Startup Saturday Ahmedabad – February 2015 Edition

Valentine days can be special to make people realize how much they mean to you, but this valentine day was more special and immensely different as a big crowd of entrepreneurs assembled at IIMA CIIE for a wonderful event to learn new tricks of content marketing and receive thrilling insights from digital marketing gurus.

It never meant these people didn’t believe in personal bonding or expressing their emotions to their valentines, rather it showed their determination to gain professional acumen and their thirst of making most of the learning opportunities passing their ways.

‘Yes, a new era has dawned’, whispered the time and these would be professionals were sharp enough to hear it. They had begun to realize that the old ways of SEO optimization, using blogger engines and portals, link building, etc. were fast becoming the things of bygone days. Now it was high-time those who craved for success in this field learnt to reap the benefits of social media, customised newsletters, intent and geo based marketing.

 

Mr Mitesh of GBG Ahmedabad and Mr. Maulik Masrani of Startup Saturday Ahmedabad played the host to new czars of content marketing. Gracing the occasion were Mr Divesh Aswani and Mr Rahul Bhagchandani from Youth Connect and Mr Pratik Dholakiya of E2M Solutions.

While welcoming the speakers on the stage, We requested them to stay throughout the session as the event was being broadcast live. They assured the audience from Ahmedabad that there would be allowed a personal chat with the speaker after the regular session. The first speakers to be invited for the presentation were Divesh and Rahul, the founders of Youth Connect.

Let’s go through a brief review of what happened during the entire event:

The Intro to What Was in Store

We briefed the audience on the theme and nature of the event. Having expressed pleasure at seeing the crowd and thanked the audience for making SEO Content Marketing and Inbound marketing their first valentine, We introduced Headstart Network to them also talked of the intent of the organisation that was to help business communities in Ahmedabad in understanding and using web technologies to enhance their business.

 Old and New Ways of Content Marketing a Review

Mr Divesh Aswani and Mr Rahul Bhagchandani of Youth Connect in an enlightening conversation told the audience about how the traditional ways of Marketing which involve.

a. SEO Optimization,
b. Blogger Engines,
c. Collection of Links, and
d. Link Building
have given way to methods which included
a. Social Media,
b. Customised Newsletters,
c. Intent and Geo- based Marketing
Which are the new rages today.
Mr Bhagchandani talked of how social media as a tool of marketing was a new trend, and targeting was a rage. He also stressed how Vlogs (Video logs) were becoming more popular than Blogs. In his view, SEO was undergoing reform to survive the change, but newsletters were desperately in need of reform.

The duo shared their secrets regarding what attracted 1.25 million active users to Youth Connect every month and how it received more than 2 lac likes on Facebook.

Marketing with Purpose

Mr Pratik Dholakiya of E2M Solutions thrilled the audience with his talk on ‘HOW TO DO CONTENT MARKETING AND DIRECTION’. The points he covered under this topic has been summarised here:

a. There is a need to create and share valuable content that can attract people.
b. There is a close link between what kind of content you share and what you sell.
c. 80% people before making decisions prefer information through articles.
d. 78% CMO’s hold content as future of marketing.
e. Reading good contents make 70% customers feel closer to the brand.
f. There are two simple guidelines that can help create great content. They are i) Be First ii) Be Different.

The queries from the audience were handled efficiently after the respective presentations.

Write up by:
Maulik Masrani Headstart Ahmedabad Volunteer
Digital Marketing Consultant, Content Strategist and Blogger