CHENNAI: Influencer Farhana Suhail was recently awarded the 'Best Social Media Influencer Award' by Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) for highlighting some of the coolest things about Chennai. From discovering new restaurants, to visiting retail outlets or exploring some of the most fun and innovative events in the city, Farhana, through her Instagram page ‘NewToChennai’ is making sure that the entire world knows about Chennai.
Over a decade ago, when Farhana moved to Chennai from Dubai after getting married, she was having a hard time finding things to do and like-minded people to connect with. That’s when she began an exploration of her own and, by starting a group called NewtoChennai. It brought together women, who were as the name suggests -- new to the city -- looking for friends and places to see, dine at, and unwind. Today ‘NewToChennai’ has over a 170k followers that depend on Farhana’s creative skills with only verified, tried and tested content across a range of categories, including F&B, packaged goods, retail, lifestyle, beauty etc.
NTC is an ideal platform for small and emerging brands who are looking to expand in Chennai. Farhana is very particular about research and has an old-school process that she follows meticulously in addition to her team thoroughly vetting the product or service before it goes online. “I am eager to work every day because my followers have become another pair of eyes and ears – alerting me to trends, what’s new, what’s amiss and so much more. I can translate all of this into data for the brands I work with, enabling them to take accurate decisions to grow their business.”
Farhana continued her work with local brands, while hosting coffee mornings for women and small businesses in Chennai, allowing her to be seen as an influencer with heart. People and businesses became closely engaged and were able to continually benefit from each other, so their interactions were sustainable and not time bound. The intimate text group brought together by need had now turned into groups of friends and family.
“In discovering places in a new city on my own, I was led to experiences that the locals themselves didn’t know of, and I think that was my biggest joy. I took pride in the fact that I could introduce new things to people and watch them be awed at how I found something useful and unique in their own hometown.”