Digital Marketing made easy

I never planned to be a marketer. I don’t know if that is a good thing or bad. All I knew was I loved reading and writing and I was damn creative.  My parents never forced me into any one career direction and encouraged me to find my own path. After completing my college education, I started looking for opportunities in 2005. I joined in a content role in my first job - and came to two quick realisations - I needed to be in an outgoing front ending role (yep, that's me) and I need to get a degree to do this. So after working for nearly 3 years, I enrolled in a full time MBA course from 2008 to 2010 . I chose marketing and finance as my specialisations. I interned the first summer at GSK Consumer Healthcare (an FMCG company) where I learnt firsthand that marketing was actually a science and not just some academic mumbo jumbo. I ended up learning a lot about marketing research in that single stint - and that actually helped me, not just academically but even l

I have been active on Quora for quite sometime now - I like connecting with people and understanding what areas young marketers struggle with.  Most of the questions addressed to me have been around content marketing but  I have also helped people out with making a career transition to marketing, understanding digital / social media marketing.  In case you'd like to ask any questions, do visit my profile on Quora . You can also use the QR code above. 

What traits do you need to rock as a marketer in 2020? The same ones that you needed in 2019 :). Marketing is not just the exciting stuff, it is also a bunch of boring stuff done well, consistently. As we all sit and chart out our 2020 marketing journey, it is important that we retain, and remember the simple stuff that makes marketing what it is. Being data-driven : Reduce risk & uncertainty in your decision making by being data led. Question relentlessly & make data your best friend. At the same time, learn to interpret the story behind the data as well. Are you conversant with analytics tools - if not, prioritize championing analytics this year. Looking for some free courses to help you get started? Check out few courses here . Embrace social media : As a marketer, it helps to have a rocking personal brand on social media. Create and share content consistently. Market yourself & have a distinct presence in the space that so many people are co

One of my 2020 resolutions is to be more proactive on social media. As I kept speaking to people throughout 2019, I realised many senior executives had the same goal - but were more or less reluctant to pivot their brand on social media. Many cited lack of time, others cited inability to craft content. I did some research around what busy executives can do to propel their brand on social media, and have distilled my findings into this crisp infographic. In case you are a busy executive with absolutely no time for a dedicated social media engagement strategy, this cheatsheet is for you. The micro-steps outlined below will help you craft your brand on social in whatever time you have available. Summary  1. Start with the why : What are you on social media for? Mentorship? Leadership advice? Personal branding - enumerate your whys carefully before you embark on your personal social media journey. 2.  Your unique value proposition : Amongst the clutte

Further in continuation to our series on content marketing, today we will have a look at some of the content marketing blunders committed inadvertently by marketers. Marketers are busy folks.  And over the past decade, they have been busy creating a monstrous amount of data. As cited in Forbes, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created each day - with over 90% of the data being generated in the last two years alone. This number is not totally incomprehensible - as marketers we are all aware - the sheer gazillionome of newsletters, brochures, social media content, advertising content, email content we create everyday are in some small way contributing to this massive tome of data. But how much of it is actually hitting the end-goal? How many newsletters are actually getting read, how many emails are being directed towards trash and how many advertisements are actually getting a second glance / view? Unlike other initiatives to prune overconsumption / creat

Having read & reviewed Crushing It and the Thank You Economy , here comes the book review of Jab Jab Jab Right Hook - another book authored by Gary Vaynerchuk. Being a marketer, you'd think that you are totally clued into content marketing and what new possibly could the book throw at you that you didn't know? But that's where I was wrong - even though social media has erupted in a grandiose fashion since Gary authored the book, there were still many, many things that I did learn from the book. The most important of which were context and adaptability. What works on Twitter, won't work on Instagram, and what works on Insta may not work on Facebook [Yeah, I know, I know, that we all know that, but trust me, you need to read those specific chapters to understand how organically this is explained in the book] The book begins with how social blends into digital, what makes a great story, and showcases examples from various social media accounts

In case you are a marketer, you know the drill. Understand the target audience, jump through hoops, produce content [that’s the easy part] and then sit back, in anticipation. When is it going to go “viral”? Why are the views so less? Addressing questions such as these and explaining the dynamics of video marketing to folks who don’t work in this area and trying to make them understand the mechanics is sometimes more challenging than the actual video marketing itself. This is why I feel this book needs to be read by a wider audience, to make them more appreciative of what truly goes behind the scenes of “viral" content. Authored by Aashish Chopra [whom I have been following for quite some time on LinkedIn], the book is a veritable storehouse of practical tips. What I really liked about the book was its refreshing take on marketing: plain talk, no fancy jargon and easily comprehensible techniques. I found myself nodding my head in response to some key chall