Celebrity brands: Shraddha Kapoor - a social media play of varied hues

Through this week's celebrity brand segment, we attempt to dissect the Shraddha Kapoor social media strategy – one of the new-age actors, also popular with Gen Z amongst others, in recent times.

Vivacious, candid, relatable, fun & simple, are some of the traits that seem to define Shraddha Kapoor social media strategy. The actress describes her life as ‘Living the dream’. This segment attempts to decode the social media strategy of one of the new-age actors. Amongst the celebrity brands showcased, Shraddha Kapoor’s persona comes like a breath of fresh air & so does her social media strategy.

Apart from being popular amongst the millennial, Kapoor resonates in the world of brand endorsements, too. The actor was featured in Forbes List of 100 influential celebrities in 2019 at 28th position. With millions of followers on social media, the actor is often seen being vocal about the environmental issues, animal rights & even women empowerment. The actor launched her line of clothing for the ‘youth & the young at heart’, Imara, in association with Amazon.com back in 2015 and is known to dive into creative pursuits other than acting.

With many recent events, the actor’s popularity seems to be only increasing with the growing followers on Instagram and other platforms. What clicks about the actor with the Gen Z & garners mass appeal through her social media strategy? We attempt to decode with the help of Qoruz data.

Shraddha Kapoor Social Media Strategy- Overview

People from Bollywood are known to play many roles in reel & real life. With the advent of social media being like the ‘voice of the masses’ as mentioned by Shraddha Kapoor, they get the opportunity to share their ‘other’ side too. Kapoor is no exception to the provision. From sharing glimpses of her childhood to her goofy avatar, to film releases & promotions with a slice of life of the behind-the-scenes for the movies, the actor seems to leverage social media for almost all facets of her life.

Felicitated with the Youth icon award back in 2017 for the next at 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the starlet’s social media posts ranging from fashion, fitness & glam in tandem to her girl-next-door-like posts.

The prominent themes that emerge from her social media presence include #StayHomeStaySafe, #InThisTogether, Shyloh, #MajorThrowback, #SelfLove, love for nature, and music & dance for the last 6 months. Other themes according to Qoruz data are hashtags associated with filmography & brands endorsed by the diva.

The actor commenced 2020 with an attitude of gratitude & a let’s do this post with simultaneous movie promotions for #StreetDance3D

Further, Kapoor continued to share updates of her forthcoming movies, activities & brand associations. The song launch of one of her releases, #Baaghi3, even paved the way for memes, mostly intended at fun for #DusBahane2 remake.

As COVID-19 took a grip across industries, the actor practised #SocialDistancing with #HomeQuarantine while getting involved with many humanitarian activities in-line with her fondness for nature & animals. She even acknowledged & thanked the frontline workers, helping to alleviate the prevailing circumstances. She urged people to be like the voice for the voiceless & try to help the animals at such dire times.

The youth icon also accomplished the feat of garnering 50 million + followers in July 2020. She expressed a word of gratitude with a hand-written note to her viewers.

Another likeable trend of the actor is appreciating fans & making an effort to directly interact with them through Lives & other social media features. Her attitude of gratitude & love for people catapulted with relatable & ‘simple girl’ portrayal on social media is lauded by many across social media channels. The actor continued to update her fans with candid posts & videos associated with fitness regimes during the lockdown.

The actor attempts to practice what she preaches on social media, depicted through her support for the people from the fraternity & for causes.

The use of emojis is another trend that is observed through her posts.

Social Media Footprint & Analysis

Shraddha is most active on Instagram being the 3rd celebrity from India to have 50+million followers on the platform only after Virat Kohli & Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

She boasts of the following numbers across the social media platforms:

• Instagram - 55.1 million
• Facebook - 17.3 million
• Twitter - 13.3 million

The average engagement for the actor is most on Instagram, followed by Facebook & Twitter, suggest Qoruz data. The content affinity on her social media pages leans more towards movies, dance, clothing & beauty.

Instagram Overview:

According to Qoruz data, Shraddha Kapoor’s Instagram page witnesses a 2.98% engagement rate with a follower growth of 2.9 million in the last 30 days. Due to the visual nature of the medium, more than 50% of the actor’s posts are dynamic with average video views of 3 million.

Most of the Instagram followers speak travel, followed by style & fashion, & fitness comprising 71% of males & 29% females as the viewers.

Facebook Overview:

With an engagement rate of 0.25%, the actor’s Facebook page has seen a spike of 78.7K in the number of followers. The content performance & benchmark of Kapoor, as a celebrity influencer, is higher than the industrial average on the platform, suggests Qoruz data. There is a slight gap observed in the comments, likes & shares on the profile page.

Twitter Overview

Often vocal about various issues, the actor leverages twitter to raise her voice to the governing bodies, authorities & in case of prevailing issues associated with the environment & animal rights.

Shraddha Kapoor’s Twitter account shows a growth of 1.41% in the last 30 days with a considerable gap in the retweets & favorites for the actor’s posts. But the content performance on the platform again works well for the actor.

It is also observed that 93%+ audience speak English, followed by UK English & even the Arabic language on the actor’s page.

Kapoor’s post captions range from long to short ones to just an emoji to express. The usage of Purple Heart across her posts seems to be quite prevalent throughout her social media pages signifying understanding, empathy & friendship, further enhancing the relatable factor. The language used is primarily English, sometimes Marathi translated to Hindi & English.

The Post image of the actor usually involves herself, featuring co-actors in some cases & the beauty of nature in the background.

Also read: Celebrity brands: The Big B of social media…

Childhood, family & nostalgia

A noteworthy social media trait for the actor’s social media presence is sharing nostalgic posts of childhood, celebrating her family & people. The actor often shares a glimpse of the good old childhood days showcasing the little girl behind the glitz & glam. It also involves celebrating her father’s career in the film fraternity, supporting people from family & times spent together.

Goofy & Candid

The social media avatar of the actor also presents a sneak-peak of the actor’s candid & goofy personality capped with fun & comedy in real vs reel life. Sometimes, even the behind-the-scene posts shared to display the coy & comic persona of the star.

Animal Love & Shylo

A large part of Kapoor’s social media presence encompasses her pet dog, Shylo where she shares endearing moments with the pet. Her Facebook cover photo depicts both of them in a fun-moment.

With the lockdown, the actor’s love for animals & raising a voice to help them reverberated through her #LockdownZoos initiative across social media platforms.

Celebrating home

With the ongoing pandemic, the actor practiced precautionary measures & urged the viewers to adopt healthy habits & be grateful for the smallest of gifts in life.

Brand Associations

Shraddha featured in the 20th position in the Duff & Phelps Celebrity endorsement report of 2018. Reports suggest that the net worth of the actor is ₹53.8 Crore.

Touted to be valuing quality over quantity, the actor seems to be choosy about brand associations, too. From The Body Shop to Hershey’s to Real Me & Baggit, we observe the brand associated with the actor from across sectors.

According to Qoruz data, 50% of the brand endorsements by the actor are dominated by the cosmetics category, followed by Watches & eyewear, FMCG category, TV Channels & E-Commerce amongst the rest. Duff & Phelps 2018 report also pointed out that the actor was quite active in the personal care category for endorsements.

Back in 2019, Antara Kundu, Marketing Head, The Body Shop Asia – South was quoted as saying that Shraddha and her real-girl approach, as well as her advocacy of environmental sustainability, made her align with the brand & her role as the brand advocate for The Body Shop.

Other brand associations include Helo, Lipton Tea, Lakme & many more.

The Body Shop

Hershey’s 

Shraddha Kapoor is a crucial part of their social media strategy. She helps to boost campaigns, exposing it to her millions of followers.

Real me

Helo Superstar

Philanthropy

Apart from being an active participant in environmental activities with her stand for Aarey Forest in the last year & issues about women, the actor also attempted to provide monetary aids to the photographers impacted by the pandemic from the industry. Her initiative - #LockdownZoos for stray animals during the lockdown was praised by many.

The actor supported authorities such as MyBMC & urged people to stay stronger together.

#LockdownZoos

In one of the press reports & protests, Kapoor said, “I know we all love our earth and I want to be a better person. I hope it puts pressure on the government too.”

Leveraging Instagram Live & social media features

The actor leverages Instagram Live & fleet to interact with the audiences.

Love for dance & music

The actor is also popular as a dancer & a singer with a bond with Lata Mangeshkar. Another trend observed through her social media presence is celebrating music & even singing with her audience through various apps. She continually puts posts appreciating music especially by Lata Ji & her grandparents.

Filmography, Promotions & BTS

Apart from leveraging nostalgia, the actor attempts to entertain the followers with #Throwback posts, promotional tactics & BTS.

Leveraging topicals & news

The celebrity influencer stays abreast with news & topicals & consistently raises voice for the environment, & many social issues.

Nurse day

Ganesh Chaturthi

Kozhikode Air crash

Summing it up

Throughout Shraddha Kapoor Social media strategy, we observed that the actor aims to carve her social presence with ideologies resonating with her views, philosophies & varied slice of life moments. What stands out is the ‘down-to-earth’ imagery portrayed by the actor through the platforms & leverage it in an optimum manner to engage with the audiences & present the ‘real-girl’, humane characteristics which are not just a celebrity but also a daughter, woman, and a little girl.

As the actor rightly said, “Social media is the voice of the people and there are no filters there. Everyone has an equal chance of being heard, and that’s great. If you can reach out to millions of people through social media, and create awareness about the things that are threatening humanity, isn’t it fantastic?", we believe that the social media influencer strategy of the actor is on-point with her beliefs. It will be interesting to observe as to how the charismatic girl continues to spread positivity & acing her social media game in the near future