Opinion: How digital influencers leverage traditional mediums to create an inter-media footprint

As influencer marketing becomes almost mainstream, Pranav Panpalia from OpraahFx explains how digital influencers leverage traditional mediums to expand their footprint across mediums.

Digital Influencers – a new genre of celebrities have rapidly taken over the leading social media channels through their creative content creation and marketing skills. Catering to a wide range of audiences, these content creators have emerged to be a preferred choice and an important medium in the marketing mix of brands today.

According to an industry report in 2019, 65% of marketers agreed that influencer marketing helped them increase brand awareness and recall. The dominance of digital influencers further increased post-COVID-19 lockdowns when the whole world was predominantly consuming digital content. While brands are going digital and using content creators to promote their businesses and products, many of these influencers are in-turn using traditional marketing mediums to leverage their presence and elevate their face value. 

Let us look at some ways that digital influencers are using traditional marketing mediums to expand their digital identity: 

Public Relations to get a Verified Social Media Tag

Having a blue tick on profile largely means two things – the person is real/credible and is well-known. Right? But how do you think people get a blue tick on their profiles? No, buying it is not an option at all, one needs to earn it through their body of work and the content they put-up.

While their activity and engagement on their social media channel is one factor for their verification, the decision-maker is their offline personality –  How well searched they are? Has the media spoken about them? What makes them credible? Hence, influencers use PR services to garner media coverages and mentions which help them build a credible personality out of their social media handle.

Largely, it means that even the social media channels believe that nothing is more legit than a story by a traditional news agency. Not limited to verification alone, PR helps influencers to constantly build their brand image and increase their share of voice in the media.

Hoardings to Reach Mass Audiences

Hoardings and billboards have been the most preferred medium of advertising by large conglomerates, FMCG brands, real estate companies, movies, etc. It is one of the oldest mediums of promotion to go all out and reach the masses. While OTT platforms using this medium is done and dusted, digital influencers using this medium to promote their singles, originals, and debuts is pathbreaking.

YouTube had made use of hoardings to promote its original series of Lilly Singh and Prajakta Koli. OpraahFx did a strategic partnership with an upcoming YouTuber and helped her collaborate with one of their talents – Techno Gamerz by jointly presenting a billboard in Delhi to launch their talent’s debut music video.

Also read: Opinion: Understanding Native Advertising in the context of 2021

Events and Tradeshows to Strengthen their Voice

Speakership and networking events have been an age-old medium to interact directly with target groups, stakeholders, and peers. While digital platforms offer a personal connection for the influencers to connect with their audiences, on-ground events, seminars, round-tables, and summits help them get their voice heard on the subjects that matter to the people at large.

Today, many influencers actively partake in reputed summits that are related to the industries like – fashion, gaming, sustainability, tech, etc. Such events provide them an opportunity to indulge in discussions with industry leaders and experts, thereby helping them build a favorable network. 

Electronic and Broadcast Media to Increase their Face Value

While the influencers may have widely celebrated characters and millions of followers on their social media platforms, getting a break on big and small screens has always been an aspiration of many. These platforms flourish them with an opportunity to increase their reach to the masses and build a newer audience base. Bhuvan Bam, Prajakta Koli, and Carry Minati are a few of those influencers who have bagged TVCs, series, and movies respectively.

In Conclusion

Today, brands are truly embracing the value of digital creators and influencer marketing to promote their business and products. Alongside, digital creators are aspiring to bag new audience sets, increase their face value, and sustaining by choosing traditional marketing mediums and platforms. Therefore, it wouldn’t be unfair to conclude that all marketing mediums are inter-dependent and it is the right mix of all the platforms that will help influencers to sustain in the long run.  

This article is authored by Pranav Panpalia, Founder and Mentor, OpraahFx.

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