Among these institutes are the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) and Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication (SCMC), considering several top companies are increasingly scouting for influencer marketing experts.
ISB’s hybrid digital marketing and analytics programme introduced three years ago has been updated to concentrate on content related to social media and influencers, among other digital marketing strategies, Madhu Viswanathan, associate professor of marketing at ISB, said in an email reply to Mint’s queries.
“The digital marketing and analytics programme is one of the most popular online courses offered by ISB… The programme is experiential with students learning a lot of these aspects with hands-on exercises as well as simulations,” Viswanathan added. ISB didn’t disclose enrolment numbers for its digital marketing and analytics programme.
ISB, reputed for its MBA programme, was ranked 27th in the Financial Times’ 2025 list of top 30 business schools globally. The institute has campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali.
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Pune-based Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communications in 2023 introduced social media marketing andinfluencer marketing as part of combinations with major programmes such as communications, digital marketing and advertising management, and media entrepreneurship. These courses are open to students of the institute’s BA Mass Communication and BBA Media Management programmes.
Over 10-15% of the students who join these courses pursue content creation and a career as an influencer instead of taking up jobs in the influencer, social media, and digital matketing industry, said professor Kavitha Iyer, a senior faculty member at SCMC.
Sreeram Gopalkrishnan, director and professor at SCMC, pointed out in an email reply that while the top 1.5% of YouTube influencers have a median income of $15,000, several others fail to make a career as a social media influencer.
Social media influencers should pay attention to the uniqueness of their content and their personal brand, he added. “What is the competitive advantage that your content has in comparison to others. Is it just a comparative advantage or a longterm proposition that combines skills sets with a USP?”
‘Improving my content game’
Shivangi Biswas, an aspiring social media influencer, is a second-year student of SCMC’s BA Mass communication programme. After completing the programme’s social media marketing module, she implemented two major changes to her social media content—shortening the duration of her Instagram videos to cater to the shrinking attention span of viewers, and using the right keywords to get more impressions.
“In the past six months after implementing the learnings from the course to my content, my viewership has increased from an average of 6,000 users per reel to 10,000,” said the nano-influencer with 1,773 followers on her Instagram handle, @shivangiibiswas. “We have another influencer marketing module coming up next semester that I look forward to… to learn more such insights on social media to improve my content game,” Biswas said.
The Indian Institute of Digital Education, a digital school established in 2016, is among other institutes offering social media, influencer and digital marketing programmes. IIDE not only offers its own postgraduate and certificate programmes but is also a knowledge partner for six other institutes in Mumbai. Overall, it enrolls over 4,000 students in these three categories.
“If you were to search the keywords ‘digital marketing’ on the top job portals, you would realise that no other job segment has more jobs than digital marketing. Post-pandemic, social media, influencer and digital marketing jobs have grown rapidly as all companies, large or small, are hiring in-house teams to handle their social media,” said Karan Shah, founder of IIDE.
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Per LinkedIn’s ‘Jobs on the Rise’ report published in January, ‘influencer marketing experts’ ranked 10th among the top 25 fastest-growing job roles in India.
The country’s influencer marketing industry was projected to grow to ₹3,375 crore in 2026 from an estimated ₹2,344 crore in 2024, according to areport last year by EY and Big Bang Social, a creator marketplace owned by talent management agency Collective Artists Network.
“As businesses moved online, we observed a surge in demand for students skilled in digital marketing during placements, based on which we started this programme last year,” said Dr. Rakhi Sharma, director of Jai Hind College, which recently began offering a Bachelor of Digital Strategy (BDS) course in partnership with IIDE.
The first batch is yet to complete the course. But according to the institute, apart from marketing agencies such as Schbang, DeltaX, and Media.net, ICICI Bank Ltd and online cosmetics retailer Nykaa were looking for students specialising in digital and influencer marketing.
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