Students of journalism and mass communication at this institute took a master class on influencer marketing

Apeejay Stya University-School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) on April 25, 2023, held a masterclass with Shudeep Majumdar, Co-Founder & CEO of Zefmo Media. Majumdar has over two decades of experience and developed a strong focus on utilising technology-led brand strategy to drive business outcomes and achieve marketing goals. His firm handles the mandate of over two lakh influencers and served 100 brands globally.

Over 30 students of SJMC and students from other departments like marketing, design and communication along with faculty members participated in the interactive session. The theme of the masterclass was ‘Influencer Marketing’. The session was also live on Facebook.

What is influencer marketing? It is a relatively new form of marketing that depends on the age-old model of using celebrity endorsements to increase brand awareness and product purchases, Majumdar said. The master class aimed to give students valuable insight into the world of influencer marketing and communications.

Keeping the session as interactive as possible, Majumdar thanked the faculty and the management for having allowed him to interact with young minds. “I would like to leave some theory behind influencer marketing so that there is a construct that the students can follow and refer to it at a later stage,” Majumdar said.

“I moved from the traditional medium to the digital medium. I am not a digital native but the younger generation is. A digital native is a person who has grown up with digitalisation. Since the world was moving toward digitalisation, Zefmo was born in 2017. And over the years, we have organically grown with over two lakh influencers in the company. We run brand campaigns across India. When we talk about influencer marketing agency is the bridge between influencers and brands. Some agencies manage influencers as well as brands. The work of an influencer marketing agency is focused on bringing brands together with online influencers and content creators so that brand campaigns can be run via such agencies,” Majumdar explained and added that not all influencer campaigns involve money. “The influencers may or may not be paid,” he said.

Power of influence through the ages

What does influence mean? The dictionary meaning is: The capacity to affect the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself. “An influencer can be any person and not necessarily have a social digital footprint. It can be a family member or a relative; it can be a person whom we look up to and want to become like them. What makes influencers popular is that they use the power of visual communication. When you see and listen to things, they become more interesting,” Majumdar said.

There is nothing new about influencing each other or the power of influencer marketing, he opined. “Throughout the ages and history, somebody or the other has influenced somebody. Influencers can’t be limited to their digital footprint; it has to be looked at from a broader perspective. People like Socrates and Plato, who were philosophers, used to talk about how to channelise and influence people through thoughts, ideas, and new philosophies. Take another example. Cleopatra visited Rome was a short time and yet her coiffure (hairstyle) became so popular that women across Rome started to support the style,” Majumdar said.

In the 19020s Coco Chanel made the tan look very popular “And this is prevalent even today. Those who are fair-skinned like to be tan. But this is also where the responsibility of the influencers needs to come in. And what is influencer marketing in the present context? It is about riding the wave of the fan base and the followers to promote not just products, not just services but it is a message medium. So, the government also uses influencer marketing as do academic institutes. One can use influencer marketing for not-for-profit organisations too. Take an example. There is a lot of content on Instagram on Earth Day. A lot of influencers talk about not using plastic and how it is destroying our oceans. Influencer marketing is not about the glamourous aspects but non-glamourous as well,” Majumdar said.

What does influencer marketing entail?

Influencer marketing rides on the large following base of influencers to promote anything but essentially for creating brand awareness. A major part also involves sales. Any brand will look at influencer marketing from the sales perspective.

“So, why should brands use influencer marketing? Most of us may be aware of the term word of mouth. If the information comes from a reliable source, people are likely to believe it and that is why influencer marketing works. However, there is a difference between an advertisement and influencer-created content termed user-generated content,” Majumdar said and gave an example of an Indian brand that has leveraged influencer marketing extensively.

“What the brand did was sent thousands of products to potential micro-influencers. “These influencers started talking about the brand and that is why today you see infinite content about the brand. That is the power of an influencer talking about a product. The same was true for a popular bike brand; it was a brand that was built over a period of time by influencers in India and this is due to user-generated content,” Majumdar explained.

When we measure influencer marketing, it is about reach and engagement. Reach would mean the number of followers of an influencer. Engagement, on the other hand, means the number of posts, likes, and comments of that influencer. “You have an Amitabh Bachchan who has a massive following but engagement is very low. Prajakta Koli has less than eight million followers but has huge engagement. In India, having an engagement rate of three per cent is considered good. Our population makes us the biggest influencer-creator economy in the world,” Majumdar opined and said that there are five types of influencers — mega-influencers; macro-influencers; mid-tier influencers; micro-influencers, and nano-influencers.

The 3 ‘R’s of influencer marketing

Majumdar said that there are three ‘R’s when it comes to influencer marketing – Reliable, Relatable, and Relevant. “These are important to find the right kind of influencers. An influencer can be relevant to a brand if the content and the platform are relevant. A beauty campaign will not normally be on LinkedIn. Relatable is age-driven. Young people would not follow influencers who are older than them. When it comes to reliability, the information must come from a credible and authentic source,” Majumdar said.

Take everything with a pinch of salt

He advised the students to be wary of any content that talks about how being an influencer will rake in money. “The content that talks about getting paid Rs 5 lakh to an influencer is not always correct. This is because a lot of these campaigns are based on the barter system. There are a lot of things that are happening on social media, and since they are not regulated, there is a big question of whether they should keep talking or even give advice. Whatever happens on social media take it with a pinch of salt. Use your brain and then listen to what they have to say. Listen to words of wisdom from people who have more experience and then find your way. Don’t follow anybody blindly,” Majumdar said.

The master class was followed with an interactive question and answer session where Majumdar took questions from the students on various aspects of influencer marketing. Student questions ranged from how to find the right kind of influencers based on the three ‘Rs’ to budgeting on how to build brand awareness to look for influencers from other genres.

Majumdar thanked everyone present for being such a great audience.

The session ended with Majumdar thanking everyone present for being a great audience and Professor Sanjay Ahirwal, dean of SJMC giving a token of appreciation to Majumdar. In the vote of thanks, the students said that they learnt various aspects of influencer marketing and how it was an eye-opener to know the practical aspects of influencer marketing and how it is in sync with the digital ecosystem.