Creators say Bye-Bye to Freebies

What’s else in Store Today? 🎁

  • NAS meetup in Bangalore 🫂

  • Farm-fluencing is rising 🌾

  • Who is Kyra? 👩

  • NFTs goes Mainstream 🔉

Nothing in this world comes for free

Recently, the Government of India has enforced a 10% TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) on social media promotions of freely received products starting from July 1st, 2022. Doctors will also be required to pay a 10% TDS for promoting any pharmaceuticals they receive from companies.

There will be an exemption if: a) The goods are returned, b) If there is a cash discount, sales discount, or refund under section 194R of the Income Tax Act, c) The number of free benefits doesn’t exceed 20k in a year.

Barter collaborations will take a hit: A lot of small brands that cant invest heavily in influencer marketing, work on the barter system wherein they exchange their products for a video or post. Micro-influencers welcome this exchange as its stepping stone to monetization. Due to this 10% TDS, they’ll have to resort to conventional methods of transaction for partnerships.

Content Creation is gaining recognition: The 10% tax is a clear indication that governments are accepting content creation as a viable career option that has a huge contribution to the country’s GDP.

Crossover we all wanted

Recently, NAS Daily organized a meetup for all the content creators, startup founders, investors, and developers in Bangalore. The major purpose was to bring those people together who are shaping the future of the Indian Creator Economy. PS – Our founder, Alan was in attendance and had a good ol’ time!

Encourages networking & collaboration 💪: Humans thrive on social interaction and meetups like these enforce that. Like-minded individuals with similar interests all under one roof talking about what each of them is up to and how together they will change the face of the Indian Creator Economy. 

Sharan Hegde (Finance with Sharan), Nikhil Kamath (Co-Founder – Zerodha), and Varun Mayya (CEO & Founder – Avalon Labs) were some of the top dawgs in attendance. 

Farming+Influencing = FarmFluencing

FarmFluencers are creators who create content on new farming methods, irrigation, weed control, pesticide use, the proper way to utilize fertilizers, the purchase of high-quality seeds, the proper approach to the market, and other issues that concern farming or planting.

This niche has been growing quite rapidly, so much so that a few farm influencers like Indian farmers, Farming Guruji, Farming Leader, etc. have amassed huge amounts of subscribers in just a few years.

Much-needed addition👌: Farming has always been associated with a rural profession and has immense stereotypes. With the addition and rise of influencers in this field, people in the urban areas are also getting more informed about this important field.

Lesson to Learn: The content that adds value directly or indirectly to a viewer’s life will always thrive in the long term. Farm influencers have been creating videos that consist of effective DIY tips and new farming technologies. Such content helps in minimizing effort and produces effective results.

Who is Kyra?

Kyra is India’s first virtual influencer, which means she is a fictional person who has taken up content creation as a profession. According to Kyra’s Instagram bio, she is Mumbai-based and is a “dream chaser,” “model,” and “traveler.”

Himanshu Goel, the business director of Top Social India, created Kyra- which has over 112K followers in only a matter of a few months, and has started partnering with brands as well.

🤖 are taking over?: Earlier it used to be blue-collar jobs, now content creation too. Virtual bots have started creating competition for human influencers(feels weird reading it, right?) which means that if creators want to sustain longer in this field, they have to be totally at it.

Brands will rejoice 🤩: Virtual influencers like Kyra, will bring smiles to a lot of brands who are always looking out to do something innovative. Moreover, studies have shown that virtual influencers have a higher engagement rate than humans. Also, there are lesser technical or physical limitations when it comes to working with virtual influencers. 

NFTs goes Mainstream

Organizations like Instagram and Spotify have rolled out beta-test features for creators to promote their NFTs on the platforms. This can prove to be a pivotal point toward a bright future.

New income stream 💰:  Whenever a mainstream platform implements a new feature, it is bound to gain skyrocketing popularity. Exhibit A: Instagram Reels.

Similarly, these new features on Instagram and Spotify can become a major revenue stream for creators, by helping them market their personalized digital assets to the entire world.

More freedom and control for creators 😎:  With this step, creators get to decide what type of content they want to produce, the price they want to trade their assets at, and how they want to market them. 

Digital assets can prove to be a sustainable revenue stream for creators which will help them in accomplishing dream projects and assist them in taking more control over their work.

Listed is working relentlessly to help creators capitalize on this futuristic opportunity and change the face of the creator economy.

Ending Note:

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See you soon, buddy! 👋