: The moment brands stop looking at Metaverse as a gimmick they will be able to leverage it: Karthik Nagarajan #IndiaNEWS #Agency Thought Leaders Karthik Nagarajan shares his thoughts on trends in content

The moment brands stop looking at Metaverse as a gimmick they will be able to leverage it: Karthik Nagarajan #IndiaNEWS #Agency Thought Leaders
Karthik Nagarajan shares his thoughts on trends in content marketing, data based storytelling, personalized measurement metrics and more

In conversation with Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India and Head- Branded Content, GroupM India, Social Samosa attempts to understand how the content space has evolved, the role of data in content marketing, and the importance of sustainability for brands.

Edited Excerpts:

What are some of the content marketing trends seen in 2022?

Advocacy or influencer marketing is the new social media. For the last seven to eight years, we used to think of social media, as the fulcrum of content marketing. Whatever it is that you did in content marketing, fundamentally, you will land it on social media. Currently, it is not an overstatement if you say that whatever youre doing in content marketing, you will fundamentally anchor it on creators or influencers.

Content marketing has never been as data-driven as it is today. For every decision we make on an influencer or a celebrity, 100 different data points come into play whether it is the right audience, is the following of the creator genuine, or whenever the creator makes brand posts, does it work as well as other posts?

Content marketing has become more of a lower funnel performance tool as much as it is a middle funnel tool. We were trying to drive preference and conservation through that, but today, many of the large clients, especially in the beauty and definitely in the technology space measure success in terms of conversions and commerce goal posts. These are some of the big trends that are happening.

As more guidelines, like those of ASCI, come in, which require creators & brands to tag branded content do you think that this form of marketing has lost its touch?

No, this regulation will actually make it a bigger force than it ever was. Im a big fan of everything being transparent to the end user. I think it is very critical. The argument is that if a fan today knows that this is paid for, then he or she might not be convinced with it. Thats an argument that I completely disregard. Today, the relationship between a creator and his or her following is very strong. The audience understands that for the creator, this is the vocation and there are certain brands for whom there are certain content pieces for which the creator gets paid and the audience is absolutely okay with it. In the same way, the audience was okay with a movie star doing a television commercial knowing fully well that the movie star is probably getting paid top money for that.

The grey area here is that there is an element of trust.