Ashish Kumar

Yeah. Sure. Hello. Uh, my name is Ashish Kumar. Uh, I've completed, uh, my MBA in 2021, uh, from MIT Business School. From there, I joined, uh, ICICI Bank as an relationship manager. There, I worked, uh, there for 1 year. I hone my skills in, uh, client communication and getting more sales, how to close deals, and on my graphic designing skills. Because on the branch level, uh, they had few promotional activities where I had to plan and, uh, create the graphics. So I hone my skills over there, and, uh, I always wanted to break into digital marketing industry. My, uh, skills, my internships were aligned, uh, to this industry. So to get into this industry, I started working as a freelancer. Uh, I worked, uh, as a freelancer for 6 months, uh, created my portfolio, worked with a few companies, small scale companies. And, uh, from there, I got a job into, uh, as an digital marketing executive. There, I worked there for, uh, 6 months. Uh, the company was, uh, based, uh, a consultation firm in India, but, uh, the clients were in US. So there, I, uh, looked over the social media, uh, of the companies, uh, of the clients of the companies. Uh, they were in US. Uh, one of my achievement there was, uh, to run a successful email campaign for them. Uh, one of their client was, uh, into liquor and, uh, they had a very good restaurant over there and they wanted to increase the footfall for, uh, the weekends. So we, uh, they we collected and the number of emails and then subscribers from there. Um, they had an event page from there. And thereafter, we started, uh, giving RSVP, uh, 10% discount. So this campaign was, uh, blast, and we had a good success over there. And after that, uh, I joined ez.ai, uh, b to b, uh, SaaS company, uh, in Bangalore. There, I worked for 9 months. Uh, I started, uh, there as a, uh, social media. Uh, my position was digital marketing executive, but I looked over the company's social media, uh, mainly on LinkedIn because, uh, I was into prospecting the client, uh, prospecting and generating leads from the, uh, for the company from LinkedIn. Um, there I used to work for, uh, on demand generation for the company, uh, posting, uh, ghostwriting for them, creating content for them, producing, um, marketing materials for them, uh, graphic designing, and, uh, video editing. So this were my roles, uh, and I like cooking, uh, and, uh, I like to sit down and learn more because, uh, digital marketing, um, is a very competitive industry. So I'd say learning is what I'm most focused on. So this is what me thank you.

Yeah. Sure. Sorry. Uh, when, uh, conducting a social media competitive analysis, you first need to focus on, uh, what are your goals, first, what you want to achieve. And second, what are, uh, what is the what are the products you want? What is the market fit you want, uh, in the market? So first, I'll identify the, uh, the ICPs. Who are the ICPs and who are the companies targeting those ICP, they are your real competitor. Maybe indirect, maybe direct competitor, but who whoever are targeting your ICPs are a competitor. So, uh, what I do, uh, in social media space that, uh, I mainly do it, uh, based for b to b company. I do it on LinkedIn. Uh, so there I have the search title, whoever the are there. You can, uh, even add your competitors, uh, in the list, uh, in the LinkedIn itself in company space. Uh, there is, uh, there from there, you can start benchmarking, uh, uh, whatever the, uh, goal, whatever they are achieving, whatever they are, uh, doing. So I, uh, first of I have a, uh, sheet competitive analysis sheet. Uh, there, I used to follow the metrics first. Uh, what are the things they are doing? What are the posts they are working on? What are, uh, what are the goals they are achieving with their what what were their campaigns? What are the ads they are running? I, uh, I go into, uh, ad libraries of the different social media platform and, uh, put out what are the ads they are running, who are they targeting, if they are in a specific campaign they are running. So these are the things, uh, first, I start analyzing. And from there, I get, uh, the insights are very valuable because when you are breaking into the industry and you are new, so you have to be, uh, you have to learn from your competitors because they have tried and tested. And social media is all about testing. So when you have something you've, uh, the other person have tried and tested, so you you have to see, uh, what is working for them and start working on that which is working and implement your own take on it because, uh, you want to be unique. Your product is unique. And, uh, if something is working for them, uh, then what is the point it is working? So you have to find out that point and start, uh, creating your material too. So if, uh, and at lastly, you have to do the SWOT analysis because, uh, SWOT analysis gives you what are their, uh, strengths, uh, what are they, uh, how they are keeping up within on that platform, and, uh, what are their weaknesses we can target. And, uh, if they are not targeting those weaknesses, we can do that with our content on social media. So, uh, basically, uh, social media analysis, social competing with social media analysis involves measuring the metrics and, uh, gaining the insights which can put you out in, uh, above them and which can, uh, put you, uh, make you a unique identity along, uh, with them. So this is my strategy.

LinkedIn campaigns are one of the best campaigns for b to b SaaS product. Um, I've worked, uh, with b to b companies, uh, with b to b SaaS product. And, uh, one thing I'm very sure of it, uh, that the decision makers are there. You have to hit them. You have to find them. You have to scrape data from any, uh, place, uh, else. So I'd say the most effective KPI to monitor for a LinkedIn campaign is to see on the link clicks. If you're running paid ads, if you're running, uh, any paid campaign on LinkedIn, you have to see the link clicks. If you, uh, you have given any lead magnet over there and you want, uh, them to submit if you want them, um, to have that value, have that, uh, information, you have to collect that data. So whatever, uh, KPI is is, uh, one of the best is to, uh, get the form sign ups, is to get that link clicks, get those attention, uh, to you, uh, to the private so that in, uh, in exchange of information, you can get those information. So one of the best thing, uh, uh, campaigns I've, uh, ran is to set, uh, put out the lead magnets. It works amazingly. Uh, I've worked in an organic tool. Uh, I used to create content on and put out the link in the comments. People used to sign up from there. So they'll, uh, you have to have a tool, uh, or anything so that you can monitor the links, uh, whoever are clicking, or you can, uh, create a small landing page, um, in a hour and a half so that you can collect the those. And, uh, thereafter, you can add those lead magnets to your website too. So the most effective KPI is to observe the link clicks, uh, from the LinkedIn campaign. And, uh, I would say if we're going for prospecting and generating organic leads, the KPI will change. If, uh, you are focusing on generating, uh, organic leads, the KPI will be, uh, the DM replies, acceptance rate. So these will these will be the KPIs when you do the organic campaigns because, uh, there you are targeting based on the number of outreach, not based on number of clicks. So, uh, the metrics will change. KPIs will change if you are going for organic. It will be the reply rates, the acceptance rate, uh, how much people are able to, uh, you are able to book there, uh, how much people, uh, are you are booking calls with. So call booking, uh, sign ups, these are the, uh, KPIs you will follow when you are, uh, doing organic campaigns.

Twitter is a very interesting platform. Uh, what you have to do, Twitter algorithm is different than LinkedIn or, uh, that, uh, Instagram because on Twitter what works is that those minimal text, not those big videos and, uh, those images, those minimal text. So that whatever the current topics and it is very fast and very, uh, I would say the post time is there. The post, uh, lifetime span is very less on Twitter. So you have to, um, if you want followers, if you want engagement, you will focus on bringing the impressions and the repost. Yes? So what I do, uh, that I'd start creating content. Those are very trendy in my niche and which are people already talking about and engage in those conversations, uh, and post my point of opinion of other posts as in repost. Because what will happen that people will start nose noticing your company because you have posted your opinion on their opinion. So, uh, instead of commenting or instead of, um, writing there, we I'll start with reposting. This is an amazing strategy. It has worked very well. And for and the number of accounts or number of followers you want, you want to post as many, uh, times as possible because the post span is very short. I'd say, uh, posts are around 2 to 3, uh, tweets daily. That, 1 48 characters only because, uh, people don't want to give, uh, Twitter a lot of time, um, reading those because blogs are there. They don't want to read those on LinkedIn, uh, on, uh, Twitter too. So my strategy would be to, uh, write small, 1 or 2 liner or let's say 5 liner max, uh, about the opinion, about the repost, posting, uh, 3 times a day, and bringing those engagement because, uh, I when I'm sharing my opinion to them, uh, as in repost, people will come to observe me. So this is one of the strategy, uh, I would follow for a company or a startup or Twitter. Uh, 1st, I'd go from because people are not interested in knowing what your company does because those are listed on your about section. You want to you can get those with profile visits. Right? So, uh, to bring the followers, to bring the engagement, we have to engage with people. We have to, uh, engage with the right people and, uh, as many times as possible. So that will be my strategy.

Yeah. I, uh, whenever I plan, uh, social media strategy for a company, uh, I first do the user username research. Uh, so what are the username? Uh, it is available. It is, uh, searchable, is other companies are also there on the same name. And, uh, like, on, uh, social media, let's take the example of first, uh, Instagram. When you are writing your name on, uh, social media, you, uh, let's say you are a recruitment company or a b to b company in product development. So what product you are developing and what is your hero product? What you want to be discoverable for? You write it in your name. Like, uh, let's say your name is xyz dash product, uh, company. So that keyword will start, uh, helping you rank on the social media if in if someone searches on Google because, uh, the more you use your keyword, what you want to rank with, uh, that will help you rank on even Google also. Your, uh, search pages, your, uh, social media pages will start appearing there. 2nd, uh, platform I would go for, uh, is LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, there is, um, you can edit your URL. There is the last part of URL. Use that URL part to increase your ranking, the keyword, like, whatever, uh, your company specializes in. So add that keyword there in the last part and whenever someone will search for those keywords because very few, uh, companies do this, Uh, you'll start ranking, uh, on even on first page, even if your website is not ranking, your LinkedIn page will start ranking there. I've achieved this, uh, with my profile. Uh, I have added the social media part into my name. Now when someone searches for Ashi's social media, I come on the first page within, uh, 3 to 4 search results. So, uh, I'd say this has worked well for me, and incorporating SEO is, uh, not very much, uh, I'd say, not, uh, very strong part in social media. You want to regularly use those keywords in your captions in your, uh, posts, uh, because, uh, what happens that those captions and those, uh, search results will, uh, help you rank on the keyword you want to rank on with. So this is my strategy, uh, for, uh, SEO on social media. And if you want to write blog, that's altogether SEO. And, uh, on social media content, you have to add those keywords. You have to add those branded hashtags. You have to add those your product's keywords so that whenever someone searches for that product or anything related to it, you have those key hashtag set ready. Add it in video all posts when, uh, whenever someone searches for that. So this this helps, uh, you rank. This helps you gain the visibility, uh, and enhance your discoverability on social media.

Then, uh, okay, I have a scenario where Facebook organic reach is declining. Right? Now I have to create I have to adapt, uh, my content and distribution study. So, uh, what I do is whenever Facebook reach is declining, what you have to do, check out the analytics first. What are the post or which type of post are working good? Like, uh, now this week, you have changed your content type. You changed your, uh, content material. So what are the post that we're working before? Now what you have to do is start recreating those, uh, either repost them with another, uh, set of creatives or another set of, uh, audio in another different way or you can create it similar topics, uh, related to them because if people are interested in those topics, people are interested, uh, now. So people are still searching those topics. So, uh, start creating, reproducing those content again and again, and, uh, I what I'll do, I'll start the production twice because, uh, I want I don't want my organic reach to, uh, decline. So I'll find out the best times first or what were the best times when my most audience was active. And thereafter, I'll start posting at least, uh, 2 content daily, uh, so that my organic reach sustains those, uh, posts which are not working. So, uh, this is a strategy, uh, I have tried and tested, um, few many times. Whenever a post is not performing or one type of content, I decided to try and it is not working and Facebook leads or Instagram leads is going down. So now what I do is, you know, to avoid getting, uh, those declining reach that recreate or repurpose another content which have worked on another platform or on the same platform and start creating and, uh, start reproducing it and start distribution twice as the current rate.

Yeah. Uh, I recently worked with the hiring platform. Uh, I'd like to share the that strategy I've, uh, used there for their Instagram and for their LinkedIn, uh, presence. Their ICPs were students because they were hiring, and students are mainly on, uh, those mainly active or on Instagram too, but, uh, on LinkedIn too. But they wanted, uh, b to b decision makers too. They want the hires too. So what should we do? Should we use Instagram there too? No. So, uh, what I did that, uh, while planning the content strategy for that company, I, uh, started, uh, their b to b on LinkedIn, b to b marketing efforts on LinkedIn, and b to c marketing efforts on Instagram. So, uh, this is, uh, I planned their content. I started creating these. I started creating the pain points. I started addressing the pain points, uh, for the students, uh, getting, uh, hiring problems, how they are, uh, how they can improve their hiring process. So, uh, I added those on, uh, Instagram, and I started enlisting pinpoints of the, uh, hires. What are the, uh, what are the problems they are facing and how, uh, I molded it into a piece of content where they can use our platform to, uh, address those pain points. So started creating awareness, uh, on both different platforms, uh, like this. And, uh, when and students are also there on LinkedIn too. So I started posting on the personal, uh, profile of the, uh, founder with the, uh, content addressing the students too so that there is a community. So there is a flow. And on, uh, LinkedIn hiring platform, I started getting those sign ups to our website so that there is a database for us. And we can later on use the email marketing, uh, for our students or for our b to b hires. So this is the strategy I, um, basically apply, uh, on Instagram, on on LinkedIn presence. Because, uh, Instagram and LinkedIn both are, uh, quite very different platforms. Instagrams require, uh, too much of visual content, and LinkedIn requires too much of, uh, copyrighted content, means, uh, very well written educated content. So this was the difference while I was planning the content strategy for both of them? Uh, it involved Instagram involved most of the video content, and LinkedIn involved, uh, most of the, uh, written content.

Yeah. I'd like to, uh, walk you through with an example, uh, I set up for releasing email center. Uh, they they had us, uh, goal to sign up. Uh, they were event and wedding planner, so they wanted people to sign up, uh, for the program. So what I did first, uh, I started, uh, on meta. I created 2 different set of, uh, I use this strategy of creating 5 to 6 creatives first. So I, uh, went to the campaign manager. I allocated the budget and, uh, automated it to, uh, give it to the maximum to the, um, one that's performing so that it is optimized, uh, on own because Meta has now, uh, tools or, uh, things you can optimize on your own by testing. So, uh, what I did, uh, I created 2 campaigns, uh, and in one, I had 4 ad campaigns, and, uh, on each campaign, I had 44 ad sets. So I tested on those 8 creatives. And, uh, what meta does that when you you allocate the whole budget on campaign level so that the supply to the money is equally on all the ad sets. Right? Now when, uh, the ad sets are, uh, whichever are performing, you can, uh, check the metrics and optimize if, uh, the ad sets which ad sets are performing. If some some ad sets are not, uh, performing, not different text are performing, Whichever are performing, you can push now. You can close the those nonperforming ad campaigns or ad sets, uh, and push all the money from there to ad sets. Now this, uh, helps you optimizing your period campaign and, uh, run you through a strategy where you have tested and tried and with the minimum testing budget, uh, so that you have the, uh, best campaigns working out there and give you the maximum ROI. So this is the basically, I I've given you the overview, uh, how can we optimize the meta um, and advertising campaign on Meta?

1st, uh, I would like to say that, uh, whenever a startup approaches for digital marketing, they should first have that, uh, business goal in mind. What they want to achieve on social media. Will social media be able to, uh, achieve that goal? Because, uh, when, uh, you are thinking of digital marketing for a start up, there are too many things. You if you're a product based company, you want to do SEO on website, you want to run ads, if, uh, you want to run organic content, if you want to do the prospecting, you want to regenerate leads. So digital marketing involves, uh, too many things. But if your goal is clear with social media, you will then you will be able to achieve those, uh, ROI. You will be able to hit those ROI which with the help of social media thereafter. So while assessing the potential impact of emerging social media platforms, uh, on a start up digital marketing strategy, I would say too many start ups are coming out, uh, running their digital marketing campaigns. They're running and currently, the one of the best, uh, marketing strategy, I've seen organic marketing strategy I've seen is building a personal brand for the founders. I've worked on that, and, um, believe me, uh, those generate leads on b to b, uh, at very good scale. You can thereafter start email marketing. And thereafter, you can start cold calling because from there people connect with you, people trust your people, not just your brand. So, uh, the emerging social media trend right now is building a personal brand for a startup, uh, because too many startups are there currently in the market. People don't know whom to trust, but people trust people. So, uh, when you are building that trust, people will, uh, come to seek for help. When you are showing how you can help, people come for help. So, uh, build a personal brand for the founders, start posting based on how you can help, what are the the things you cover, how, uh, what, uh, what are the pain points you are covering for them. So these are the things, uh, I test and try, uh, with my, uh, strategy on social media, and, uh, one of the best strategy right now is this.

Uh, I don't prefer to track, uh, each social media post performance and engagement and conversions, uh, because when you are running a campaign, uh, you need at least different type of post. What are the working ones? What are the conversion giving ones? So even if I'm tracking engagement, so engagement can be, uh, like a reply back, a comment, a DM, uh, and conversions can be the link in bio or commenting for link or if you have a lead magnet. So on social media, possibilities are too many, uh, depends on what you want to track. So if you are tracking engagement, track for those people who who are new, like, uh, new visitors, How many visitors are coming? How many people are interacting with you? How many people are engaging with, uh, your most of the content, how many people are DM ing you. So this is the one thing. And for conversions, uh, for a specific social media post, you can definitely create a tracker. I usually follow a 7 day or 5 day tracker for, uh, following social media. If I have a campaign running, I create a tracker so that, uh, everything is being monitored. What are the conversions from after do that post? So because each, uh, measuring each conversion on social media is difficult unless you have a very specific tool to measure, like, a buffer or, uh, on Spark Social. Uh, otherwise, it is very difficult. So either you can create a tracker, uh, for yourself or use those tools to track each social media engagement and conversions from each specific post or, uh, conversion after those posts. And LinkedIn has that in premium if you have a premium account or a sales navigator plan, then, um, it will show you how many people have visited your profile or your company after the particular post. So these are the things I, uh, observe, uh, on social media, and it's all about experimentation and getting things, uh, done for your goal. And emphasizing on goal because, uh, if you don't have a goal on social media, you're doing bunch of things, uh, those are called tactics. And, uh, when you are running a b to b company, you want to work on a strategy, not on tactics. Tactics works when you are experimenting.

Yeah. I have a very good, uh, currently, uh, very good influencer marketing platform for this is available on LinkedIn. They are running and testing it, and it's performing very well. If you know a person in your niche, he's a creator or very good creator, you can cocreate that content and, uh, run those ads with cocreated branding. Like, uh, on Instagram, if, uh, have paid partnership, uh, they have run this also on LinkedIn too. And you want to reach because they have a audience. They have audience interested in, uh, those products. So when you are co creating and co promoting with them, so you will be able to reach those b to b clients too. So, uh, on for influencer marketing reaching for reaching to b to b customers and reaching to the decision makers, I'd say go for LinkedIn, that co create co creation, uh, activity. And if you want to go for, uh, let's say, on, uh, in Instagram. On Instagram, if your ICPs are same, you'll have to go for the people who are into entrepreneurship, who are people who, uh, talks, uh, in the similar niche. First, I'll list down those persons, check out their engagements from different, uh, analytics tools because, uh, it is easy to fake the engagements now. So, uh, I'll check, uh, whatever the engagement they are getting. Is it right or not? Whatever, uh, and set up the campaign for them specifically after, uh, running the, uh, campaign influencer marketing, uh, after posting, what were the metrics before that and what are the metrics after that if those are the, uh, people working or not? If those are working, I'll try to scale more with them. If not, I'll go for another creator or I will go for another strategy. So, again, this is trying and testing and, uh, when because influencer marketing needs a budget, you have to research very well, uh, about your, uh, creator if, uh, he's able to achieve those numbers or not, if he will be able to achieve on the numbers or not. So this is the strategy I deploy, uh, to promote us as product to influencer marketing on social media platforms on LinkedIn, on Instagram, uh, approaching different audiences and and using different strategies.