be like you know I am being watched and now I'm gonna just be like this person who is influencing or creating amazing content how did you build on that community I'll add to that if you remember what was your first post as an influencer or any of these channels for me crazy I made my first video to apologies to my ex-girlfriend so my story is completely different so suddenly people started watching I'm like oh my god people are watching my apology to my ex-girlfriend did she at least forgive you? sorry? did she at least offend you? oh no she's not at least offended you for a long time before she watched the video I already had a 1,000,000 subscribers wow that's a unique case what about you guys? on YouTube I think one of uh I really don't remember exactly which is the first video because we initially started putting content on YouTube as a place to document like you know like a google drive you know just to put the content because we used to start off with Facebook we had started off with Facebook to promote our videos to people who we know and you know our college students but I don't remember it was a set of videos from class basically that was we just put a camera on the side and we just shot all our students and us dancing routines so that was our first few posts on the internet it was not enough apology to the girlfriend but that was interesting right it was always so interesting I I just randomly created a video in my college I didn't have a mobile so I borrowed it from my friend and I didn't have a stand so I just put up an underwear and put my phone just like that and it worked nobody knew so I watch it I know how it's shot but like nobody cares class I think as creators we become extremely creative in how we want to shoot our content also because we are only the director producer our department everything so we manage some way or the other this is something I've heard of for the first time you're going to get a new underwear brand now coming to you guys I did a lot of people from here and I am going to go back and check Shlok's first video which was shot like that they're going to go back and see how it was last question for team natch it is specifically for you guys Lakshmi here is asking can you please talk about the copyright issues faced during dance videos on Instagram and YouTube yeah so the main thing is you will have a copyright issue because you're using a song which belongs to a music label your only way around that and that's what's worked for us is we make sure that our videos are not monetized because you cannot earn money when you know you're using someone else's music I mean that's at least how it works here unfortunately so whenever people think that oh my god you know you have so many million views and they're learning so much that's not at all the case my dears we are not that's not possible so so that you do not get a copyright issue just make sure that your video is not monetized okay and that's the same for Instagram as well uh Instagram yeah I know you don't monetize but uh Instagram automatically takes down certain songs like certain songs they don't even let you upload it directly at least on YouTube they let you upload it and then they take it down Instagram don't let you upload so it's working working around copyright is basically you don't monetize it that's it okay okay so um okay this is going to be the last one it's an anonymous attendee which says isn't the interest of consumers being affected negatively because nowadays influencers keep endorsing brands for money now the negative side of it do you want to like comment on it oh that's what exactly I said uh you know at least as far as I have seen this panel I have followed them and personally even I myself know we don't do random brands just for the sake of doing it I think that's how you become an influencer by doing random brands you become yet another person to be an influence you have to be very juicy about what you do and I think it all comes down to you know one's personal choice if you would really buy this tell that if you won't do it just don't do it sometimes yeah so I mean there's there's been a lot of debate on how the government also plays its own role in being able to you know monetize monitor some of the content influencers are talking about as well so like in in in western in other countries you have to declare that this is a sponsored content piece it's not happened so far and there have been conversations about that happening but I think in in all the work that you know we do with influencers and these influencers that we see around I think uh you want to make sure that you're offering quality and value to your audience I don't think there should be any concern there but there could be exaggeration right we've seen that in advertising across that's important for you know it's more to contain and I think influencers are the most cautious about this because if they're going to exaggerate it's going to affect their reputation and that does not you know no money can buy that so I think that's really where brands also you know influencers also trust you know a review or an endorsement that has been done an influencer because there is a high level of you know uh monitor or authenticity or you know that has been brought to that content itself right okay uh can we take another one more just came in are you guys okay with that it's a quick one uh I'm not sure if any of you do podcast uh but it's a question about youtube versus podcast and does podcast have any value do you see it like it becoming the new youtube and audio content it's just like a radio and no cinema both have to exist properly and I feel like at the end of the day we just find different venues to reach the audience the audience is like a main goal so youtube is just like a medium to reach there and each medium is a little bit different post podcasts are a little bit different youtube is a lot more visual twitter is like textual but like at the end of the day we're trying to reach an audience and that's what the main goal is so we are we'll adapt if youtube is no longer there we'll find some way if podcast start working we'll do podcasts I know like youtubers are willing to adapt and we have seen that during this covid days yeah all right Prana you want to sum it up then I can say thank you oh um you know this has been such a overall such a great conversation to have had with uh you know all the panelists that we've had today uh they're all individually coming from such rich diverse experiences and I'm so glad that we were able to and I hope the audiences got something from this uh we will be this entire video this live video that you have watched will also be available later on so in case uh you want to watch it or share it or you missed a certain part of the discussion earlier you can always do that uh thanks uh exchange for media for organizing and having all of us here and yeah that's that's all thank you everyone thank you so much uh mother and nicole uh and everyone earlier uh you know ubra mini uh thank you thank you for you know joining us thank you for inviting us thank you talking to all thank you all right we could all do this as an ending note thank you guys we all love you there are about 100 Q&As on that thank you so much and to all of you like from i mentioned the video will be available on facebook on exchange for media page if you want to revisit rewatch it go ahead and do that uh if you want to comment about it on twitter our hashtag is e4m webinar and hashtag e4m content jam and of course go and follow all these amazing influencers learn I think watching their content is going to be a good learning experience as well so thank you so much everybody this is me kya atika was signing off thank you and have a good day thanks bye thank you everyone bye