Meet India’s First Meta Influencer- Kyra

Virtual influencers are a real thing these days. There is a range of meta-influencers on social media hailing from different countries. Though all type of influencers is present on social media, metaverse is a unique graphical representation of yours that comes in with customization. On July 23, Kyra, a Mumbai-based Insta influencer celebrated her first brand collaboration with the leading audio brand, boAt. But what’s special? Kyra isn’t just a regular influencer on social media but is India’s very first meta-Influencer. She is based in Mumbai and on June 9, she took to Instagram to share a post after she clocked in 1 lakh followers.

Kyra is the brainchild of Himanshu Goel, business head at TopSocial India.

As she turned 6 months old, she celebrated her 1 lakh followers to which Kyra shared a heartfelt note on her social media handle, “100,000! I could never have imagined so many people would choose to follow me when I started. The last 5 months have been a beautiful, chaotic journey. Thank you to all those who have joined me on this ride. Watch this space as there is still a lot more to come.”

Kyra is created by Himanshu Goel, business head at TopSocial India, a Gurugram-based marketing firm. He has been working in the influencer market for the last three years and as he looked at VIs across the world, the idea of creating Kyra hit him. Kyra was first introduced to the real world in January 2022, before her, there are several other existing meta influencers like US’s Lil Miquela (@lilmiquela) and South Korea’s Rozy (@Rozy.gram).

Himanshu Goel is a 26-year-old engineer who is an MBA from Ahmedabad. He has been working on the project since 2020 and first released a soft debut in December 2021, while he officially launched Kyra on 28 January 2022.

Kyra’s social media is filled with hundreds of posts, some of them are snaps of her daily lifestyle, while others are her collaboration with different brands. The idea for brands to collaborate with such influencers comes from the fact that VIs is a fictional character that can engage customers in the virtual world. Social media is the biggest tool for attracting clients and thus brands can easily collaborate with these meta individuals who first, does not age, providing longevity, and second, they don’t have human limitations of space.

According to the stats and a survey conducted by AI-powered influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor, meta influencers have three times more engagement rates than real influencers. With the majority of users coming from GenZ, these meta-models provide logistic advantages. For instance, if a brand is to collaborate with a real influencer, they might have to bear travel, food, makeup, clothes, and lodging expenses, but collaborating with meta influencers deducts this cost as everything could be designed at the ease of the creator’s home.

The term ‘metaverse’ might be new, but virtual or parallel worlds have existed for a long time. Though it isn’t like the real world, however, exists in parallel virtual reality. In truth, the metaverse is an endless world with numerous opportunities. People can experience a multitude of things at the ease of their homes. Regardless, it does not mean that the real world isn’t special, there’s possibly nothing more beautiful than the real world, but when we talk about possibilities- the virtual world stands out.