Yesterday, ‘Professional Congress’ member, Andria D’souza, found herself in an embarrassing situation after it was revealed that she charges Rs 500 for tweeting promotional tweets. ‘Social media influencers’ often charge a price to post promotional material on their platform. While there is nothing wrong in it, when the fact that Andria charged Rs 500 for her post got out, it rattled her a little. After that, she disowned the post and blamed her ‘manager’ for the promotional post. She claimed that she had ‘fired her manager’ after changing her stand a few times and even defending the promotional tweet that she did.
Andria D’souza took to Twitter again today to out the name of her ‘manager’ and say that not only had she fired him but was also thinking of initiating legal action against him and the ‘imposter’ who posted the fake Flipkart sale ad that Andria ended up tweeting for a fee.
This is to inform eveyeone that my social media manager @iKaushikBaruah is no more managing me. And I’ll be filing a case against him n the imposter who impersonated the fake ad of @Flipkart.
— RiA (@RiaRevealed) September 18, 2019
She mentioned an individual called Kaushik Baruah who she claimed was her manager and had been fired.
After this tweet, Kaushik Baruah himself took to Twitter to post a series of tweets and offer an explanation since his name was taken by Andria. First and foremost, he said that was not Andria’s ‘manager’ at all, as claimed by her.
Firm with a trade license, as well as all my entrepreneur partners around 10 of them who are running GST registered digital marketing companies and scaling up quite well. We work as partners when it comes to SM.
— Kaushik B (@iKaushikBaruah) September 18, 2019
He took to Twitter to say that he runs a company in Bangalore with three resources, where 30% of his work is related to Digital Media marketing, rest is Data Analytics, which is their core competency.
The work mostly come from e-commerce companies, brands for promotional content. The lady in question was just one of the 50+ verified/premium profiles whom we use to give work regularly, and it is done very professionally. Our company has declined offers from big real estate
— Kaushik B (@iKaushikBaruah) September 18, 2019
He further clarified that he is not Andria’s manager as is being claimed. He said, “I want to clarify that neither I, nor my company is the Social Media Manager of her account anytime. Nor of any companies or brands. Its that we and our partner network give work to the influencers whom we provide regular compensation”.
Essentially, he said that several brands contact them and in turn, they get in touch with influencers like Andria who are asked to tweet for money. He also said that Andria from Professional Congress is just one of the 50+ verified influencers who are paid by his Digital Marketing Company for promotional tweets.
Regarding the particular incident, a promotional tweet came to me from someone who represented an e-commerce company which I gave to @RiaRevealed for tweeting (just one of multiple requests). She tweeted and the payment was made duly to her. The allegations that I am her
— Kaushik B (@iKaushikBaruah) September 18, 2019
Kaushik Baruah further said that they have declined offers from several companies to manage their brands and social media, however, they have been declined and thus, the questioning of being the manager of a ‘low-level influencer’ like Andria does arise.
Speaking about this particular incident, he says, “Regarding the particular incident, a promotional tweet came to me from someone who represented an e-commerce company which I gave to @RiaRevealed for tweeting (just one of the multiple requests). She tweeted and the payment was made duly to her. The allegations that I am her Social Media manager are completely false, as she tweeted it herself and received the payment and she is in not a position to afford any social media manager. Also, she has been continuously changing her stance since this issue came to the fore”.
He also said that Andria has been changing her stands often after the controversy broke out. She first said it was a referral code and then blamed the manager, both a lie. He says that he had also requested her to not post the screenshots of the WhatsApp conversation but she didn’t listen. “I requested her yesterday not to display publicly the WA screenshots and end this issue because its related to companies and brands, for whom the work is done”, he said.
Finally, Baruah said that he will not be assigning any ‘work’ to the ‘low-level influencer’ anymore.
Work is done very professionally. But since my name is taken here, I thought of putting this up. Henceforth, we wont assign any work to her.
— Kaushik B (@iKaushikBaruah) September 18, 2019
This is not the first time that Andria has been caught on the wrong foot. Earlier, she had blamed Prime Minister Modi for an incident of violence in our neighbouring country Pakistan. With Divya Spandana, Congress’ former IT cell head gone incognito, one would like to recommend Andria D’Souza as a personal reference to take the reins of Congress’ social media in her hand. While Divya restricted herself to spreading fake news and goof-ups through the social media handle, Andria has set the bar higher.
