From Rs 1 crore tweets to bot wars: Brands deploying influencers to mitigate brand crisis

New Delhi: Did you know that influencers can charge Rs 5 lakh to a whopping Rs 1 crore for a single tweet? You heard that right. When it comes to crisis mitigation and image saving, brands are ready to spend enormous amounts on influencers. 

While the general perception puts influencers as people propagating a brand’s product or service, crisis management and saving a brand’s reputation are emerging as crucial pillars of influencer marketing. 

Mumbai-based agency Boomlet believes in using the influencers “in the right way” and “in the right format” and is constructing a path for themselves in the segment of strategic communication and crisis management. 

The genesis

Explaining the mechanics behind this leg of influencer marketing, Danish Malik, founder, Boomlet, noted how brands wanted to amplify their factual data, mitigate fake news, and counter negative narratives. “They just want to communicate with the larger audience, the right audience,” he told BuzzInContent.com.

Upon receiving multiple such briefs from brands, Malik decided to set up a BRSC (Brand Reputation and Strategic Communication) unit in 2020. Establishing a clear line of difference with public relations, Malik commented, “It is not part of PR, since it is not in regards to just getting the articles out or organising events.”

Building blocks

As part of their crisis management arm, the BRSC unit, Boomlet establishes command centres, builds campaigns around crisis management, and war rooms to mitigate the negative effects of a narrative. Influencers play an important role in the properly designed mechanism to push and amplify the positive narrative. 

With the learnings from the BRSC construction, Boomlet is working on a tech tool that will consolidate and bring together all these facilities under one platform. Boomlet is “heavily investing” in this tech tool that will allow the agency to keep an eye on all the verticals of its strategic communication. “This tool will change the entire dynamics,” Malik claimed. 

Selective clients

“We were very clear that we will not work with political parties, individual-led crises in the entertainment industry, crises that do not have the right data in place, communications countering court judgements or government policies,” Malik remarked. Experimenting with such filters, Boomlet's clientele now comprises legacy companies, unicorns, and government bodies. 

The agency, from there on till 2023, has worked at one national-level crisis campaign every month, Malik told BuzzInContent.com. 

Brand wars

Six out of every 10 crises involve negative reviews, comments, or reactions driven by fake followers and bots from Russia and China, Malik stated, quoting Boomlet’s internal data. 

He claimed to know agencies working for a certain brand and staging a crisis for competitor brands to create a dent on them using paid bots. “Brands are at war” Malik claimed, in a conversation with BuzzInContent.com. 

According to Malik, brands lack good social listening and post tracking, which can then turn into a catastrophe for the brand. 

Mechanics behind mitigation

Crisis management for brands works in three stages, Malik said. Firstly, end-to-end social listening and research is done. All channels, such as TV, magazines, newspapers, ground intel, etc., are touched upon thoroughly. Based on the data collected, Boomlet then devises a strategy and the execution plan for the strategic communication. 

Ranging from influencers to meme pages, from communities to page admins, all the directions are tapped into by the command centre as part of their second step. Thought leadership and influencer advocacy are crucial in the second stage of crisis management. 

The third step Malik mentioned is creating IPs (intellectual properties) such as podcasts and debates, etc. through their in-house production house. This production house creates mass campaigns and video content based on the data. 

Micro and macro monetising

In the conversation, Malik made it clear that brands are ready to splurge whatever amount of money is required to put out a fire. Sharing his own experience, Malik revealed that the agency has paid an influencer Rs 35 lakh per tweet on the micro-blogging platform, X.

These influencers are better monikered as ‘thought leaders.’ Malik claimed that their agency has also received a quote, from one thought leader, for Rs 1 crore for a single tweet, “that too with a character limit. 

While these mind-boggling numbers are quoted by some of the top thought leaders, a mid-level influencer can easily charge between Rs 5-10 lakhs for a single tweet, Malik revealed. 

Way forward

With 50% year-over-year growth and a buoyant business, Boomlet plans to sharpen its crisis management tools going forward. Although the majority of business is still being fuelled by regular influencer marketing and propagating brands, the next year, Malik said, will solely be dedicated to strategic communication. 

To Malik, the future of this segment of communication revolves around proxy IPs and guerilla marketing, where brands are subtle with their usage of influencers. Proxy IPs are content properties that have an organic audience but are backed by a brand. 

In this war of brands, Malik reiterated, brands are secretly holding proxy IPs (podcasts, influencers, etc.) and are pulling the strings in favour of their own reputation.