Political influencer marketing will only grow — at least until something catastrophic happens. And without regulation, the situation will get worse. The state will not regulate it seriously, because those in power benefit from it.
Published Nov 03, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 03, 2025 | 11:04 AM
Social media and politics.
Synopsis: Influencer marketing accounts for nearly 5 percent of India’s total digital advertising industry, showing that what began as a brand-promotion tool has evolved into a major communication channel — one that political actors have quickly learned to exploit.
Popular actors, sportspersons or social media personalities praising the government, a scheme, or a political party has become frequent. Multiple social media handles sharing the same message, too, have become common, earning the sobriquet of copy-paste brigade.
The uninitiated might assume that the personality they are following would have researched the issue and understood it before endorsing it with conviction. This often leads others to share the same view as that of the celebrity.
However, not many are aware that the celebrity they admire does not even fully know about the scheme or political party they are promoting. This is a new marketing technique that has grown exponentially in India.
Welcome to the world of influencer marketing. Celebrities charge anywhere from tens of thousands to several lakhs of rupees for posting a single social media update to influence their followers.
A recent example: the social media campaigns that followed the Karur stampede incident.
On 27 September, 41 people were killed at a Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam rally in Karur. Even before a proper investigation into the crowd crush was conducted, social media erupted with debates, trying to assign responsibility and determine what triggered the tragedy.
These debates quickly escalated into one side attacking the other, and several social media influencers — many with hundreds of thousands of followers — posted in support of one faction or the other.
Strikingly, most influencers who suddenly turned experts on social media had not made any political posts before. For the first time, they openly endorsed a political party, blamed a rival party or individual, and took an obvious political stance. This triggered widespread speculation that the influencers were paid for making such posts.
South First reviewed more than 50 such influencer accounts and confirmed that none of them had posted any political content earlier.
Influencer marketing, which was once used only to promote products, businesses, and brands, has now become increasingly dominant in politics. The rapid digital evolution, combined with the social media-savvy youth, has made influencers a major force, shaping political opinion. They are the new opinion leaders.
According to various studies, “social media influencers are a new type of independent third-party endorsers who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and other forms of social media.”
Researchers also described them as “individuals who build personal brands, maintain relationships with followers, and have the ability to inform, entertain, and influence the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviour of their audience.”
Influencer marketing is not new to the world. Using a popular personality to promote a product has existed for decades.
Before the television era, stage actors would travel and use their popularity to market goods. Later, TV created a new kind of celebrity — actors whose fans would buy the clothes they wore or mimic their on-screen fashion. In essence, persuading followers to do something for commercial reasons is influencer marketing.
Most studies trace today’s version of influencer marketing — especially on social media — to the post-2000 internet boom, followed by the rise of social media platforms.
Unlike film stars, these social media influencers often come from ordinary backgrounds and look like the guy next door. Since their personal aspects are identifiable, followers feel emotionally connected to them. This creates a “bond psychology” that makes influence possible.
Recent industry estimates revealed the size of the Indian influencer economy. A joint report by The Goat/WPP & Kantar (2025) valued the influencer-marketing sector at around ₹3,600 crore in 2024, with an expected 25 percent growth in 2025.
Another independent study placed the broader creator-economy market even higher — at ₹5,500 crore by the end of 2024, growing at 20–25 percent annually.
Influencer marketing now accounts for nearly 5 percent of India’s total digital advertising industry, showing that what began as a brand-promotion tool has evolved into a major communication channel — one that political actors have quickly learned to exploit.
Influencer marketing was first used to promote products and online sales. For instance, in the 1930s, a soft drink company used Santa Claus for advertising. In the 2000s, blogs became popular and were widely trusted.
But slowly, the trend shifted. Today, influencer marketing is heavily embedded in politics. From mega-celebrities to nano-influencers with just 10,000 followers, all kinds of influencers are being used politically.
“I think influencer marketing really took root during the 2019 elections. But even in 2014, during Narendra Modi’s campaign, we saw early forms of social-media-driven narratives,” said Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher and digital expert.
“Blogs, tweets, and other content existed, though not on the scale that we see today. After the BJP lost the 2015 Bihar election, the party strengthened its IT cell strategy. Around 2014–15, Facebook, Twitter (now X), and the spread of the internet exploded across India. That’s when large-scale political use of social media began. Many who were part of IT cells later started influencer-marketing agencies that now provide services to political parties,” he added.
From nano-influencers with 10,000 followers to mega-influencers with over a million, anyone who can shape public opinion — actors, artists, social media stars, political figures — is considered an influencer.
They are used in two main ways:
Governments do not directly use influencers. PR consultancies act as intermediaries, recruiting influencers to promote government schemes.
Take the recent “Ungalai Thedi Stalin” scheme. A celebrity praising the initiative in a video might seem like a voluntary act. But in reality, the date on which the video was released, its duration, and payment were all contractually fixed.
This applies not just to videos. If a celebrity suddenly tweets praising a chief minister, that too may have been paid for — and the starting rate for such a tweet could be ₹1 lakh. Their assistants may also receive separate payments, starting from ₹50,000, industry insiders revealed.
Influencer rates depend on follower count. There are also layered categories like “first-tier city influencer” and “second-tier city influencer.”
For instance, A first-tier city influencer with 50,000 followers charges ₹8,000 for a self-post and ₹5,000 for posting PR-created content, valid only for a fixed number of days. If the post performs well, payment increases.
To get a clearer picture of how this works in the industry, consider this example: Recently, one Tamil Bigg Boss celebrity was paid ₹1 lakh for a single X post. Another contestant, with around one million followers, was paid ₹25,000 for posting a reel — even before he eventually won the show.
Additionally, meme pages have their own tariff system, charging separately for packages like generic posts, support posts, attack posts, and political posts.
Among all types of influencers, the apolitical influencers are the most dangerous.
Trade unionist Raghul Bhaskar explained that political influencers usually follow a clear ideology — left or right — and their followers are also politically aware.
“But apolitical influencers, who normally never speak about politics, suddenly doing so becomes a major problem. During the Karur incident, many such influencers gave their opinions. Whether they were paid or not, they carried false narratives to large apolitical audiences — who believed them,” he said.
Kodali added that traditional media has checks and balances, which social media lacks. “The real problem is misinformation — especially deliberate misinformation. Many influencers don’t even want to do political content, but unemployment and lack of brand deals push them into taking paid political work.”
On one side, political parties are paying influencers. On the other hand, influencer culture itself has become a livelihood. So more people are becoming social-media personalities to earn through such deals.
Like every field, there are middlemen here too. Influencers may appear independent, but many operate within networks controlled by PR strategy groups.
A political party does not depend on one influencer. Hundreds from different regions are recruited through a layered system:
Party → Key party member → PR agency → Media coordinator → Personal Assistant → Influencer
Sometimes influencers themselves don’t know they are part of a coordinated campaign.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, 22 national and regional parties officially declared a combined campaign expenditure of ₹3,861.6 crore, with the BJP alone accounting for ₹1,737.7 crore — nearly 45 percent of the total. The DMK was the fifth-highest spender with ₹161.07 crore.
Platform-level data from Google and Meta showed that during the first phase of polling, parties spent over ₹36 crore on digital ads. But these numbers still reflect only formal, declared advertising.
Payments routed through influencer networks, PR firms, agency retainers, and third-party content creators do not fall under declared election expenditure. This “off-the-books” influencer economy is what makes political messaging one of the least transparent aspects of Indian elections today.
This naturally leads to an important question: Why do century-old political parties rely on social media influencers — people with no political training, but willing to promote anything as long as they are paid?
“Politics is about narrative. It’s emotional. Elections are emotional. And social media is designed to manipulate emotions. Politics is ultimately about perception — and today, social media is the most effective tool for emotional manipulation,” Kodali said.
He pointed out that the use of media for political messaging is not new. “During the freedom struggle, newspapers were used against the British. The medium has changed, but the intention hasn’t. What has changed is the scale of misinformation. Sometimes you can’t even blame influencers. Many of them don’t realise they’re spreading false information. But when misinformation is deliberate, pushed by IT cells and influencer networks, that’s where the real danger lies.”
On transparency, he added, “In principle, all election spending should be declared to the Election Commission. But a huge part of influencer marketing is off the books. Nobody knows who is funding what. There is proxy advertising and influencers who don’t even disclose which party they are promoting. That’s the real challenge.”
Digital experts pointed out that the Election Commission of India lacks a robust system to track misinformation or the growing digital advertising spends of political parties. While parties and candidates are legally required to disclose their online campaign expenses, payments routed through third-party influencers continue to remain largely invisible and unaccounted for.
What is unfolding in India is part of a wider global shift where political persuasion is moving from official campaign ads to influencer-driven digital networks.
In the United States, the 2020 presidential race saw both the Biden and Trump campaigns quietly hire TikTok and Instagram influencers through third-party agencies, allowing political messaging to reach millions of young voters without being recorded as formal campaign expenditure.
In Brazil, the 2018 election revealed another model: mass political mobilisation and misinformation routed through WhatsApp groups, coordinated by agencies and amplification networks that operated entirely outside public scrutiny.
These examples show how politics, influence, and digital platforms are becoming deeply interconnected worldwide — and India is now entering a similar phase, but with its own unique scale, social complexities, and regulatory gaps.
In the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), misinformation has become effortless. The number of influencers who themselves cannot verify whether the information they are spreading is true has increased sharply. So what is the real threat in the near future?
“Political influencer marketing will only grow — at least until something catastrophic happens. And without regulation, the situation will get worse. The state will not regulate it seriously, because those in power benefit from it. And even if regulation comes, it will most likely target the opposition, not the ruling-party ecosystem,” Kodali warned.
His biggest concern is not digital chaos, but real-world consequences. “The real threat is violence. In India, people already fight over caste, religion, and region. When misinformation fuels that, fanaticism grows. We’re already seeing communities making videos attacking each other. That hatred doesn’t stop online — it spills into real life.”
In the end, he said, the system serves a handful of people in power — while the rest of society pays the price.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
