Instagram and Facebook creators are increasingly influencing purchases; trend expected to continue this festive season: Meta India  

Meta-owned platforms like Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are increasingly influencing customers’ purchasing decisions. In fact, a recent Meta-commissioned study by YouGov found that as many as 66 per cent of Diwali shoppers said that creators influenced their decision to buy. With the upcoming festive season in mind, Meta India believes that similar trends could continue this year as well.

Arun Srinivas, Director and Head of Ads Business for Meta in India, said personalised content through ads on social channels is becoming more important for Diwali shoppers, with 69% agreeing that it was easier to complete their Diwali shopping with personalised products and gift suggestions on Facebook and Instagram. "India now has close to 650 million internet users. And Meta platforms are at the forefront of this, whether it’s through WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram. We obviously have huge reach across the connected population in the country. Eight out of 10 Diwali shoppers, for example, watch videos on Meta technologies, largely through Reels. So clearly, one of the key takeaways for us was that short-form video is significant for us," he said.  

The regional language content trend, too, is gaining strength. "Diwali shoppers seek online content in their local language. As many as 76% of Diwali shoppers prefer to see advertising in the local language, a trend that is growing significantly year-on-year. It’s no surprise that language is not really a barrier in some sense. I think our platform actually works best on discovery, as we call it because historically it's all been powered by AI bases your interests," he says.  

Tech, he believes, is going to be a big differentiator. "AI has historically been used for curating the feed and using our behaviour, etc., customising feeds. We are now using AI to help advertisers achieve better objectives. You can either run fully automated campaigns or equally choose only bespoke stuff. There is a noticeable increase in the proportion of Diwali shoppers likely to use AR/VR tools to explore products. Three out of five shoppers feel AR experiences help get them into the Diwali spirit, and ultimately help their purchase decisions," he said.  

He said Meta is looking to partner with businesses like Maruti, Amazon, Meesho, etc. "The creators made these Reels and we actually measured them through a study, and found that the ones with the Reels assets delivered better results and outcomes on every metric. Most advertisers want their messages to reach where audiences are and audiences are right on our platforms. We’ve seen really small businesses that are just starting off with a few thousand rupees all the way to funded start-ups. Then on the other end of the spectrum we have equally really large business houses and conglomerates," he says.  

During the festive season, he expects categories like fashion, beauty, jewellery, auto, etc. to see a bump in ads.