What's the best fit for pet-care brands' social media handles - GenZ and millennial pet-fluencers or wholesome content?

Pet-care brands in the country today are aiming to provide a one-stop solution for modern-day pet parents. These brands are taking to social media in a big way to educate consumers and make them aware of their offerings, and influencer marketing is playing a big role in this approach.

According to statistics available on PetKeen, an international team of pet and animal lovers, a majority of Indians are pet owners. Data studies also highlight that millennials and GenZs account for over 34% and 27% of the country’s total population.

As a result of this population dynamics, most pet-care brands find their primary target audience to be millennials and GenZs in India, and hence they take to social media to collaborate with creators and influencers to reach out to their target audience.

The target audience of these brands is all those pet owners who want to provide their pets with a wholesome lifestyle and nutrition coupled with best-in-quality experiences.

Anushka Iyer

Kickstarting the discussion on how pet-care brands are leveraging social media to reach out to their target audience, Anushka Iyer, Founder and CEO, Wiggles, said, “The majority of our spending is used to drive top-of-the-funnel awareness of which social media influencers and communities are a big part.”

“At Wiggles, we always look for meaningful and exciting ways to keep our pet-parent community engaged while creating awareness about responsible pet care. Along the way, we hope to dispel some myths and confusion about pet nutrition and build a culture of responsible pet ownership and care,” she added.

Moving ahead, Iyer also pointed out that knowledge is power and that is essentially what Wiggles aims to imbibe in its community. “We put out content that covers everything from parenting tricks to indications of various diseases and nutrition because we want pet parents to understand their pets completely and be able to provide them with holistic care,” she said.

In fact, as per Iyer, Wiggles hopes to dispel myths and confusion about dog nutrition and aims to build a culture of responsible pet ownership and care while having a lot of fun through its influencer campaigns.

Ambarish Sikarwar

Adding to this, Ambarish Sikarwar, Business Head, Zigly, said, “We work with content creators and influencers to create meaningful content for our subscribers and followers and serve them with different content formats in the form of Reels, videos, stories, carousels, etc. that are easy-to-absorb. We also have an in-house magazine, The Good Breed by Zigly, in both digital and print formats along with our own podcast channel.”

He also went on to add that it is through Zigly’s campaigns and stories that they aim to raise awareness in the pet care domain. “Through our magazine and podcasts, we try to serve informative content to our readers and listeners so they can better cultivate the joys and conquer the challenges of conscious pet parenting,” he stated.

Speaking on how important social media influencers are for Zigly, Sikarwar said, “Influencers help us in reaching out to the right audience and when they take the Zigly experience, they themselves talk about the overall experience of Zigly. Through this kind of word of mouth, our network widens.”

“Our customers themselves are our biggest influencers who share their experience about the carnivals, events, pupper parties, and fests that we conduct at our centres,” he added.

Varun Sadana

Similarly, Varun Sadana, Co-founder, Supertails, also added, “Being a pet-care brand, we have the responsibility to cater to our audience with utmost care and share only the right information with them.”

Sadana also shared that being a pet parent himself, he has often noticed and experienced the gaps in raising a pet the right way, which is why he took it upon himself to impart only pet-expert reviewed and approved information on Supertails’ social media channels.

“Our Instagram content strategy revolves around sharing informative and infotainment content that’s useful today as well as in the long run. These tips, hacks and DIYs are easy to consume and hence not only attract a lot of pet parents to our social media handle but also bring greater reach, impressions and engagement. Our insights also show a lot of people save these kinds of posts that encourage us to roll out even more informative content for them,” he said.

Devanshi Shah

According to Devanshi Shah, Founder and CEO, PetKonnect, “Social media is a wonderful tool available to all brands but reaching out to your target audiences through online content creation is now not only an art but also a science.”

Commenting on the importance of influencers for PetKonnect, she said, “We consider influencers to be a very important part of our marketing mix as they help us in improving reach, engaging new customers, impacting consumer sentiments, building brand affinity and championing social causes amongst others.”

“We usually focus on petfluencers as they have a relevant following and have a wonderful impact at our events by improving the overall turnout of and engagement with guests. At times we engage other influencers also, but they too must have had some minimal association with animals,” she added.

Furthermore, Shah also pointed out that apart from sharing parenting tips and tricks, PetKonnect also focuses on content related to the social welfare of animals in the country.

Rabia Stephens

Rabia Stephens, Social Media Manager, Heads Up For Tails (HUFT) also said, “Social media is an advocacy and community platform for us. We are nurturing and bringing together a strong community of pet parents who are aligned to our value system, want to do more for the welfare of animals and believe in giving the best to their pets.”  

“We do not spend on influencers and believe in collaborative storytelling. Our community loves our products and value system and drives most of our content through UGC,” she added. 

Furthermore, Stephens also went on to add that since influencers in the pet industry is a very new concept as of now, HUFT plans to find more people from their community, who are becoming rather popular and to rope them in as they help the pet-care brand in increasing their reach and content stickiness. 

“We have an always-on campaign called #HUFTForFamily and content creators in our community keep posting UGC that drives back a lot of value to the brand,” she asserted. 

When asked about how Supertails reaches out to pet parents, Sadana said, “We also engage with pet-fluencers and influencers in our brand and marketing campaigns. We look for influencers who are pet parents and share the same values as our company.”

He also highlighted that since GenZ and Millennials are Supertails’ prime target audience, the pet-care brand tries to rope in influencers who not only belong to these generations but also have a strong following in the two age brackets.

“We recently worked with Srishti and Karishma Tanna for The Swag Life brand campaign. They are renowned content creators and actors who were the right fit for Supertails as they helped us in attracting a large audience from the above-mentioned target audience that eventually converted into a higher number of website visits and sale conversions,” he stated.

Commenting on how Zigly finalises which content creators or influencers it would collaborate with, Sikarwar said, “Going ahead with authentic influencers who have a higher engagement rate and reach is very important for us. Thus, we go quite selective when it comes to the influencers we work with and only go with the ones who are devoted pet parents and have gained the Zigly experience.”

“We have a monthly plan of influencer engagement, and we tie up with different content collaborators since our majority audience is on Instagram,” he added.

Striking a similar note, Wiggles’ Iyer also pointed out that collaborations with influencers are a great way to create content, as well as build relationships with like-minded pet lovers who believe in their mission.

“Influencers have their own set of like-minded audiences that in turn helps us create a beautiful network of people that care for pets. Good Creator Co. has been a fantastic partner in helping us make responsible pet care a relevant and positive cultural conversation with the Petfluencer party,” she added.

PetKonnect’s Shah also highlighted that the pet-care brands allocate approximately 30% to 40% of their digital budget towards roping in relevant influencers, as they help the brand target new customers given a likeness of interests amongst their followers.

“We usually target six-ten influencer campaigns a year and depending on the length and nature of the campaign as well as the prevalent socio-political environment, we spend about Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 5,00,000 per month on digital channels to promote our content on social media,” she stated.

Furthermore, Stephens also went on to add that the pet-care brand has a property called #LearnWithHUFT which is spread across IG and Youtube, wherein HUFT brings in experts who drive reliable and authentic content back to the community.

“But, the outcome of petfluencers visiting our stores and attending our on-ground events is amazing. We love that they are going the extra mile and contributing very meaningfully to our experience,” she added.