Before the year 2026, the craze for influencers was not likely to be seen as a brand promoter.

But from the start of 2026, the craze for influencers is skyrocketing. And now a thousand brands are asking for influencers; budgets are going first. That’s the real headline this year, not”influencers are having a moment.” They had a moment for five years.

Here is last year’s report: the influencer marketing industry has increased by 25%, and the total market value of the influencer marketing industry, worth roughly 3,560 crores in 2025, is on track to reach roughly 4000 plus in 2026 to date. For once, the growth isn’t coming out of Mumbai or Delhi. The report notes that more than 40,000 creators are based in cities like Indore, smaller towns, and villages—places that were previously overlooked in media planning.

Brands searching for creators outside the metros cities have more than doubled year over year. Regional language discovery (liken odia and Kannada) is growing faster than Hindi and English. Two years ago, a brand handed most of its creator budget to a short list of metro cities’ micro creators with 5000 to 100,000 followers, posting in Odia, Kannada, Tamil, and Bengali. Targeting the audience who really speaks at home.

Part of this is just infrastructure catching up. Platforms can now tell a brand manager exactly which odia food creator in odisha who beat a Delhi food creator on CPC(cost per click).

There are creators who have registered as GST entities. For a meaningful slice of them, this stopped a side hustle with a ring light and became a business with a tax filing.

I go back, and there are creators who work with brands at a low cost or a barter program for a clean story. Whether a tier 3 city nano influencer earning rates a Mumbai macro influencer would call a rounding error is the creator finally reaching where it should. But now creators shoot and make videos to promote the brand. And the audience watches and make mind to buy if it’s in the budget, or it’s just a cheap labor pool with better branding.