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Zerodha's Nithin Kamath emphasises YouTube's significance in the era of social media
Brands nowadays are opting for internet content creation as a means to establish trust and credibility.
A Statista survey in 2023 revealed that more than a quarter of Indians listen to podcasts at least once a day, marking the increasing popularity of this trend in the country since 2021. Presently, founders of startups and unicorns are taking centre stage as the faces of their brands. Brands, showcased on reality programmes like Shark Tank, are innovatively leveraging the internet for content creation and brand development.
Recently, Zerodha’s founder and CEO Nithin Kamath spoke at the OnePlus Open Conversations, hosted by the CEO and founder of Avalon Labs, Varun Mayya. During the discussion, he delved into the motivations driving the company's commitment to content creation, highlighting Zerodha's early adoption of blogging.
Speaking at the podcast, Kamath mentioned that the superpower businesses have is transparency. He recognised YouTube as the go-to platform, even though he entered the social media realm late. “I was really late to the social media scene. I started in LinkedIn in 2018, and Twitter around 2019…but until then I used to be the person managing Zerodha’s social media. I also realised that if something came from the business handles, the platforms started throttling the reach of sorts. But like YouTube, I knew early that this was the place to be.”
He also recalled a promotional prank he pulled with his team in 2015 where he sent Kannada actors posing as fake cops to raid the Zerodha headquarters accusing the founders of forgery. He said that the prank moved half of his office colleagues to tears, and the corresponding YouTube video gained significant traction, accumulating 1.8 million views to date.
In October 2023, Zerodha launched its dedicated social media page, Zing! by Zerodha, on YouTube. The initiative involves both the fintech company and the edtech platform LearnApp, with a specific focus on delivering content centred around financial literacy.
Startups like boAt, Bombay Shaving Company, Rage Coffee, Tata CLiQ Luxury, The Man Company, Wakefit, Zerodha, and Zomato are also utilising YouTube as a platform to create podcasts, disseminate insights into business leadership within their industries, discuss forecasts and trends, and more. Additionally, HT Brand Studio, the brand marketing arm of Hindustan Times Digital Streams, introduced a fictional web series aimed at unraveling personal finance concepts for millennials.
When a brand is crafted with a focus on people, or personality, it is essentially designed to serve the very entities for which it is built. The essence of such a brand lies in its ability to resonate with and cater to the needs, preferences, and values of its intended audience or associated personalities. According to experts, prioritising brand marketing for a sustained strategy is essential, as it establishes a lasting emotional bond with consumers, a key factor for enduring returns.