Ayush Shukla, Founder, Finnet Media shares his opinion on how financial influencers or Finfluencers have an added responsibility and suggests ways in which they can make the best of their content.

As easy and quirky the finance Reels might look, converting them from the vision of a brand to the style of a creator is not a cakewalk. Working as a marketer and being a Financial Influencer who are largely called Finfluencers and a content creator myself, I understand what the responsibility of lacs of followers can feel like. The first rule is to listen to the brands and creators carefully. In this form of marketing, more credibility is involved. It is always the brand value that becomes the show stopper. Be it the personal brand of the creator of the company, both want to flourish and thus make the audience better off. Once you can derive what the brand stands for, or its messaging, the road ahead is simpler.

Also Read: Opinion: Adding life to BFSI marketing…

Here are a few things to keep in mind for brands when they leverage the financial influencers or Finfluencers for marketing- 

1. Brief- understanding the niche of the brand and their product/service is extremely important. Once you have a hold on that, delivering the same mood/niche to the creator is essential. There should be zero gaps or unfulfillment from the brand. And as we deal with brands like Smallcase, Groww, Cred, etc more on the BFSI niche, we always derive well defined deliverables to work on. With this industry being a high risk industry, there should be no room for misunderstanding or mistakes from our side. 

2. Recall- The brand recall value is the most important tool to boost traction of a brand. The sentiment of the brand needs to be captured well. Is it quirky? Or too serious? Or what type of audience it is targeting? Is performance marketing bringing in more brand conversions? You need to gauge everything possible. You provide value to the brand, the creators provide value to the audience, and the audience recalls the brand. Works wonders, and no wonder the traditional form of marketing is dying. 

3. Creators Compatibility - It is on our part to deliver the sentiments of the brands to the creators. Their content is totally driven from the wants of the brand. So leveraging a compatible creator who can get under the skin of the brand, understand the rhythm and nerves of the company. It is crucial to let them carry their style. Letting them stay true to their social media personality and using this creative freedom to deliver the message is the most delicate part. Understand where you need not interfere anymore. There’s always a taste the audience develops with the creators. Audience has unique tastes for every influencer. What goes well with Sharan Hegde’s style might not go with Anushka Rathod’s style because of their unique personality. Let their creativity breathe in the content.

4. More Responsibility For High Risk Industry - Financial influencers are technically educating the audience about their money. What is at stake is the hard earned money of the people who can possibly take the influencers by their word. Hence, these guys are technically influencing more tangible outcomes than any other niche. To deliver value we need to be completely genuine with the product. It is imperative that the creator feels like he/she truly resonated with the product/service. The audience is smart these days. They need to know the fininfluencer really loves using that product/service and not just because of the partnership.

5. Increased Competition - This wave of fintech has opened numerous avenues for startups to grow and beat other competitors. We have more than 15 unicorns in the fintech industry itself. There are more than 1800 fintech startups operating in India. The competition is crazy and as an influencer marketing agency we need to take utmost care of the quality of product. We cannot act like cattle in this bullish sentiment of startups. There is always a challenge to choose the right brands, the brands that provide value, that we personally have used and liked, that make our lives easier, that need to be heard by the masses. Promoting a brand of average quality service comes off as unprofessional and deliberate. 

Lastly, this is a people’s business. A healthy relationship with all the stakeholders matters. You don’t want to miss out on the great value and network these talented creators and the successful brands bring with them. Right from briefing to the delivery of the content, we treat every project like our child with full credibility and reliability. The continued relationships with the brands is a proof of it.

The article is authored by Ayush Shukla, the Founder of Finnet Media.