Government to announce new guidelines for social media influencers

The government may soon announce new guidelines for social media influencers who endorse brands and products. Nidhi Khare, the chairperson of the Central Consumer Protection Authority told CNBC-TV18 that an influencer must provide disclaimers and will be treated as an endorser. She said any violation will result in penalties starting from Rs 10 lakh.

“We felt that in today’s digital world there are lot of social influencers who are involved in advertising of a product or a service and their role also needs to be delineated and brought under aspect,” Khare said.

She added that the government will use technological tools to track social media posts.

“We will be bringing in technological tools which will crawl into these digital creations and then depending on these violations such incidents can be reported.”

According to the INCA Influencer Marketing Report, India's Influencer Marketing industry was valued at Rs 900 crore in 2021, and pegged to grow 25 percent to Rs 2,200 crore by 2025. That's because 100 percent of the marketers who participated in the survey said influencers are their number one choice... and in many cases, budgets for influencer marketing has jumped by 25-35 percent. This means influencers are becoming brand ambassadors, making anywhere up to $65,000 dollars a month, depending on follower count… and a bulk of this comes from brands promotions.