Social Nation Residency: A wrap-up of the biggest Creator Residency programme!

As sad as it makes us to announce the end of our amazing Social Nation Residency programme, we’re glad that this happened and more than that, we are happy to tell you all about the fantastic sessions and interactions that happened.

The Social Nation Residency programme was held from the 12th to the 19th of December at The Retreat, Madh Island, and while it concluded this week, it kickstarted many emerging creators’ fruitful beginnings to their digital journey. The participants in the programme received mentoring from renowned content creators, leading platform experts, and industry stalwarts. The core purpose of our programme was to fuel the development of aspiring creators who wish to succeed in this thriving creative economy, a purpose which was greatly aided by this seven-day confluence.

Twenty content creators with a lot of promise and potential from all around the country were selected for this programme and onboarded in order to accelerate their creative journeys through learnings throughout the week at Social Nation Residency.

There were collaborations between creators from diverse backgrounds, genres, and cities of India. The creators lived together under the same roof for seven days where they interacted with each other and had fun challenges together. Cross-genre collaborations across music, food, fashion & entertainment were captivating and they got a chance to produce a branded content piece with the support of editors, DOPs & producers.

Our team behind Social Nation Festival, Asia’s largest creator festival, which began in 2019 in Mumbai with more than 200 creators and 25,000 attendees, curated and launched this unique residency program. 

The highlight of the residency programme included ‘one on one’ interactive sessions with other well-known celebrity creators and digital celebrities, including actors and content creators like Prajakta Koli (mostlysane), Viraj Ghelani (viraj_ghelani), Neel (just_neel_things), Meghna Kaur Kaushal (shetroublemaker), Neel (just_neel_things), Thugesh (maheshkeshwala) Creator Coach Manish Pandey, Snapchat’s Head of Creator and Talent Partnerships Karanbir Lamba, YouTube India’s Head of Sponsorships and Branded Content Mohit Jagtiani, YouTube’s Strategic Partnerships Manager Esha Oberoi, Spotify’s Head of Podcasts Dhruvank Vaidya, Meta’s Lead of Creator and Public Figure Partnerships, Ankit Rihal, Physiotherapist and Content Creator Dr. Rebecca Pinto,  founder of Fincocktail, Sayali Rai and many others.

Also Read: Social Nation Residency Day 6 wrap-up with a fun challenge!

Personalized guidance and sessions with brand and agency experts, creator rooms to build fresh collaborative ideas, and exclusive shooting experiences were facilitated by our creative teams, studio resources & tools for creativity, and peer interaction to create and develop as a group were also the highlights of the programme.

While there were sessions by industry experts as shared, there were also some task sessions. Category lead of Pepsi Cola at PepsiCo, Saumya Rathore, spoke to creators and helped them understand ‘How to create for brands’ while making sure the content works for the creators’ unique audience. After this value-adding session, the creators were given a brand brief as a challenge where they had to conceptualize and make their own content for Pepsi’s Check My Fizz campaign.

Among many mentors of the sessions, here’s what some of the mentors shared as their views on the Social Nation Residency programme.

Here’s what they had to say:

“I am so glad I was a part of this programme. It always feels great when creators sit together to ideate and create. Everyone was so eager to learn new things, it was great to be at Social Nation Residency programme. ”

Prajakta Koli
Actor and Content Creator

“It was an amazing opportunity to be in a room full of so many talented creators and give a masterclass on ‘How to grow and monetize on Youtube’ to these upcoming YouTubers.”

Esha Oberoi
Strategic Partnerships Manager, YouTube India

“I really enjoyed talking to these fellow creators and it was an overall learning experience for me too.”

Just Neel Things
Content Creator

“It was really amazing to be in a room full of creators who are building community on Facebook and Instagram. I loved the energy and the questions that were asked. Here’s hoping I helped them build a successful career on the platform.”

Ankit Rihal
Lead, Creators and Public Figure Partnerships, Meta India

“Coming back to Social Nation is like home for me. I got to share my experiences with these budding creators and learn from them.”

Viraj Ghelani
Content Creator

“The Social Nation Residency programme is absolutely great. We need more of these all across the country. We are there to support the creator ecosystem.”

Karanbir Lamba
Head of Talent and Creators Partnerships, Snapchat Inc

Our creators loved the sessions and here we are sharing what some of them said:

“My favorite sessions helped me understand what I would like to do better, and I will apply all the insights that I got from Social Nation Residency.”
Chetna Suri
Fashion Creator

“I am a food blogger and I got to learn many new things here. I really wanted to speak to industry experts one-on-one and this programme made that dream come true.”
Foodie Kashif
Food Creator

Social Nation Residency built relationships and bonds across the content industry. Post the Residency, these networks will lead to collaborative growth with the equipped knowledge and resources to build stellar content IPs, scale up their content careers and monetize themselves at an early stage.

While the first season of this residency programme has come to an end, and creators got to learn all about content, this is not it. We plan to expand not only to other Indian cities but also to international markets with more regionalized formats for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Indonesia, and Spain in the upcoming year.