Why influencers are tapping into parallel sources of income

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₹140,000 per collaboration is not an anomaly, as the creator economy is brimming with such internet 'influencers'. “The success rate of influencers is really low," said Prateek Sinha, partner and experience consulting leader at PwC, adding that income is low for most influencers, which pushes them to diversify and create new income streams.

“In India, the industry is still maturing, and the competition is very high—from 'nano-influencers' posting content as a side hustle to mega influencers who are celebrities in their own right," Sinha said.\ Nano influencers have fewer than ten thousand followers, while mega influencers boast an audience of over a million. This distinction reveals the broad spectrum of influencer marketing and its differentiated impact potential.

Another distinguishing feature pertains to the length of content. While short-form creators on Instagram who make reels of less than 60 seconds can only rely on brand collaborations, long-form video-sharing platform YouTube gives creators an option to monetize their content via advertisements.

“For most small creators, monetizing through advertisement revenue is not working well these days, except for some distinctive ones," said Neel Gogia, founder of influencer management firm Iplix. “YouTube often contributes less than 10% of their total revenue." Some creators, like Shlok Shrivastav, a popular technology influencer with 4.6 million followers on his Instagram handle, @techburner, have launched their own direct-to-customer (D2C), or online-focused, brands.

Shrivastav founded a clothing brand called Overlays in August 2021 and a phone skin brand called Layers in September 2022. “At the moment, we are looking at scaling the business which we bootstrapped, so