Priyanka Writing
Recently a lot of brands are looking to publish some really interesting and fun content through their social channels. Specifically brands into serious stuff like insurance and healthcare want to be cool, fun, light and yet meaningful out there on social media.
At a meeting with such a client, I was showing an ad campaign idea where we used some comics and fun images. For a moment the client was lost because fun, cool updates are understandable but an ad – which is a comic strip?
I just realized how much advertising is changing on social channels. I have been seeing so many fun ads lately especially on Twitter. This ad by CA technologies shown below is one such example. This cartoon it shows is actually really funny! Intel is another mammoth brand which uses some very fun and basic trivia not just as updates but even as their ad campaign on Twitter!
Imagine that a brand spending so much moolah to bring you some fun cartoons! 🙂
On an average I have written two posts a month here in 2013. A brief overview of these posts,
Awesome Content Strategy from your Workplace
One of the most popular content on the blog a series of posts on how brands can generate great content right from their workplace. I plan to do more such post series, but so far I have only made some slideshare presentations on topics like healthcare/crowdsourced content generation / photographers and so on.
Interviewed a few more rockstar entrepreneurs – Kashyap Dalal of Inkfruit, Annkur of PriceBaba, Rajesh of Percept frozen foods & Gaurav Munjal of Flat.to.
Also wrote a few research based posts on different topics like,
Social Brand Movement v/s Viral Marketing
Is Linkedin the right platform for B2B businesses
Social Media in Politics & Governance
Would love to notch up the number of posts in the coming year, with a lot more series and contextual content.
Happy New Year!
Pic Credit:Â http://www.pinterest.com/pin/264586546831920611/
Earlier I had featured Annkur on the Entrepreneur Spotlight series. The last time I went to meet him, I also met another of his entrepreneur friends and mentee – Gaurav Munjal. It was very interesting listening to them talk about their entrepreneurial experiences.
Business: An apartment rental site for college students – Flat.to.
What led you to prefer the idea of starting your own venture as opposed to a job?
Honestly jobs are boring how much ever they pay you, there is no adventure, there is no fun, there is no rush. You report to someone, you suck up to them, you deliver things and you get praised or you get trashed. Being a bit more humble, I always wanted to start something, to do something of my own and that led me to do this. Anyway it’s not my first venture 🙂
Tell us about your previous entrepreneurial ventures
Unacademy: educational video channel, has more than 100 videos and 400,000 video views. Was started when I was in third year and I wanted to teach my fellow batch-mates about one particular topic and I ended up creating this video. Then started creating more and more videos 😉
(He also has a few more but talks about them only in a more informal setting, so if you meet him don’t forget to ask him about those! #jk 😉 )
How have mentors helped you with starting up? How important would you say it is for a newbie considering entrepreneurship to find a mentor.
My mentors from college told me not to start up, they told me to continue working and then go for higher studies and then figure out stuff. But some of the mentors like Annkur who are entrepreneurs have always been helping me throughout the way into figuring out stuff. I am glad to also have Aakrit as my co-Founder and lead investor, he has been a mentor and whenever I am in a dilemma he has always helped me figuring stuff out.
What would you like to say to anyone who is considering taking the plunge into starting up?
It’s not a plunge, if you are thinking it is a plunge then it’s probably not for you. It’s a way of life and you always knew you were going to do this someday or the other. So just jump, don’t think what will happen 🙂 We will see what happens and take it as it comes don’t worry about it. Just keep doing stuff and good stuff will happen to you.
How important is it and how can a startup create a distinct brand?
I think this is the most important thing, how do you stand apart from the crowd? How do you differentiate? That is what this is about, right? You need to create a brand that people remember for something, be it a niche. And then you need to build up on that brand. For example Flat.to when someone hears about it for the second time they know it’s a real estate site for students, they know what we are doing and they know it’s not just another real estate site but it’s a real estate site for students. Once you have the base brand then you build on that.
Plans for Flat.to?
More colleges, more students, more cities, more features in the product. Btw do you know we launched Flatmate finder and shared flats?
Success secrets?
Hire well, micro manage, treat your startup like a company, and do CRAZY stuff, always!
