It has been weeks since Viraj Sheth posted a clarion call of sorts on Instagram, announcing his search for the next big creator in India. His team has still been going through the responses they received.
The announcement by the CEO and co-founder of Monk Entertainment — a creative digital media organisation, started in 2017, which represents a host of familiar faces you might have seen online including creators Niharika NM, Komal Pandey, Nancy Tyagi and Yashraj Mukhate — received over 49,000 responses. These were from beauty content creators, crochet enthusiasts, nutritionists, food vloggers, architects, photographers, singers, parenting experts, and more.
His motivation, Viraj tells us, is very simple. “We have been doing this for seven years and I feel like now is the time to start giving back. While we always sign on popular talent we can groom and take to the next level, we have not really worked with content creators from scratch,” Viraj explains.
Over the last few years, influencers or content creators with an engaged following on social media have taken over the our mobile screens. They might talk about anything; food, fashion, politics, sports or tech, but are most importantly, an essential part of marketing, given their solid, sizable audiences.
Amidst constant chatter about the relevance of influencers, and if the influencer economy is dying, the need to become ‘someone’ on the Internet seems to be well and truly alive. Viraj recalls how companies were wholly unfamiliar with terms such as influencers and the creator economy, when he started in 2017, but says times have now certainly changed. In his announcement, Viraj declares that the influencer marketing industry is going to be worth ₹7,000 crore in 2025.
Fashion, beauty, podcasting, food, and technology are Viraj’s top five genres that he says are highly rewarding given how most consumer brands exist in these spaces. “These brands are the ones actively spending on marketing through influencers,” he says.
“I don’t think this market is saturated by any means,” Viraj adds. And he is preaching to a generation that is well and truly addicted to the endless stream of reels. “We are a country of a billion people, and there is always more room for creators, and there are millions of brands that actively want to work with these creators. Which creators will flourish, however, depends on who is authentic and creating the right kind of content,” he says.
A virtual hit
So what should you be doing to be that ‘someone’ on the Internet in 2025? Viraj firstly has some news for us, that lays to rest some cloying trends. “This is going to be the year of people abstaining from creating over-the-top videos with trending and dramatic music. This next big wave will have people only strictly wanting to connect with accounts that truly resonate with what they are thinking,” he says.
He also predicts that it will be time for actual skill and subject experts, who are often camera shy, to finally get in front of the camera. “There will be a focus on people who have done or built interesting things offline or have a certain kind of expertise. Earlier, people became creators first and subject experts later. Now there will be a flip of the same, and these people will take over, and build communities around their expertise,” Viraj explains.
The AI conundrum
With AI influencers now becoming a thing, Viraj emphatically states that there is no way he sees AI influencers and creators replacing humans online anytime soon.
As someone who is chronically online, Viraj says it has become quite easy to spot these profiles as well. “There is a classic dead-eye stare, or even blurry movements,” he says.
“Our basic physiological needs include the need for human connection, and to engage with people who have similar thought processes, likes and dislikes — an experience that only humans can provide. Having AI take over the creator space is dangerous, and I hope that online platforms come up with the right kind of safety measures to protect its users,” he says.
For India’s next big creators, they are hoping to discover and mentor three creators. “We have stipulated a minimum time frame of one year that they need to work with us. We want to give them the right resources, and give them wings to grow and solidify their online presence,” he adds.
So while dramatic declarations are made quite periodically by people about how creator culture will soon be dead, Viraj begs to differ. “The influencer marketing industry cannot die overnight especially given the economics of it all,” he says. “People are not going to instantly stop doom scrolling, and if Instagram does disappear, there is definitely going to be a new platform that will take over.”
Published – March 25, 2025 05:17 pm IST