Are you waiting
for the moment that will change your life? Are you expecting a
miracle that will make things better? That one opportunity that will turn
things around? Sorry to burst the bubble, but didn’t most of us just while our
time during the pandemic situation.
When an unexpected situation happens,
there are two ways to act – blaming the circumstances and waiting desperately
for someone to do something or analyzing it properly and respond in a timely
and reasonable manner. The second type of thinking is what we call proactivity.
In our ‘Social Media’ series, we are fortunate to feature a teacher-turned-digital marketer, turned-fulltime
food blogger and recipe creator. Mish
Sen, is an Indian based in the US who optimised the pandemic period and
found her true calling. She went ahead with great gusto and managed to carve a
magnanimous niche as an influencer.
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Mish has been living in the US for over 20
years now. Working full time, she didn't have a lot of extra time to cook
laborious Indian meals. However, she has developed her recipes to be
nutritious, delicious and simple that anyone can cook. Adding more substance to
her transition, she discloses, “In the course of my cooking journey, I have
realized that many Indian dishes could be simplified without losing its taste
or authenticity. I’m on a mission to make Indian food accessible to everyone -
without overwhelm and without guesswork”.
Mish never waited for something
to happen, her motto has been to MAKE it happen! Truly successful people like
her, create their own opportunities, and act, not react! We would be having a
second part of the interview which would conclude some amazing anecdotes, tips
and success mantras from Mish Sen.
Always
remember - The
most important thing in this highly competitive world is action, and you just
need to take matters in your hand, create your own possibilities, and be
proactive. Whether it is your career or personal life, get going;
take charge; make it happen; be proactive!
Over to the interview with the dynamic Mish
Sen…
The
interview:
Can
you tell us a little bit about how you got started and attained the
position of an influencer?
Since 2018, I have nurtured a dream of
starting my own Instagram food page. With a full time job, it was challenging
to find time to get started. Being a digital marketing consultant, life was
very busy. Last year, in March 2020, when COVID hit us, I was about to start
looking for a new position. Overnight the world changed as well as the job
market. Company stopped hiring, or scaling down. At that time, with my
husband’s encouragement, I decided to plunge right into my blogging dream. I
enrolled with an Instagram mentor and started my food page on Instagram.
On March 24th, 2020, I published my first
post. I put my heart and soul into learning how Instagram worked and started
presenting my recipes to the world. I was thrilled to see how well I was being
received and worked really hard. The first four months I put in twelve hour
days. In general, I treat my food page as a full time job, I put in my digital
marketing skills, my teaching skills, my cooking skills and my people skills
all into it. And the results have been so wonderful!
I reached 10k followers in about two months
and since then have been steadily increasing my followership who are mostly
female and very engaged. I have many wonderful conversations with my audience
and am in tune with their needs and challenges.
How
important is authenticity to your review when it comes to influencer marketing?
How do you maintain your authentic voice, viewpoints and recommendations on
your social media while still partnering with brands?
I take my role as an influencer very
seriously. I believe an authentic review or recommendation is extremely
important for influencer marketing. Lots and lots of people trust me and
believe in me. It is very important to me to respect that trust and recommend
products and brands that I either use myself or believe in. The way I maintain
my authentic voice is that I choose to work with brands whose products are
truly great and that meets the needs of my audience and offers them a great
solution.
Have
there been any brands or promotions you have refused since you didn’t believe
in them?
Yes I have! There have been a handful of
brands that I have passed on because I couldn’t align with their products.
Read more
Social Media Influencing interviews:
How do
you plan the brand promotion in case of collaborations? What is the modus
operandi you follow?
When planning a brand collaboration, I
start with a detailed meeting with their marketing liaison and understand what
their marketing objectives are for the campaign. Before the meeting, I will
firstly have a look at the brand’s social media pages to understand what
kinds of campaigns they've done before and what has been getting high
engagement.
In the meeting, I will propose what I could
do for them in terms of asset/content creation and what my audience responds
well to. I also share my key analytics if I haven’t done so before. I like to
discuss any trends that are working that could benefit this campaign. We then
set up a timeline for delivery of content.
I also make sure to do my best work and
deliver assets on time. The delivery time has a bit of cushion built-in so
changes could be made if needed. A structured approach works well for a
successful brand collaboration.
Do you
take advance part-payments before you start creating content for a brand? How
do you safeguard your payments? Any cases where you haven’t been paid your
dues?
So far I have always taken payment after
delivery of content. I prefer payment terms to be laid out via a written
document, whether contract or email. Fortunately, I haven’t had any experiences
where my payment has not been made.
Do you
have any big goals as an influencer for 2021?
Oh yes for sure I do! My goal for 2021 is to
release my cookbook and my online cooking course. Apart from that I would like
to do some awesome brand work.
10
tips for budding influencers who want to succeed in this field.
1.
Understand
your niche (who are you serving?)
2.
Don’t
focus on monetization. Focus on how you can be of help to your audience-give
them immense value without seeking anything back. Everything else will fall in
place.
3.
Listen
to your audience by reading carefully their comments, DMs, question answers and
polls. Try to help them and solve their challenges. Build a relationship with
them. Be consistent with your content, show up every day if you can or
consistently a few times a week so people can depend on you and begin to build
trust. Have fun with your followers.
4.
Reply
to comments and questions in a timely manner.
5.
Work
on your skills - photography, video creation and editing and writing thoughtful
captions.
6.
Use
the various Instagram features and regularly post Reels, IGTV, 1-minute videos,
image posts and Stories.
7.
Test
your content and see what is performing well and create more of that.
8.
Engage
your audience with question stickers and polls -you’ll understand a lot about
what they are looking for. Encourage people to comment or DM you. You will
learn a LOT about your followers and that will help you create content that
they will love!
9.
Develop
a thick skin - there will always be people who will criticize, don’t let it
ruin your day. People get bolder online. You can always respond politely to
unpleasant comments or even delete and in certain cases block people.
10.
Don’t
stress too much and don’t do anything compromising your health. In the
beginning of my Instagram journey, I was pulling 12 hour days. There was so
much to learn and do! Then an influencer mentor told me “Not to hustle over
health”.
That really put things in perspective. I realized I needed to slow down and have bite size goals that I could work towards each week and leave time to exercise and relax and spend time with my husband.
Mish Sen’s social media handles are:
https://www.instagram.com/eatswithmish/
https://www.facebook.com/eatswithmish
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitnesswithmish
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