- Kyra is India’s first virtual influencer created by Himanshu Goel of the marketing agency TopSocial India.
- She is a 21-year-old influencer who likes all things fashion, fitness, and travel.
- She recently collaborated with bOAT Lifestyle to promote their products and also appeared on the cover of Travel + Leisure Magazine
According to the urban dictionary, an influencer is defined as a fashion, lifestyle, or food blogger who is famous on social media platforms such as Instagram and recommends various products and services with an aim of “influencing” their follower’s consumer decisions.
While we have a huge number of such influencers cropping up every day on Instagram, now these “human” influencers have competition from a rather “humanoid” counterpart.
Nowadays there’s the advent of modern marketing strategies such as social media marketing which aggressively targets online users via specific ads intending to direct more traffic to product websites.
The virtual influencing program is a clever integration of social media marketing and the act of influencing while eliminating the need for a “human” middleman. Such influencers are all the rage these days, with the likes of them endorsing products sold by Samsung and Ikea.
Who is Kyra?
Enter Kyra. She is a virtual influencer created by Himanshu Goel and his colleagues at influencer marketing agency TopSocial India. She has been creating significant buzz across social media, with over 179,000 people flocking to her Instagram daily.
The brand boAt Lifestyle, recently collaborated with her to market its products. She also became the first virtual influencer to grace the digital cover of Travel + Leisure Magazine
According to Goel, Kyra, is a 21-year-old influencer, based out of Mumbai, although she is originally from the Metaverse. She loves to travel and spend time in nature. She would also like to visit Andaman one day. Besides travel, she likes to broaden her horizons and explore the opportunities out there.
She is a dedicated fashion lover, likes fitness activities, and is fascinated by the world of cinema. She prides herself on being India’s first virtual influencer and is a passionate advocate of the need to expand the world of virtual influencers. She wishes to blur the boundaries between “real and virtual” since the Metaverse is considered an iteration of the internet in the near future.
Speaking about the reaction Kyra received on the internet, she says that while most of the comments she’s received to date have been encouraging and supportive, some users still bully her and call her names. She also talks about the need for support for women influencers out there.
Talking about her collaboration with bOAT recently she spoke of her thrill in being a part of the campaign. She also spoke enthusiastically about her prospects and newer things on the horizon.
Why virtual influencers?
While “human” influencers may have a positive impact on their followers by helping them score deals and make smart choices, the flip side of the coin is more concerning.
No one can ignore the fact that nowadays almost anyone with a social media account can begin promoting themselves as an influencer. While such self-promotion may not be directly harmful, it can lead to a chain reaction.
According to recent statistics, there’s been a rise in the number of accounts turning to scam organizations that promise a boost in followers and like counts to such “smaller” accounts in return for payment. Such organizations are dangerous in many ways.
Such scams accept payment via cash-free methods such as PayPal, GPay, and so on. This allows them to steal user data and leave their bank accounts empty. Also sometimes payments are accepted in the form of cryptocurrency. This may be a common avenue for bitcoin laundering and fraud.
Another detrimental effect of such organizations is that for those customers who do get followers in return for their payment, these following accounts are all bots.
In other words, they’re fake accounts that simply boost the appearing number of followers and don’t have any other interactive activities which ultimately render such a boost useless. Moreover, it renders the buyer’s account prone to be inactivated by the social media platform itself.
In such a circumstance, an enigmatic virtual influencer program such as Kyra seems like a much safer option to turn to for guiding consumer decisions.
