Social media has transformed the way we communicate, share information, and engage with brands. With millions of individuals actively using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn daily, social media advertising has become indispensable for businesses seeking to maintain competitiveness and expand their customer base.

According to Comscore's latest data, India has witnessed a doubling of social media consumption since January 2020, reaching from 2.6 billion hours to an impressive 5.5 billion hours in 2023, as per Comscore 2023 year in Review, India Edition. The study considered three main platforms Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) into account.

People’s increased stickiness to social media platforms post the pandemic is an interesting trend for the advertising ecosystem, especially the creator’s economy, which is rising exponentially over the last few years.

The number of social media users worldwide has swelled to a record 4.9 billion people globally in 2023. What’s more, this number is expected to jump to approximately 5.85 billion users by 2027.

India is not far behind. An estimated 600 million Indians access WhatsApp every month. The number of Facebook and Instagram monthly users is over 450 million and 420 million, respectively.

Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are poised to become powerful marketing stages for brands in India to interact with their audience. And these major changes in Search mean it’s now crucial for marketers and small businesses to understand current social media trends and evolving user behaviours on these platforms.

“India has been one of the fastest growing Digital Economy primarily due to cheap data and young population. Hence, Social Media usage has become important to OEMs, especially since out of 1.42 billion population, nearly 881 million are internet subscribers (March 2023). Of them, the number of social media users is above 467 Mn,” says Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director, (Marketing & Sales) Maruti Suzuki.

Besides, there is not much difference between urban (377 Mn) and rural internet users (315 Mn) either. Hence, there has been a remarkable shift in consumer expectation, behaviour and car buying journey, says Srivastava, adding that Google and Meta Platforms, especially their short video formats, are offering unprecedented reach and penetration.

According to him, 100% of new car buyers use online information sources while researching a new vehicle. Over 98 per cent consumers reach out to online video and search engine, 68 per cent check Online Marketplace and nearly 2/3 consumers check Social Media and the brand website.

Revised media strategy

The surge in social media consumption has prompted a shift in media strategy. Brands are allocating more resources towards creating engaging content tailored to the preferences of social media users, ad executives say.

Maruti Suzuki, which is India’s largest carmaker and spends Rs 1,200 crore in marketing annually, has increased its digital AdEx share from 29 per cent to 36 per cent over the past year. A significant chunk of digital AdEx is allocated to social media marketing.

Srivastava says he is keeping a close watch on the new developing surfaces where our TG is moving viz., Shorts, Reels, Vertical Formats, Creator Content etc. and working on our strategy on these.

Mayank Shah, Senior Category head, Parle Products, echoes the sentiments. The FMCG major’s share of digital AdEx in total AdEx has gone up from 10 per cent in 2019 to 25-30 per cent in 2023. The social media spend accounts for roughly half of digital AdEx.

“Social media is quite addictive. Our research insights show most of the internet users have continued significant consumption of social media even post-COVID lockdowns. As a result of higher time spent even post covid lockdowns on social media, we are investing a lot on social media marketing,” Shah explains.

Most of Parle’s social media spend goes into moment marketing since the pandemic days when people’s love and consumption for ParleG biscuits skyrocketed, he added. “Quirky social media posts drive a lot of traction for us,” he quips.

Higher social media consumption provides advertisers with a larger and more engaged audience. Hence, visual and interactive content, such as videos, stories, and live sessions, are becoming integral components of media strategies, says Anil Solanki, Senior Director, Media Lead, dentsu X.

According to Sajal Gupta, CEO of Kios Advertising, while social traffic in India has grown 2x from 2020 to 2023, brands’ ad spends on social platforms have grown 2.75x during the same period clearly indicating the strengthening of social media as an advertising channel.

Not all that glitters is gold

Syed Ahmad Aftab Naqvi, Global CEO and Co-Fonder of Gozoop, “For advertisers and influencers it is good news. More screens, more captive audience, better economics. However, I cannot say the same thing for the productivity of the audience, especially the youth, given such a drastic increase in their time spent on social media consumption — most of which is not productive.”

As for Rahul Vengalil, Executive Director, Everest Solutions, a Rediffusion Group company, “A constant presence is crucial, as fleeting memories can lead to being forgotten if a competitor offers better content and higher ad frequency. However, doing a bulk load of content on social media is not needed. It's important to give the ads enough reach on social media and then move into high involvement long format plunge worthy content.”

Instagram, YouTube and FB are still ruling the show while Indian brands like ShareChat, Josh, etc are struggling or pivoting. Given this situation, these three global platforms will keep experimenting with the content formats for better engagement and thus keep the brands completely wrapped, Vengalil points out.

Outlook for influencer marketing

The higher social media consumption also indicates a positive outlook for India’s growing influencer marketing and creator economy in the coming days, many industry leaders opine.

Influencer marketing is being considered as a practical way to create awareness and drive consideration for products and services. It also offers brands the flexibility to target specific markets in their preferred language, through the locally influential players.

No surprises then that the influencer marketing budgets have gone up as brands seek authentic and relatable voices to promote their products or services, Solanki points out.

The influencer marketing in India is pegged as a Rs 900-crore industry growing at a CAGR of 25% and will become a Rs 2,200 cr industry by 2025, as per the e4m INCA influencer marketing report 2022.

It's not just D2C brands or personal care and fashion categories, even legacy brands have started taking note of expanding creator economy. Maruti, for instance, is actively developing an Influencer Marketing ecosystem to drive its marketing strategy.

As of 2023, most brands have adopted an influence strategy and are enamoured by its yet-to-be-explored potential. Yet, an impressive 96% of the creator economy is to be tapped into and properly utilized, highlights Oglivy’s Red Paper released last month.

With the creator economy estimated to be worth $500bn by 2027, and only 4% of that workforce realizing their full potential, there is enormous scope to hold the hand of these smaller profiles as they establish themselves, the paper states.

The paper also predicts that in 2024 influence will move from a nice-to-have component of a brand’s marketing stack, to an essential tool for commercial growth and brand awareness that is not to be omitted.

“We anticipate greater spends to be allocated towards influencer marketing in 2024,” Naqvi opines.