Celebrity Brands: Kartik Aaryan, the guy-next-door hits it off on social media

This segment of celebrity brands captures the social media strategy of a new-age actor, Kartik Aaryan who attempts to connect with his fans through monologues, quirks & humor.

Touted to be the guy-next-door, Kartik Aaryan is the new-age star & a brand in making who leverages social media, seemingly in-line with his persona & attributes his followers admire him for.

Be it spreading awareness through his quintessential rants or leveraging rap to deliver messages, the star is known for his candid nature, often seen on social media as he shares glimpses of his personal life, upcoming projects, and social messages.

His aura of relatability & mass appeal among millennials, Aryan's personality reflects in the brands he endorses.

The Gen Z actor resonates across brands, too for endorsements & associated initiatives. To support Indianism & showcase responsibility as an endorser, Aaryan stopped representing a popular Chinese mobile brand in the wake of the Indo-China tension.

Here's a snapshot of the Kartik Aaryan social media strategy, as the actor makes his personal brand stronger.

Social media strategy - Overview

#KokiPuchega, #HairLikeKartikAaryan2.0, #GoodNews, Gratitude, #TwistedFamily, #Throwback, Nostalgia, #KokiToki, #QuarantineLife, Jai Hind, #CoronaStopKarona, fun & humor are some of the prominent themes that emerge in Aaryan's social media strategy.

Throughout social media, the actor brings forth attributes of philosophy, pun & humor with love for memes, and upfront communication.

Nicknamed as Koki, the new-age actor is associated with many philanthropic activities. Previously the actor was involved with raising awareness on pollution caused by plastics & continues to be involved in charity efforts in 2020.

The actor started 2020 with dance, an AR filter & style.

This was followed by the release date & promotions for #LoveAajKal with Sara Ali Khan.

Aaryan spoke in a popular talk-show about how social media helped him to foray into Bollywood when he used some keywords to search for new role auditions. "It was through Facebook and Google that I used to look out for auditions. Because I didn't know anyone so I used to search for it,'' Kartik said.

Not forgetting his roots, Aaryan, often talks about his initial struggle of getting into the industry with throwback posts.

The actor also attempts to keep the humor quotient high & relatable by posting pictures of his family whom he funnily refers to as #TwistedFamily, sometimes.

As Coronavirus engulfed India, the actor aligned his popular rant format to spread awareness around the pandemic with the hashtag - #CoronaStopKarona.

The actor often creates content IPs to drive home messages - both personal & branded, especially on his YouTube Channel. When the world was depressed with sad news all around, the actor commenced 'Good news' - a series to cheer up his fans.

Kartik majorly leverages Twitter to voice opinions on news & pertinent issues apart from talking about whatever is trending, especially occasions.

On social media, the new-age actor seems to come forth as sporting and funny, much in-line with his reel persona.

Social Media Footprint – Analysis

The star in the making made it to the Forbes List of 100 influential celebrities, ranked at 67th position in 2019.

Aaryan started his Instagram account in 2014 and is the most active on the platform. 

He started his YouTube channel in August 2019, positioning it as a platform where his fans & well-wishers could witness "the real Kartik Aaryan, live in-action".

His social media footprint is as follows:

• Instagram - 19.6m
• Facebook - 2.8 million
• Twitter - 954.5K
• YouTube - 488K

The content hooks that emerge from the actors' social media pages include movies, content collaborations, fashion, brand endorsements, nostalgia, humor, memes, sporting messy hairstyles & beard-looks.

According to Talkwalker data, more than 40% of his posts are dynamic with short video formats on Instagram. Further, Kartik gained maximum traction for static image-based posts on Twitter with 50.9% of picture posts dominating the platform.

The data around Kartik Aaryan social media strategy further shows that audience activity & content appreciation were maximum in the last week of August 2020. In the same period, he was seen speaking about Cadbury Silk Pop the Heart campaign, with two other brand endorsements.

During this phase, there was also a viral video of 'Rasode mein Kon tha' with the actor asking his viewers about the trend in a quirky manner.

In the third week & last week of August 2020, an increase in Aaryan's audience activity in terms of retweets, mentions & likes on Twitter was seen. It seems to be in tandem with the actor sharing a meme & speaking about the retirement of MS Dhoni.

The actor seems to have witnessed a considerable spike in Instagram followers from December 2019 to August 2020

Reports also suggested that the actor was one of the firsts to have a dedicated Instagram filter to himself.

The captions used by Kartik range from being romanticized to sometimes flirty and personalized with quirky & humorous captions leveraging varied emojis capturing his various moods.

In Kartik Aaryan's social media strategy, it is seen that most of his posts feature him in the background, also his love for cats.

Also read: Celebrity Brands: The Shilpa Shetty social media strategy – from a diva to fitness guru

#TwistedFamily

The actor often features glimpses of his family life, especially his bond with mother and sister. As a part of the #GulaboSitabo tongue twister campaign, on being nominated by Big B, Kartik shared the goofy reaction of his family, as they would not believe that the veteran actor nominated him. 

The actor also keeps it simple on social media with home scenes posts & glimpses of family with wit & humor of his mom at the epicenter.

Brand Associations

According to the Duff & Phelps report, several millennial & Gen Z stars saw a rise in Brand Endorsements, especially through digital media campaigns. Kartik Aaryan occupied the second spot with 16 endorsements in 2019 with top brands such as Cadbury Silk, Emami Fair & Handsome, Armani, Manyawar, Boat & more.

According to sources, Kartik Aaryan's net worth in 2020 is estimated to be $3 million. Reports also suggest that Aaryan goes the 'extra miles' for his brand associations.

OPPO

Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk

Initiatives

During the pandemic, Kartik Aaryan supported the #DettolHandwashChallenge on TikTok. He was appreciated by leaders & audiences, alike for his 'Corona Stop Karona’ rap. He spoke against child abuse & urged people to maintain #socialdistancing with the rise in COVID cases across the country.

YouTube Strategy

To speak with the ground-level fighters, & discussing pertinent issues such as mental health, the actor launched various content series. One of the popular ones being- 'Koki Poochega' on his YouTube channel amplified through his social media pages.

This also included #KokiToki for fun & humor, Good News & Hunjee boys.

Collaborations & Banter with other stars

Keeping up his witty & humorous image, Aaryan engages with other actors in banter & influencer activities with tongue-in-cheek remarks. He also appreciates his peers for their work.

#Throwback

Another noteworthy trend is nostalgia. Be it past movies, moments, BTS, or days of the struggles, the actor expresses #Throwback posts to engage with the audience.

He even features his fans on his social media pages, sometimes directly responding to them on Instagram & Twitter.

Film promotions

With newer movie marketing trends & challenges with AR filters, coupled with digital as the mode of direct interaction, Kartik remains active with film promo posts & engagement activities. In one of his latest movie promotions, he engaged with viewers with #AskKartik.

Hashtag Game

Be it his content properties around Koki or hashtags such as #BeLikeKartikAaryan, Kartik's hashtags are almost as famous as his films.

He was once quoted saying, “There is this hashtag #PoseLikeKartikAaryan which has gone viral on social media and fans keep posing like me and I love that. I feel overwhelmed with so much love, affection, and admiration. Then there is this other hashtag #HairlikeKartikAaryan where people have started styling there hair like mine. There was this barbershop which had my hairstyle as an option to opt for. It feels surreal.”

Summing it up

Overall, the actor's 'Sabka Yaar Hoon Main' trait, positioning him as a relatable celebrity catapulted with direct & on-point dialogues, make him Gen Z favorite. With his continued efforts to spreading awareness through video properties, posts laden with sarcasm & humor possibly help him click with the masses.

With his upcoming movies, Bhool Bhullaiya 2 & Dostana 2, Kartik Aaryan will hopefully continue with his social media strategy, making his personal brand, one to resonate with.