Consistency, keeping track of changing trends and content diversification are very important to ensure one’s success as an influencer, as per Vaibhav Pathak, the COO and Co-founder of Dot Media.

TheBotStory.com sat down with Pathak to understand the nuances of influencer marketing, what makes for a success story in this space, and how the agencies select from the vast pool of talent.

“For becoming an influencer, the start might be easy but it is all about the journey. Anyone can become an influencer today, but consistency is most important which 90% of the people lack, second is changing your content with the changing trends. The same kind of content throughout the year will bore the audience, content diversification is very important. The first five seconds of a video are very crucial; if you can grab the attention in this short span then you are in the game,” Pathak said.

He also stated that the biggest change in the Creator economy came during the Covid-19 induced pandemic phase. “When COVID struck, a lot of people switched from their full-time jobs to becoming full-time influencers and content creators, so for example before COVID if there were a 1000 people in this space, during COVID about 10,000 more people have been added to this industry, which has resulted in a lot of competition.”

Pathak stated that in order to stay relevant the influencers have to create something different. He also stated that the creators whose content strikes an emotional chord with the people will find it easier to make it big.

“I feel the emotions that are common with everybody are happiness and sadness, so people who create emotional content touch us more, because of the shareability factor. People prefer someone who is making them laugh or entertains them (after a long day at work),” as per him.

The Co-founder of Dot Media shared that one of the challenging yet amazing campaigns they did recently was the one for promoting actor Salman Khan’s movie “Kisi Ka Bhai, Kisi Ki Jaan’. The campaign was done for Zee5 Global, and the challenge was to convince non-Indian creators for worldwide promotions, and that too in a very short time span.

“It was a challenge, but it was a sweet challenge, we loved doing it. So this campaign was very close to my heart because I am a Salman Khan fan first of all, and second Dot media went global because of this. We did it with influencers in the UK, USA, and the Gulf and in Australia as well.”
Sharing more about the idea behind Dot Media, and how it continues to rise and rise in the influencer management space, Pathak said, “I feel that it is all about the work culture that we have bred over the last three years, that is what I feel is very different from others.”

Speaking on the thought process which went behind launching Dot Studio, he said that they are a ‘content-first company’ and it’s not solely about talent management for them. Therefore, in order to enable the best-possible content from their influencer line-up they opted to get their own personal space which would give their talent a platform to create better and good content.

“On top of that when it comes to delivering any ad shoots to these clients, I think Dot studio has been very helpful to us. So, the main idea behind launching Dot studio was to expand our horizon which helps us in getting ad shoots and even short films,” Pathak stated.

Speaking about the future of the Creator economy as a whole, he shared that it will move at a much quicker pace in the coming two-three years. Terming influencers as ‘mini-celebrities’, Pathak said, “If a smaller brand wants to promote their product, they can definitely not afford a celebrity. For the home grown brands or even the brands that have not made it big, these influencers are the lifelines of promotion. An influencer with say even a 100k following can have good visibility because of the content he/she is putting out.”

He also said that when it comes to Dot Media, they go by just one parameter while adding an influencer to their roster – and that is the talent.

“We don’t have any criteria of a specific number of followers to come onboard, it is all about pure talent and it is all about vision. Whenever we onboard somebody we ask them as to where do they see themselves one year from now. If somebody has come to us or if we have approached somebody it is very important to know whether they are here for the long run or they are here just because a friend has become a content creator or influencer and they would like to be one too,” he elaborated.

Pathak also shared the examples of influencers, like that of Sakshi Keswani, Dhiraj Sanap and Ronit Ashra, who hardly had 50,000 followers when they were onboarded, but today their numbers are huge.

“For instance if you take Ashra, I know he is doing something which no one else is doing today. A lot of clients ask me why we charge such an exclusive cost for him? I tell them give me another guy like him and I will give Ronit Ashra to you for free, there is no one like him in the country,” he added, praising the influencer.

Lastly, on the topic of ads and promotion related to online betting and gambling, Pathak stated in clear terms that he doesn’t want his creators to indulge in anything related to them.

As for those in the space who are continuing to promote such websites, he advised them to display ‘terms & conditions’ very clearly at the end. He also urged the agencies handling such influencers to clearly tell them the cons of doing so and ensure that every government guideline is followed to the T.