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It’s been a while since I’ve had someone on Interview Fridays. Ever since I’ve re-branded my site (previously on Click-Dubai.Com), it’s been hectic making things right this time and keeping up with good content to deliver to the readers.
I have a special treat for you social media aficionados in today’s Interview Friday. I consider her the darling of Dubai’s social media industry, especially on Twitter (and she looks prettier in person).
She’s the founder of Socialize, UAE’s first dedicated social media agency, headquatered in Dubai. She’s also an actives peaker for marketing trainings across Asia and the Middle East. Without further ado, please help me welcome Ms. Akanksha Goel.
Thank you for this opportunity Akanksha. For the benefit of SaktoSEO readers, can you please tell us more about yourself and your work?
Thanks Dave. The short of it is that I was invited to Dubai almost 2 years ago as the Marketing Director for the Sherazade group, which specializes in loyalty marketing solutions. Before that, I’d worked on special projects with the TATA group in India, marketing with the TAJ group of hotels and finally getting involved with the Singapore media circuit as the Editor of STUFF Magazine. Social media is a subject close to my heart and I’ve had many adventures with it, like co-organizing Asia’s first podcamp a few years ago and researching the subject with Professor Michael Netzley, in Singapore. Plausibly, after coming to Dubai, I couldn’t stay away from the subject so I started doing trainings with Murdoch University after which many more followed getting me in-sync with social media marketing in the Middle East.
What is Socialize? What do you specialize in?
The idea for Socialize was born when a team of social media enthusiasts came together as a result of the above-mentioned trainings and we saw the need to have an entity in UAE dedicated to educating the business community on social media marketing, helping them see through the clutter and successfully leverage it as a part of the marketing puzzle.
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Socialize is the region’s first dedicated social media agency and training house. We specialize in customized in-house consulting sessions and run marketing campaigns for a few technology and home brands in the region.
For many online media marketers, social media is the new “shiny thing” and everyone wants to get into the bandwagon. What’s so special about social media?
Yes, there is a lot of hyperbole surrounding social media online. Neither is social media the problem to all marketing problem, nor is it rocket science. It’s a part of the bigger marketing puzzle and the only way to get good at it is practice. An individual, who can get himself to the top of Google, will probably be able to do the same for his business.
Also, Social media apart from being a generally free of cost tool is effective in building personal relationships. The tools that social media utilizes are not new. They’ve been here for quite a while. Its just that companies now recognize the importance of harnessing these online tools to create direct connections with customers. They then use that for crowd sourcing and hence have a go-to community online for marketing.
What do you think companies should consider first before getting into Social Media?
Social media can be an incredible tool for your business, providing you with more customer insight, direct communication channels and the ability to measure the effectiveness of these conversations very closely. But as the proliferation of social media platforms grow, participating can turn into little more than a giant time suck without some sort of structure behind it. Companies need to have a clear set of objectives and goals in mind before they implement a social media campaign. Also, Social media, like marketing is a long-term commitment and comes with its set of risks and businesses need to aware of the dangers and have a crisis communication plan put in place before they embark onto the journey of social media.
How’s the social media scene in the UAE? How about the whole of Middle East?
It’s an ever evolving scene. U.A.E has reached a stage where an online community creates events to meet offline. This is something that grew rapidly in the past few years and we can see it manifest itself in the likes of GeekFest, Social Media Day and other tweetups. This shows a level of maturity in the progression of social media, with users committed to creating and nurturing niche communities.
What are the major challenges in social media for the Middle East market?
Most offices conduct their online social media marketing from the U.A.E for the entire MENA region. The challenge here is that, not the entire region is growing on usage of Social Media evenly. There also is a major issue with language support since the MENA region consists of the lot of cultures and approach to each community cannot be the same. Dividing them into two categories as English speaking community and Arabic speaking community, finding a common approach for both is the challenge.
Also, social media is about community marketing and someone who isn’t a part of the community or doesn’t understand the community can’t market a product effectively within it. Thus, I usually find it shocking to find out how some Dubai businesses outsource their social media campaigns to India and make social media about publishing advertising content on online mediums and not actually connecting with the community.
How important is it for organizations to allocate resources for social media as part of their online marketing strategy?
Typically a Marketing manager must allocate 25% of his / her time online social media marketing.If he/she undergoes training for social media and chooses to handle campaigns on their own, I feel its ideal. However, apart from posting content managers also need to monitoractivity on the page continuously, which they don’t usually have the time for. This can be tackled by hiring a social media marketer in-house or appointing an agency.
What’s your take on search engine optimization / marketing as a strong partner of social media? Should companies treat it separately or as a necessary combination?
SEO is very important since social media marketing is all about creating a presence for a person or brand online. Therefore search engine optimization helps in not only getting to the brand easy, multiple search results give it a higher value. Therefore, SEO is usually taken to be a necessary combination with social media since their objective is the same: increasing online visibility for a brand.
You’ve been actively conducting numerous training events and preaching the importance of effective social media and marketing. What are the important points you repeatedly instill in your audience?
- Intimate social customer service is the best protection against price sensitivity and commodisation
- You’re not going to find out about social marketing by reading about it. You need to just do it.
- To create a compelling story, you need people who are directly affected by the story you’re reporting on. Use social media to find those real people. They’re out there tweeting. The beauty of these social media [sites] is they’re searchable.
- With social campaigns, once you build momentum, don’t squander it.Use your successes to justify bigger budgets, more staffing and cooler projects.
For those who are still deciding to go into social media or those who are having doubts in this marketing subject, what piece of advice can you give to them?
The real risk doesn’t lie in having a project that doesn’t succeed, or doesn’t succeed in quite the way you’d hoped. The real risk is being taken by organizations that aren’t investing in learning those conversational skills – because increasingly, the public is coming to expect them. And if a company, organization or agency isn’t listening, they’ll turn to one that does.
For those who are interested in getting in touch with Akanksha, you can follow her on:
- Akanksha Goel – Middle East and Asia Social Media Trainer
- Twitter – @akankshagoel
- Socialize
Interview Fridays – Akanksha Goel of Socialize.Ae is a post from: Small Business SEO Tips – SaktoSEO