A study by Yuvraj Singh-led startup reveals 49% of Twitter users are relying on influencers for shopping suggestions

Social media has completely transformed our lives. From influencing how we consume content to what we buy, eat and drink is subconsciously related to something we read online. Testimony to this is a social media report by Yral, a joint venture between cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s initiative YouWeCan ventures and AdLift, a global digital marketing company. This start-up does social media celebrity endorsement on various social media platforms.

The Yral study reveals that a staggering 49% of Twitter users rely on influencers for shopping recommendations. Twitter influencers are challenging friends to influence purchase decisions. This means that there might be some sense in spending on pampering the social media influencers by brands.

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Some of the other key highlights of the report are –

• Global Social Media Trends - With the global population at 7.395 billion, internet users have increased to 3.419 billion in 2016.

• Growing Popularity of Social Media in India - In India, active social media users grew at 15%, since Jan 2015 to 136 million in 2016

• Digital Spending Trend in India - Digital Ad spending in India is expected to grow at around 47.5% in 2016 in comparison with the overall Ad spending which is expected to grow at 15.5%

• Growing Celebrity Engagement and Interaction - The Facebook reach of each of the top 10 celebrities in India is greater than the population of Australia

• Branded tweets increase purchase intent by 2.7 times- Whereas, branded tweets combined with influencer tweets increases the purchase intent by 5.2 times
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• Facebook and retailer’s website were the most popular sources to discover a brand or a product followed by the brand website and YouTube.