Influencer Archives - Exhibit Tech

TECHNICAL GURUJI – Tech Influencer Of The Year

Ex : How did your content creation journey kick start?
I have been an active viewer of YouTube for a long time. And when I was done with my college, I thought, why not share some of the stuff that I have learned with the masses? That’s how it all started in 2015, as a new way to keep myself busy during my free time and a new hobby to explore. I had studied electronics, and that’s the reason I chose the tech domain. The idea was to simplify some of the complex tech terms and to make them easy to understand for the masses.

Ex : What is your most viral reel/short & how did the idea come, and how long did it take to shoot?
My most viral reel is the one where I’m packing a Nothing Phone 2. It’s got over 65 million views with over 3.6 million likes. So, at the end of the reel, I said I made Nothing; it was with a quirk because the name of the phone was Nothing, and all it took was a minute to shoot. Then, for YouTube, it’s a short where we recreated Akshay Kumar’s iconic dialogue, “ek tera, ek mera”. We replaced the pile of money with the pile of iPhones, and it got more than 25 million views.

Ex : Any 4 creators you want to collaborate with in the future?
Internationally, it would be CrazyRussianHacker – Taras Kulakov. He is an OG YouTuber who makes different kinds of quirky videos. Now, he is doing something unique, but he used to do survival hacks, gadgets, and cool stuff back in the day. Then, A. R. Rahman Sir – he is not a content creator, but the reason I’m saying A. R. Rahman is because I feel that he is too inclined towards technology. I have seen a few of his videos where he is using some high-tech gadgets to produce music, where he is producing music with hand gestures. So, if I ever get a chance to collaborate with A. R. Rahman, it would be amazing to see his take towards technology and how exactly we can blend tech and art.

Ex : Tell us about a project that you are proud of.
So, it is the entire journey of Technical Guruji, the project TG. I’ve been producing a video daily for the last 8 years, and along with YouTube, many things are happening, like Instagram, Radio, TV, and multiple things coming together, including meeting people, travelling, and covering everything, so the entire project TG would be something I am proud of.

Ex : Give us one or more hashtags describing yourself.
#chill #cool #fun #tech #technicalguruji #chaliyeshurukartehain #TGfamily

Ex : What’s the first-ever trend that you hopped on?
Honestly, I never really hopped on to any trend because I don’t consider myself a social media-friendly person. Sometimes, I’m late to the table, but I have been in a position to start a few trends, and without knowing, I’ve done numerous.

Ex : How the creator landscape will look like 10 years from now?
So, this is just the beginning that we have right now. What I feel is that with each passing day, multiple new creators are coming online across different platforms, and all these platforms are going to flourish in 10 years. Then, we’ll see the real scenario with the likes of Metaverse and everything coming in, changing the entire industry landscape.

Ex : What’s the next big thing in the pipeline for you?
I’ve got two of my shows coming on the NDTV network and Gadgets 360. So the next big thing for me would be to have something wherein I’m able to reach more and more eyeballs with each passing day, and it could be via TV, offline, online, or a mix of it.

Ex : Advice you would like to give to budding creators?
Have your own personality, and do not try to be like someone. Do it if you want to do it, add some more value from your side, and think about what’s missing on the table. Also, never go for numbers, and never have high expectations. It will take time – it might happen in two months, two years, five years, or two nights.

How To Grow Your Personal Brand On Instagram?

Are you on Instagram? Of course, you are. Instagram has more than 1.2 billion users worldwide, and that’s nearly 15% of the whole planet’s population. Such a vast audience, right? Amongst all these Instagrammers, 95% of them use the platform as a time-killing app, but have you ever thought that this one app can help you build a promising career?

If you’re in a field that benefits from having an audience, especially if you’re into a creative field like photography, modelling, fitness, cooking, etc, your Instagram feed can become your modern-day portfolio. Instagram is a rapidly growing platform that you cannot ignore as it helps you influence worldwide and gives you the freedom to do something that you always wanted. But how can one grow as a personal brand? Take a deep breath, sit back, and I’ll guide you in brief.

Username:

You only have a few seconds to make a good impression, so knock it off and make a good one. The first thing people will notice is your username, so keep it as short and simple as possible. As you’re a personal brand, it’s a great idea to use your real name, or you can personalize an attractive name that will suit your feed and profession. Whatever it is but don’t complicate your username with any unnecessary symbols or numbers; it’ll help you stand out. Mention what you are, where you are from, and what’s your profession in bio, but in a decent and short text, don’t overdo it, and keep changing over time.

Know Your Audience:

In a world where social media matters more than anything, having the right audience is the key to success. It’s important how you connect with them visually; you have to be clear about what you’re going to add to their daily feed. If you’re into a creative field, then create a specific tone-vibe and use relatable but interesting captions to bring them to you as at the end of the day, they’re going to remember you by your work. The same applies to the rest of the fields; know your audience, know what they’re looking for and create your page accordingly.

Instagram Aesthetic:

What kind of difference do you notice when you visit your favourite Influencers feed and a regular Instagrammer’s feed? Yes, what you’re thinking is absolutely right, the aesthetics, the way they’ve composed their pictures. A well planned Instagram feed can visually convey brands in a second, as it shows how professional and passionate you’re about your work. You can learn how to set the aesthetic just by visiting your favourite profiles, are they bright and lively, or are they following some patterns? Note such things down and decide which one is suitable for you. These little things will not only give you a decent account but also helps you in building a fanbase. If you want to stay ahead of the game, then pre-plan your feed with Later’s Visual Instagram Planner because staying organized is always a great option.

Creative Editing:

The film is made in the editing room, so the Instagram feed. The essence of every art is editing, and learning it is like adding one more feather of art to your portfolio. Adopting the same or set of filters and following the same editing rules will help you keep your photos looking consistent. Adobe Lightroom, Snapseed and VSCO are the most helpful and must learn apps if you plan to level up your Instagram photos and work on aesthetics.

Amongst these, Snapseed and VSCO are pretty easy to use; if you’re looking to edit your images in less than three-four taps, then these two are best, but if you want a more professional look for your pictures, then I would recommend Adobe Lightroom, by far one of the most powerful photo editing tools out there. Also, keep these things in mind while editing your photos on an app, the temperature, brightness, and contrast, maintain these things to keep your feed consistent.

Replying to Comments:

If you have thousands of followers, then it’s not humanly possible to reply to each of them, but if you’re just started or into a developing phase, this will work great. Just a simple thanks will work wonders, even if they’re trolling you.

Hashtags:

Your personal brand is the intention behind your outward-facing interactions with the world, and you might think that with aesthetics and creative editing, you can create a decent fanbase, but what about a worldwide reach? Well, a hashtag is an answer to that. Research on what your fellow Instagrammers are hashtagging, create your hashtag to get noticed quickly, appeal to your audience about using the same hashtags, and add tagged picture stories to make them happy; these little interactions will help you go beyond the boundaries. If you’re looking for a hashtag generator, use Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder, the site will help you with the best hashtags to use for Instagram. Also, if you’re posting some brand-related content, even if it’s non-sponsored, don’t forget to tag the brands; who knows, they might feature or repost you in their next post.

With all these tips, you can have a fair head start over your competition, so don’t wait for the right day; go on, seize the opportunity.

Beebom | Top 100 | Influncex’20

Ex: Tell us about a change you’ve seen in the digital blogging space since you started out your journey? How has this space evolved?

Beebom: The changes in the digital space are more rapid than any other industry and in the past 10 years or so, we’ve seen a lot. What’s cool today might not be there after a few years, things move that fast in the Internet era and you always have to keep up with it. If you don’t, then you might not even be on the map. It’s the same for content creators, and the platforms they’re on.

Ex: Can you give us an insight into social media platforms that only an Influencer can know?

Beebom: If you do it right, then you will see a lot of success in terms of the engagement and reach but if you don’t optimize your content as per the platform and try to repurpose the same content on all platforms then you might not reach the full potential. It’s something you learn once you start making content for the online audience.

Ex: What would be your calling in a parallel universe? (Alternate career options)

Beebom: As the co-founder of Beebom, I’ve started working on it at the beginning of my 20s and now I am at the end of my 20s and it’s the only thing I ever worked on.

Ex: If you were stranded on an island, what are the 3 gadgets you’d take along?

Beebom: I’d take my iPhone, my MacBook, and my Airpods Pro because that’s all I use these days.

Ex: A technology you wished you’d invented?

Beebom: A hybrid foldable phone that wraps around the hand and becomes a smartwatch and that too in a budget of most people. I am working on it, maybe.

Ex: What’s been your favorite encounter with a fan so far? (DMs included!)

Beebom: I was in my hometown shopping some essentials for the home with my mother and we stopped at a shop selling towels and the person who worked there recognized me and started having a conversation followed by a selfie request and when I got out of the shop my mother told me that it’s because of you we couldn’t bargain. We could have gotten a better price for these towels and we both laughed.

Ex: Social Media is known to expose vulnerabilities, with influencers being at the epicenter. How do you deal with the dark side that comes with the medium?

Beebom: Since we’re in the business of introducing and reviewing new tech to our audience, we maintain that space very well. We don’t post unnecessary stuff and try to give our opinions only on tech. Sometimes, we need to take a stand in tech as well but we do ensure that we make a comment after properly understanding the situation and forming an opinion basis of true facts.

Ex: What does success mean to you?

Beebom: Success is the celebration of reaching a milestone and planning for the next one while you’re at it., and so on. If you’re happy doing whatever you’re, you’re already successful.

Ex: What are your three favorite photo/video editing tools?

Beebom: We use all the Adobe software and Final Cut Pro as the razor-sharp forged in fire weapons of our choice for video and image editing.

Ex: A machine/gadget that you’re obsessing over right now?

Beebom: It has to be the Boston Dynamics robot dog that costs a whopping $75,000!

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The Fluence of Influencers September 2020

The viral issue in the new normal. Last year, we started one of our strongest IPs, where we curated 250 content creators who in their category had been relevant, with a meaningful fan following and put them up for public voting to choose “The Top 100” Class of 2019. Almost immediately, we had a huge spike in our web traffic; touching 500k hits daily as a consequence of these content creators who had influenced their fans to go and vote. This is when realisation dawned that they are real influencers! What came next was our first-ever Influencex awards where the “Top 100” had flown in from different parts of the country for the “Influencex” awards night. The vibe was strictly informal and it soon converted to one big party. The celebration still continues and thereafter we started a dedicated “Influencer marketing Division” which has been busy ever since with curating and executing huge influencer marketing campaigns.

This year we repeated last year’s event, albeit with a twist. Our website continued to spike during the voting days to 5000%. Nothing changed. Only the awards went virtual right from this screen. We fixed one day and all the winners came together one by one. It was a field day chatting on Zoom sessions with 15 winners across – Entertainment, Fitness, Tech, Travel, Fashion, Lifestyle, Social Media ,Beauty, Changemaker, Gaming, Food and Automobile. All of them have a few things in common, they have huge fan bases – If I put all the following of only these 15 of them it would stack up to 50 Million+. Secondly, they are all chilled out and know what they are doing and come up trial and error and thirdly, humble with feet on the ground.

The entire day-long session has been curated and cut to feel like an awards ceremony into a 30-minute session and is resting pretty at our channel youtube.com/exhibitmagazine. The process of choosing the winners is also straight forward. There is no jury round and it’s up for public voting with some tech in play which will map votes to the unique IP and the results have always been “on display” mode since day one of voting.

Here’s to the new era of Infleuncers and marketers to have a new honorific in their blue book which has quickly flipped pages to the fore of their communication strategies and medium.

Shehrezade Shroff | Top 100 | Influncex’20

Ex: Tell us about a change you’ve seen in the digital blogging space since you started out your journey? How has this space evolved?

Shehrezade: I started out about 8- 9 years ago when there were very few creators in the country. Now, we’ve grown drastically and there’s content for everyone. Now it’s an actual career option for people which I think is amazing.

Ex: What would be your calling in a parallel universe? (Alternate career options)

Shehrezade: I think it would have to be law. I’ve studied law, I’m a B.A LLB.

Ex: If you were stranded on an island, what are the 3 gadgets you’d take along?

Shehrezade: I would take my iPad, my vlog camera to document it all, and amazon echo for entertainment.

Ex: A technology you wished you’d invented?

Shehrezade: Anything that’s Apple. I feel like I am a complete Apple geek!

Ex: What’s been your favorite encounter with a fan so far? (DMs included!)

Shehrezade: One which I will always remember and cherish is my relationship with Ruchi who is a subscriber that I met at my very first meet and greet at the first YouTube fanfest and she was a cancer survivor then. She told me that she watched my videos through chemo and a couple of years later she also won a makeover contest on my channel and I got to spend the day with her and give her a makeover which is amazing!

Ex: Social media trolling is seeing an upward rise. Do you think this only increases with the popularity of an Influencer? How does one tackle this situation?

Shehrezade: So I think that my approach with trolling is pretty similar. I usually respond to any kind of trolling. I never let it slide. I always tell them that this is not cool, that there’s always a polite way of putting a point forward.

Ex: What does success mean to you?

Shehrezade: I think success means to me being happy you of doing what I do and being good at my job.

Ex: What according to you will be the next big trend in the Lifestyle blogging industry?

Shehrezade: It’s hard to say, but I feel like after Covid you will be seeing a lot more in terms of content creation. I feel like there will definitely be a boon and a surge in the industry once things start to open up.

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Mayank Bhattacharya | Top 100 | Influncex’20

Ex: Tell us about a change you’ve seen in the digital blogging space since you started out your journey? How has this space evolved?

Mayank: It’s a profession now. I mean irrespective of the popular belief, being a full-time blogger or a content creator is an actual job description now. Kids look up to Tanmay Bhat and Felix. People aspire to become a full-time YouTuber or influencer and this wasn’t the case when I was starting out in 2012.

Ex: Can you give us an insight into social media platforms that only an Influencer can know?

Mayank: YouTube builds communities, Instagram is quite personal. Twitter is a great conversation starter. So, don’t let the numbers get to you.

Ex: What would be your calling in a parallel universe? (Alternate career options)

Mayank: A fighter pilot in the Indian AirForce.

Ex: If you were stranded on an island, what are the 3 gadgets you’d take along?

Mayank: My pocket-knife, the beloved Seiko SKX 007 and an electronic lighter to light it up!

Ex: A technology you wished you’d invented?

Mayank: Camera, Maybe

Ex: What does success mean to you?

Mayank: Living in the moment, being balanced and genuinely enjoying the process. Also, did I mention happiness? Happiness is a big principle for me now. Success is happiness.

Ex: What according to you will be the next big trend in the Lifestyle blogging industry?

Mayank: Self-improvement. Real, truthful self-improvement. It has always been a major element of a balanced Lifestyle and I think it will only get bigger and better in the future. Because lifestyle is a way in which a person lives. And living for me, has slowly and steadily transpired a lot into being one’s best self, being balanced and being happy. So I feel charting the path of self-improvement and seeking happiness along with balance will become an evident part of the industry.

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Sonal Chahaun Shares Some Tricks To Slay this Summer

The unapologetic, mesmerizing, model turned actress whom we have known long enough to recognize her from her debut in Jannat which was the biggest hit of that year, Sonal Chauhan. In an exclusive interview with Krishti Khound, she walks us through how she cruises through summer and what goes in her head about her fitness routine.

Ex: Hi Sonal! Over the decade of your stardom, you have always striven to convention churning out memorable performances. How do you look back at it now?
SC: Honestly, it is so overwhelming and doesn’t feel like it’s been so long since I got my debut film in Bollywood and went to South Africa to shoot for Jannat. The movie was so well accepted by the audience that it all feels like a dream from the day I moved into the city and started my journey as an actress. It was definitely a huge accomplishment that I am extremely proud of. I also had an amazing experience in the Southern film industry as it gave me an opportunity to grow as a performer. I look forward to performing challenging roles, I am hungry as an artist. The love and the recognition I have got so far from my fans and the people across makes my heart warm. I hope that the journey continues for a very long time.

Ex: Being a part of Bollywood, what were the challenges that came along your way?
SC: The biggest challenge for me was being an outsider who had no connection in the movie or the glamour industry. I come from a very conservative Rajput family my dad who was in the services. Absolutely nobody to ask for guidance. The initial journey was definitely a tough one, it wasn’t as if I began receiving film offers straightaway. The second challenge was that I am an introvert for which it was really difficult to ask for work since that’s how the industry works.

Ex: It might come to you as a surprise but your looks on social media have garnered the hearts of your followers and fans Do you have any tricks to keep up with the cool quotient in the summer?
SC: That’s really nice to know. I am overwhelmed with the support and encouragement I get through my fans. Social media can take a toll on you sometimes but as far as my cool quotient is concerned, it’s the way I am. I don’t pretend to be someone else. I don’t have a social media team behind me I post everything by myself and that’s what connects to my followers.

Ex: Are you someone who gets bored too easily? Tell us how you cruise through your day?
SC: On the contrary, I don’t get bored at all. I am somebody who can stay alone for days at a stretch because I am an introvert. On a day when I am not working, I make it a point to go to the gym, go out.

Ex: With a job like yours comes intensive travelling while juggling in between shoots, especially in the heat. How do you keep your cool?
SC: A trick that works for me is ‘mind over matter’ even when I had to shoot in 50° and that is the biggest challenge of my job. To keep me cool my mantra would be to stay hydrated, protect my skin with sunscreen and eat light which basically means to intake a lot of fruits.

Ex: Fashion is experimental and revolutionary. What are the few summer trends that have kept you hooked religiously?
SC: When it comes to summer fashion, I like clothes which help you breathe. My go-to look will always be denim shorts paired up with a white t-shirt. I prefer pastel shades, easy fabrics like cotton and definitely my sunglasses which are really handy when you talk about summer.

Ex: Are you into fitness and weight training? We’d love to know your thoughts about it?
SC: Yes, I am big time into fitness and I do a mix of everything. It is important to keep yourself physically active in whichever way possible and I always maintain that. So in the summers, I hit the pool because swimming is one of the best exercises for the entire body and at the same time helps you beat the heat. I also like to do weights to keep myself toned, or dance for an hour or go cycling, and do yoga to keep my peace of mind.

Ex: How does Sonal Chauhan unwind her day?
SC: I unwind by speaking to my parents, listening to music, basically falling asleep while binging shows on Netflix.

QUICKIES

What’s your cool quotient?
It has to be my dry, dark sense of humour which offends a lot of people.
One travel hack?
To travel light so that you can shop more and explore the place.
One food routine that you follow, especially during summers?
A lot of hydrating drinks from coconut water to juices.
One thing that without which you cannot move out?
Definitely, my phone.
One tech essential that helps you beat the summer heat?
I would say Air Conditioner but those mini handheld electric fans are a blessing while on a shoot.
What are you most excited about 2020?
If you ask about the recent future it would be my trip to Maldives that I’m planning.