Have you ever scrolled through your social media feed and seen an advertisement for a shop or service located just around the corner from you? This is not a coincidence. From fast-moving consumer goods to the latest smartphones, platforms are now intensely localising content to maximise user engagement and secure advertising revenue.
The Vernacular Shift: Beyond Metros
For major social media platforms, prioritising regional language content creators is no longer just an optional strategy. These vernacular creators have become the primary engine for driving user engagement and commerce, especially as companies seek growth beyond India's major metropolitan areas.
Saket Jha Saurabh, Head of Content Partnerships at Snap (Snapchat's parent company), highlights the rapid expansion in user base and engagement coming from smaller cities, particularly in southern markets. Snapchat now boasts over 250 million active users in India, making it the platform's largest market globally. To tap into this growth, Snapchat is actively hosting creator connect events in cities like Chennai, Jaipur, and Bhopal to recruit local talent.
"Due to these efforts, our best creators, called Snap Stars, have grown 1.5x in the last 18 months, and time spent grew twice and attracted top brands and advertisers to the platform," Saurabh explained. The platform is onboarding regional celebrities like GV Prakash and Washington Sundar while simultaneously cultivating a network of micro-influencers.
Building Authenticity, Not Just Translating Ads
Neha Markanda, Chief Business Officer at ShareChat, observes a significant change in brand strategy. While advertising budgets were historically skewed heavily towards English, there is now a clear realisation that the next wave of digital consumption and brand growth lies outside Tier 1 cities.
ShareChat, with over 200 million users and 70% from tier 2 cities, operates an internal brand studio that fundamentally rejects simple translation. "We actually do not translate ad campaign copy," Markanda said. "For instance, the benefits sought by a South Indian consumer might differ from a North Indian consumer. We actually build it from the ground up and do bespoke scripting for them in the language of interest."
She emphasises that authenticity, delivered through local language and creators, outperforms generic ads. "Around 50, 60% people trust creators more than ads, and the industry understands that." This approach extends to hyperlocal messaging, where partnering with creators from the same pin code enhances relatability for brands.
The Hyperlocal Advantage: Driving Real Conversions
Personal branding strategist Sudharsanan Ganapathy points out a crucial evolution in brand focus. Companies are moving away from celebrities who primarily provide awareness towards hyperlocal creators who can drive actual sales conversions. He defines hyperlocal by specific proximity—a creator with, say, 10,000 followers who is well-known within a particular college or village.
"Let's say I have a product in Chennai, but want to take it to a village near Trichy. My best bet is a content creator located in Trichy with a strong local following. People tend to engage in business with people they trust," Ganapathy adds. He advises brands to borrow this local credibility to micro-target specific towns rather than entire states.
Snapchat's strategy echoes this need for granular authenticity. The platform incorporates specific local lingo, regional humour, and cultural references—like mixing English with Tamil—to ensure content feels genuine and unfiltered rather than polished and generic.
The message to advertisers is now definitive: the old practice of dubbing and dumping national campaigns is over. For India's largest digital platforms, the next billion-dollar opportunity is not in English-speaking metros. To capture the heart of India's growth, brands must now build their narratives from the ground up, one pin code at a time.
