Paid reels, barter deals, fashion campaigns and travel collaborations are creating new opportunities for young Kashmiris. But with little data on earnings or the size of the market, the question is whether social-media visibility can become sustainable work.
Srinagar : A fashion reel can now be a paid assignment in Srinagar. A hotel can offer a creator a stay in return for a series of posts. A clothing brand can find its next model through Instagram rather than through a traditional modelling route. For young Kashmiris building audiences online, these arrangements are becoming part of the way businesses promote themselves—and creators make money. But how much of that visibility is actually turning into work? There is no readily available public data showing the size of Kashmir’s creator economy or how many people earn from content creation. What can be seen on the ground is a growing network of creators, local businesses, photographers, marketers and agencies using social media for commercial work. The experiences of people working within that network also show that the market remains informal, with earnings, opportunities and expectations varying considerably from one creator to another.
Raja Aadam, CEO and founder of Srinagar-based digital marketing company Aadams Apple, has been working in the digital space for around 16 years. The company’s work includes digital marketing, content creation, social media and event management. Aadams Apple also operates as an influencer-booking agency through which brands can book creators from Kashmir. Before COVID-19, Aadam says, his agency would approach businesses about digital marketing, advertising and reels, but many local businesses were still unfamiliar with those services. “After COVID, things changed a lot,” he says. Businesses began to understand that an online presence was necessary, while influencer collaborations gave them another way to see how digital promotion could work.
He sees the past two or three years as a period of significant growth in influencer collaborations in Kashmir. He also connects the change to a broader rise in entrepreneurship, saying young people who were once primarily focused on examinations and salaried jobs are increasingly looking for alternative paths while they build their careers. A 2025 Boston Consulting Group report estimated that India had more than 2–2.5 million creators with more than 1,000 followers, influencing between $350 billion and $400 billion in consumer spending. It also projected creator-influenced consumption to exceed $1 trillion by 2030. The national market has therefore become large enough to attract detailed industry research. Kashmir does not yet have comparable data. What is emerging here is easier to see through the people and businesses involved.
When Instagram Becomes Work
For 20-year-old Puja Tamang from Srinagar, content creation started without a business plan. A B.Com Honours student, Tamang makes fashion and lifestyle content on Instagram, including transition reels, GRWMs and other short-form videos. She began posting seriously a couple of years ago because she enjoyed dressing up, making videos and trying new things. At first, she was not thinking about followers or brand collaborations. The response she received changed that. “When people started responding to my content, I thought maybe I could actually do something with it,” she says.
Her friends encouraged her to continue, while her family took longer to understand what she was doing. Over time, they became accustomed to it. She says content creation has become routine enough that even when she is with others, she might find herself saying, “Wait, let me shoot this first.” Her work has since included collaborations with local businesses, with opportunities coming through Instagram and mutual contacts. Her first paid collaboration stands out in her memory. “Wait, someone actually wants to pay me to make a reel?” she remembers thinking.
For Tamang, the work has also changed what she gets from social media. She says content creation has made her more confident, introduced her to different people and given her opportunities to attend events. It has also taught her how to communicate professionally, work in front of a camera and deal with criticism. That adjustment has been particularly relevant to the experience of women creators. Tamang says women are often judged over what they post, and early in her journey she spent more time thinking about those opinions. She now tries to separate useful criticism from comments she does not need to carry with her. “If I keep worrying about everyone’s opinion, I’ll never be able to create anything,” she says.
A 22-year-old creator from Srinagar has encountered a similar tension, although her content takes her outdoors rather than into fashion. She creates travel and nature content, including cinematic reels, packing guides, scenic vlogs and videos from remote villages. Her interest in travelling began in childhood, and the positive response to photographs and stories she shared from her trips eventually encouraged her to make more of them. She says social media gave her an excuse to explore more. But travelling alone brought concerns at home. Her family initially struggled with the idea of her going to remote places on her own.
The creator says women who travel alone in Kashmir can face a particular kind of scrutiny. Comments about their character, clothes and why they are “roaming around so much” can turn an ordinary trip into something that has to be explained. She says the reactions used to affect her much more than they do now. Her collaborations have included boutique stays, cafes and local tourism ventures. Some have been paid, while others have involved accommodation or transport in exchange for content. Most of these opportunities came through Instagram messages. The first time a brand paid her for something she already enjoyed doing was, she says, surreal. The work has also made her more independent. She has learned to set up a tripod in crowded places, negotiate with brands and speak more confidently about what she wants from a collaboration.
What Counts as Payment?
That question becomes important in a market where not every collaboration involves money. None of these arrangements necessarily resembles a conventional job. There may be no office, fixed working hours or formal contract between a creator and a business. A collaboration can involve direct payment, but it can also take the form of a meal, a dress, a hotel stay or another exchange agreed upon by both sides. For many creators, the relationship with a brand can begin with something as simple as an Instagram message and develop from there. Aadam says both paid and barter collaborations are common in Kashmir. He does not consider barter inherently problematic, particularly when the exchange is meaningful for the creator. His concern is with creators repeatedly accepting very low-value offers simply to have a collaboration on their profile. “Barter is good, but it should mean something,” he says, pointing to creators accepting invitations for something as small as tea or biryani. He also mentions certificates, mementos and other tokens offered instead of remuneration.
In his view, accepting such offers too often can create an impression that the creator is willing to work for little or nothing. That can become difficult to change later. Aadam says some creators accept ₹1,000 or ₹2,000—or whatever a business offers—while others are more selective about the brands they work with. He says a creator’s image, content quality, reach, previous brand associations and willingness to be selective can all affect what they are able to negotiate. He estimates that about 70 percent of the collaborations handled by his agency currently happen directly between brands and creators, while around 30 percent go through agencies. The figure is his estimate based on the agency’s own work, rather than a market-wide measurement. The difference matters because direct negotiations can leave both sides with unclear expectations. An agency can act as an intermediary, but Kashmir’s creator market is still small enough that many businesses approach creators themselves.
For Aadam, there is another gap in how these collaborations are understood. He says many brands approach influencer campaigns with immediate sales in mind. “When you do an influencer collaboration, it is not just about sales,” he says, arguing that collaborations can also be about promotion, awareness and building trust around a brand. That distinction is reflected in the wider Indian market. The 2025 India Influencer Marketing Report from The Goat Agency and Kantar, published by WPP Media, estimated the country’s influencer marketing industry at ₹3,600 crore in 2024 and projected 25 percent growth in 2025. The report also found that 85 percent of manufacturing brands surveyed prioritised content quality when selecting influencers. For Kashmir, however, there is still little information about how much creators are earning or what a typical collaboration is worth. Individual examples can show how the market works, but they cannot establish a standard rate.
For Women, the Audience Can Also Become a Source of Pressure
The growing visibility of women creators has also changed what kinds of work are publicly visible. Aadam says women currently make up a large share of the creators getting reach and brand opportunities in Kashmir. He has also particularly noticed low-value barter arrangements among women creators, including offers involving food or other small exchanges. “Your image becomes that of someone who works for free,” he says, describing how repeatedly accepting very low-value collaborations can make it harder for creators to negotiate properly later.
For the travel creator, the pressure comes from another direction. The content she makes requires her to be visible in places where women travelling alone can still attract attention and commentary. Tamang has dealt with criticism around fashion and what women should or should not post. Both experiences point to a part of creator work that is difficult to measure through follower counts: the social cost of being publicly visible. The criticism has not stopped either creator from continuing. Instead, both say their relationship with those reactions has changed as they became more experienced. Tamang says people around her have also become more accepting of content creation. What might once have been dismissed as simply spending time making reels is increasingly understood by some people as work that can lead to opportunities and income. The travel creator sees a similar generational shift. She says younger people are generally more familiar with women creating content and travelling independently, although traditional attitudes remain.
Building a Portfolio from Kashmir
For a 24-year-old male creator from Srinagar, Instagram provided a route into fashion that he says did not previously feel available locally. He creates fashion and streetwear content, works on editorial-style reels and fitness transformations, and appears in lookbooks and campaigns for clothing brands. He was initially encouraged by friends who liked his sense of styling and suggested that he try modelling. He says professional modelling opportunities in Kashmir were limited when he started, with few of the conventional structures he associated with the industry. Instagram allowed him to build a portfolio himself instead of waiting to be discovered through an agency or runway. His family initially had a very different reaction.
Coming from a traditional background, he says, they questioned why he was posing for photographs, styling outfits and making fitness content online. “What kind of career is this? Focus on studies” was the kind of response he heard. That changed when brands began approaching him. His work now includes paid campaigns, lookbook shoots and sponsored styling reels. He describes it as a steady source of side income and says it could become a full-time occupation with enough work. The social pressure has not disappeared completely. He says male fashion creators can be mocked by peers, particularly because fashion, skincare and modelling can challenge local expectations around masculinity. But the photographers, stylists and clothing brands he works with have also created a supportive professional community.
For him, one of the biggest changes is that a young person in Kashmir can now build a visible portfolio without immediately having to move to Delhi or Mumbai. Local clothing labels and menswear stores can find models through social media, and a creator can use the same platform to show work to businesses outside the Valley.
Also Read: The Illusion of Affluence: What’s Behind Kashmir Gen Z’s Visible Spending?
Can the Money Last?
Visibility can create work, but it does not automatically create a sustainable career. Aadam says creators who become dependent entirely on collaborations can eventually run into problems. He argues that attention can change quickly, and creators need to keep developing their own content and remain relevant to their audiences. He also advises creators to maintain another stable source of income or build another source of work rather than relying entirely on brand collaborations. For him, the question is not only how long a creator can remain visible, but whether they can continue to build something around that visibility. “You have to keep creating your own content and remain relevant,” he says, arguing that creators need to invest in their own work rather than only producing sponsored collaborations.
His advice is partly about longevity and partly about positioning. A creator who accepts every offer at the beginning may find it difficult to negotiate higher rates later, particularly if businesses have become accustomed to getting content cheaply. Aadam says this can happen because creators may initially accept whatever is offered when their needs are smaller, only to find later that businesses have already come to associate them with low-cost work. “Everyone starts saying, I can get this person to do it for ₹200, ₹300 or ₹500,” he says.
For the creators interviewed for this story, content creation sits alongside other interests and responsibilities. Their experiences also vary widely. One has turned fashion videos into paid campaigns, another has built collaborations around travel, and another is developing a modelling career through local brands. None of those paths represents a standard route into the industry. What they have in common is that Instagram has lowered the barrier to entry. A phone can be enough to begin creating, and an account can become a portfolio that a business, photographer or brand can find without a traditional introduction.
Aadam argues that content creation should itself be treated as a profession. “Content creation is not usually considered a job, a role or a business, but in my view, it is,” he says.
Kashmir does not yet have the data to say how many creators can make a living this way. It is also too early to know how many of today’s creators will still be doing it several years from now. What is visible is the market developing around them: businesses are approaching creators to promote products and services, creators are negotiating paid campaigns and barter arrangements, and agencies are beginning to connect the two sides. For some young Kashmiris, social media remains something they do alongside college or other interests. For others, it is becoming a source of income and a way to build a professional identity.
The first payment may begin with a reel, but what comes after it depends on whether that visibility can be turned into sustained work.
