India’s over 4 mn influencers have a lament: Views aren’t resulting in subscribers

As consideration span shrinks quickly, influencers have only a few seconds to hook viewers. And they’re doing simply that – splitting the content material into 60-90 second clipping, every with a “What Next“ on the finish of the video to pique viewer curiosity. This comes at a time when influencers are dealing with the problem of viewers doomscrolling for hours, however not following their accounts, prompting them to experiment with plenty of methods to spice up their follower rely.

Take Raunaq Sahni, alias Monkey Magic, a journey influencer whose subscriber base grew about 82 instances from 12.2 thousand to 10 lakh in two months and he topped world charts because the world’s fastest-growing YouTuber for a few days in July 2022. The secret sauce to this success? A collection of brief movies he created via 100 days of his solo backpacking journey throughout India.

“I began my channel in 2015 and was casually posting content material whereas working. However, in 2022, I made a decision to give up my job and pursue content material creation full time. But I knew that I needed to scale to rely upon this occupation financially, and that’s after I determined to make use of all my financial savings to make a journey collection that immediately grew to become a success,” Sahni instructed Mint. “Making content material into serialised shorter clips with a ‘what subsequent’ ending, fairly than a long-form video works very nicely. People don’t simply casually watch it as soon as and transfer on, they get invested in your journey and comply with via,” he added.

Standing out in a crowded house

In a content material house the place creators get a possibility to publicity via doomscrolling, the wrestle to transform these views into subscribers is actual.

“It may be very tough to get individuals to comply with you as a result of the content material house may be very crowded. With over 4.5 million influencers in India alone, creators compete with one another to get the viewer’s consideration and following,” stated Piyush Agrawal, co-founder at CREATE, an influencer administration company. “As the worth of the social media customers’ comply with rises, an influencer has to impress them at 5 to 10 instances with their content material or incentivise them by schemes like giveaways, contests, etc. to comply with,” Agrawal added.

This signifies that the primary few seconds of the reel are essential for grabbing the viewers’ consideration, in any other case, they could lose curiosity and transfer to the following video.

“The first 3-5 seconds make or break your video. If you might have a robust hook that manages to seize the viewers consideration, it’s doubtless that they’ll watch the video until the top and comply with you in the event that they like your content material,” stated Ayyaz Ahmed, a life-style influencer with over 1.5 lakh followers on Instagram.

In September 2024, Ahmed posted a video beginning with “5:30 baje uthke aisa kya ukhad loge?” (Translation: what’s going to you acquire out of waking up at 5:30) a hook that made his video go viral and gained him near 25,000 followers in a few week’s time.

Playing the algorithm

Another technique working nicely in favour of creators is working in collaboration with one another to share the entry to one another’s follower base to get an opportunity to realize extra subscribers.

“Collaborating with different creators helps unlock completely different narratives, as each’s fashion is exclusive,” stated Ishpreet Balbir, a storytelling creator with over 2.25 lakh instagram followers. He added that it permits creators to showcase their work to an viewers that will not know you or usually interact together with your fashion of content material on the platform.

However, Balbir careworn that the expansion in followers tends to be gradual, because it requires a number of types of publicity earlier than somebody decides to take a look at your work and hit the comply with button. “The problem lies in seamlessly integrating the opposite creator’s voice whereas sustaining your individual,” he stated.

Balbir posted a collection – ‘Ishi ki Khushi’ – with creator Khushbu Chandarana who primarily has a Gujarati viewers, which additionally featured actor Imran Khan. The movies posted between May and September 2024 reached over 5.6 million viewers, and he gained about 6,000 new followers in that period.

Creating movies on sizzling subjects and tendencies additionally helps get extra views than traditional. “Creating topical movies actually helps in getting extra views. If you make movies on a trending subject, it usually offers you 2-3 instances extra attain than a standard video,” stated Kunal Chhabhria, co-founder of expertise administration company CollabX Entertainment.

Creators have to make use of it to their benefit and provides it a novel contact so the viewers sticks round for extra of their content material.

“When one thing is trending, individuals hold seeing the identical form of content material repeatedly, so they begin skipping it. But once they see one thing completely different and extra enjoyable, they take pleasure in it extra and interact with it. This helps the video get extra views and attain in comparison with a daily reel,” Chhabhria stated, giving examples of creators resembling Ashish Chanchlani and Orange Juice Gang who’ve mastered this trick. “They carry innovation to trending subjects, which works nicely,” he concluded.

Apart from this, creators do take a look at shortcuts to spice up followers resembling giveaways and contests. However, that might not be essentially the most genuine and sustainable methods to develop.

“Creators usually incentivise viewers to subscribe by contests and giveaways to realize fast followers. However, such shortcuts aren’t essentially the most viable methods for long-term progress. The creator has to deal with constructing a loyal viewers who follows them for his or her content material. This they’ll do by partaking with them often, via reside periods, query and reply periods and group channels,” Sahni added.