Kyra: Here's All You Need To Know About India's First Virtual Influencer

A social media firm called Top Social India created a virtual character called Kyra, who will leverage social media to curate an audience and market herself as a medium with reach.

A virtual influencer is known as a fictional person or character with a social media account run by content creating team. The team, in collaboration with brands, has ventured into the virtual influencer space with 21-year-old Kyra who is the innovation of Top Social India’s business head, Himanshu Goel.

India's First Virtual Influencer 

Focusing on the virtual influencer creation as an entire business model Goel said, “Eventually Kyara will be independent and unrelated to an agency. Even now, the name of our brand is not a part of her profile.”

Chandigarh dweller, Himanshu, 26,  is a part of the influencer marketing space since 2019. He is an engineer with an MBA from Ahmedabad and has been leading the project since its inception in 2020. Having a soft launch in December 2021, Kyra’s official date of birth is January 28, 2022.

Suggested Reading: Who Is Kyra? India’s First Virtual Influencer With More Than 95,000 Followers

Not knowing how the audiences would react or whether they are familiar with the concept, Himanshu was encouraged by the amount of engagement Kyra got, even though there were some trolls. “We are getting 1k new followers a day,” he says. 

However, there was confusion that had to be dealt with - while some social media asked if the character was a part of Black Mirror, others called it fake and did not believe in the concept. Brand managers had reportedly told Himanshu that Kyra looked more real than virtual. There were a lot of people familiar with the concept of virtual space after Facebook had transformed itself into Meta. 

Collaborating with brands which follow international trends in technology, lifestyle and fashion, Kyra has become a hit. 

For the collaboration, a first virtual brand ambassador needs to be reached out to. With a target audience aged between 18 and 26 and beyond in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, Kyra’s following at the moment comprises 90 per cent Indians.

Himanshu wants to focus on content related to trends like the IPL matches and would post things which people want to know. Although Kyra is not real, Himanshu believes that people would still be engaging in the endeavours. The challenges to Kyra are Asia’s popular virtual influencers belonging to countries like Indonesia, China and Japan or the CJI. Kyra has over 95,000 followers on her Instagram page.