Meet 5 women influencers who are combining viral content with strong messages

Social media messaging can have far-reaching consequences if the messages have a positive impact on the audience.

With popular influencers boasting of followers running into millions, what and how they say assume significance.

Several social media influencers are speaking up about body positivity, sexual health, girl’s education, and raising awareness about mental health.

Here are a few social change makers that caught our interest.

Prajakta Koli

Popular YouTuber, Instagram influencer (of Mostly Sane fame), actor and changemaker Prajakta Koli was recently in Davos to represent India as one of the influencers from six nations at the World Economic Forum. Last year, Prajakta was named the United Nations Development Programme India’s (UNDP) Youth Climate Champion.

Over the years, Prajakta has been an active campaigner for social issues, tackling body shaming and online bullying with Shameless, part of her campaign, #IPledgeToBeMe.

As a global ambassador for YouTube’s Creators for Change, Prajakta has been vocal about trolling, female subjugation, and homophobia through “No Offence”, showcased on International Tolerance Day at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

She has also partnered with YouTube for Social Impact Girl’s Education campaign, with Instagram for their Safer Internet Week campaign, and One.org for their Girl Education campaign.

Sejal Kumar

Sejal became a YouTuber at the age of 19. With over two million followers, Sejal, like Prajakta Koli, became one of the eight creators across the world to join YouTube Creators for Change programme with Michelle Obama.

The content creator has also worked closely with UNICEF on its child protection campaign, and was part of the Gates Foundation’s vaccination drive in India. She also launched a female empowerment movement, Aisi Hun (I am who I am), a part of YouTube Creators for Change.

To raise awareness on women’s health, she co-founded Maitri along with her mother, a gynecologist, to help the growth of credible information about women’s health across the country.

Seema Anand

The sixty-one-year-old is a sexual health educator with over 752,000 followers on Instagram.

When Seema started, the usual commenters were men, but now it’s women who rule the platform. In two years, she has seen “shyness” dissipating and women becoming confident of their sexuality.

In a country where pleasure is largely seen as a man’s privilege, Seema believes a sexual awakening in women is a welcome change. Seema busts a lot of myths and shares a lot of tips about different aspects of sexual health ranging from sex for older people, sex education, the art of seduction, and more.

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Divija Bhasin

If you are looking for simple information and advice on mental health, you must check out @awkwardgoat3, psychologist Divya Bhasin’s page on Instagram. Her aim is to provide relevant information and bust common myths about mental health. Her take on different social mores, whether it’s the expectation of waking up early, bffs, normalising body types, girls looking natural, and more.

Do check out her Q&A on therapy where she answers several questions surrounding different modes, how it works, why it’s expensive, online therapy, and other relevant concerns and queries.

What draws you to Divija is how she breaks down important information in a language you understand and will relate to. No question is irrelevant or too big or small–what’s important is dissemination of the right kind.

Prableen Kaur Bhomrah

When Prableen was a teenager, she was diagnosed with PCOS. As a result, she had to deal with severe acne, which drew mean comments and criticism on social media. She decided she’d take on the criticism head on and be real with her audience. She posted her first picture with the hashtag #nofilterwithpkb. It went viral, and since then, there has been no looking back.

Embracing her true self, she’s also been encouraging others to be skin and body positive.

In an earlier interview with YourStory, Prableen said, “In terms of planning, I do not have a fixed content calendar. My ideas flow at random, depending upon my mood and what I wants to talk about at that very moment.”

She added that she likes to keep a balance between skin/body positivity, makeup, and fashion as her content is a mixture of it all.