With Twitter changing hands, here’s what the micro-blogging site means for Indian influencers

However, Pranav Panpalia, founder, OpraahFx, doesn't expect any major change when it comes to influencer marketing in India.

Pranav Agarwal, Co-founder, Sociowash said, "We are keeping an eye out for structural changes that Musk might bring that could lead to significant change in how we approach the platform."

Twitter bits, editable tweets interesting features

“Elon Musk buying over Twitter doesn't make any difference. However, him being vocal about removing Twitter bots and making tweets editable, I guess that would be some interesting moves, if they happen," he said.

Neel Gogia, Co-Founder, IPLIX Media, also said that if Twitter looks into the bots aspect and brings a change on that front, it will increase trust among content creators. This will lead to creators using the full potential of Twitter, helping them increase revenue from the platform.

"Creators are not putting content favourable to the Twitter algorithm. If they start doing that, they will get a decent reach which will increase the contribution of Twitter to a content creator's overall revenue, coming from social media campaigns from the current 5-8 percent to 15-20 percent," Gogia added.

‘Making algorithm public will help’

He added that Musk's plans to put Twitter algorithms out in public and taking people's feedback will also be helpful for content creators.

Ritesh Ujjwal, CEO and Co-founder, Kofluence, an influencer marketing platform, said that, for creators who focus on niche categories like fintech, edtech, startups, Twitter’s contribution is around 10 percent to 15 percent to an influencer's overall revenue pie.

“Twitter’s appeal is improving, with recent releases, including paid subscriptions, tipping, among others, as they’re getting rolled out globally," he added.

Shivam Agarwal, Founder, Deckster.Live, noted that in the influencer marketing space, Instagram leads, followed by YouTube and Twitter is a close third.

‘Twitter campaigns essential’

“Twitter campaigns are a common occurrence for any brand to stay relevant, or while launching a new campaign. Usually, brands use influencers to get onto the trending list. Twitter trending activities can start at Rs 60,000 and go up to Rs 250,000, depending on the number of hours and the kind of influencers involved," said Agarwal.

He added, "A single tweet from someone with over 2 million followers can cost up to Rs 300,000 at times."

IPLIX Media's Gogia noted that brands can spend anywhere between Rs 5-10 lakh on Twitter for a campaign, which is lower than what brands spend on Instagram for a campaign. It can go up to Rs 2 crore. For YouTube, it is even higher.

Sociowash's Agarwal said that brands spend about 10-15 percent of their influencer marketing budget on an average on twitter and scale up or down the budget basis. "If I am a brand that is trying to tap on, let's say a GenZ/Millenial entrepreneur community, it would make a lot of sense for me to work in harmony with influencers who are active on Twitter and are actively talking about the topic," he added.

On the other hand, Panpalia said that Twitter is more or less just a value-addition in the complete 360 influencer marketing campaigns. "Brands may spend 3-8 percent of the total budget."

"If we do 30 branded campaigns in a month, one to two are specifically for Twitter, while others are clubbed with Instagram," Gogia said.

Yet, Twitter remains the key for brands as they see it as a platform for quick and cost-effective increase in brand awareness.

Twitter tops brand interaction study

"Despite steep competition, in a recent study of how people engage with brands on social media, Twitter ranked as the number one platform for brand interaction. Users on Twitter are more engaged now than last year, with an over 35 percent increase in global ad engagements, year-on-year," said Kofluence's Ujjwal.

He added, "Users also like discovering what’s new on Twitter, with people spending twice more time, viewing launch ads on Twitter and 3.3 times action, post-launch ad exposure. Twitter can increase your visibility in search engines, which isn't the case for other social sites."

He added that the Indian premier League (IPL) season is a particularly good booster for influencer marketing over Twitter, which leads the pack with the most branded content shared over any social media platform, followed by Instagram as a close second. "Brands now leverage influencers to respond to their live IPL tweets and turn viral game moments into avenues for brand engagement."