New Delhi: To harness the reach of social media influencers — some of whom have millions of followers — the Congress government in Rajasthan has invited them to share the administration’s advertisements on their pages.
The money is good, depending on the number of followers a particular influencer has. And, it can go up to Rs 5 lakh.
On 26 June, Rajasthan’s Directorate of Information and Public Relations issued a notification inviting social media influencers to share government advertisements.
The notification defines four categories of influencers on the basis of their following — Category A are those with more than 100 million followers and Category D with more than 10,000.
Apart from the follower count, influencers will also need to provide proof of their social media activity. The notification lays down the number of videos and posts a certain page must have to be considered under a particular category.
While Category A influencers would need to have 100 videos or 150 posts, Category D influencers should have a minimum of 15 videos or 30 posts.
The Ashok Gehlot government has also stipulated the format of advertisements depending on the particular social media platform — videos and channel covers for YouTube, tweets for Twitter, thumbnails, reels, and posts for Instagram and Facebook.
In recent days, Union ministers S. Jaishankar and Smriti Irani have appeared on the YouTube channel of popular influencer BeerBiceps aka Ranveer Allahbadia. The podcasts drew much attention as the videos were shared with the caption: “Co-presented by MyGovIndia.”
Apar Gupta, the founder of Internet Freedom Foundation, recently shared a recent central government tender titled, ‘Request for Empanelment (RFE) for Selection of Influencer Marketing Agencies for Empanelment with MyGov’ which invited social media influencers and marketing agencies for “wider citizen engagement”.
While BeerBiceps has not sent in a bid nor received payment for his earlier video, there has been increasing efforts by the central government to bring in social media influencers as part of its outreach programs.
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal too has interacted with YouTubers about the scope for consumer awareness through their platforms.
Also read: Is Gehlot destroying Rajasthan’s economy through freebies? Data shows this isn’t the case