Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Kavitha Das, who’s global social media manager at BBC Storyworks:

Carlota Pico 0:13
Hi, everyone, I’m Carlota Pico from The Content Mix. And I’m excited to be here today with Kavitha Das, who’s global social media manager at BBC Storyworks and has over 12 years of experience in marketing and communications. Welcome Kavitha, and thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Kavitha Das 0:33
Thank you, Carlota. Hello, everyone. It’s lovely to be on this podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Carlota Pico 0:38
Well, thank you so much for joining us. It’s lovely to have you here. Kavitha, to start this interview off, I’d like to ask you a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are today?

Kavitha Das 0:48
So it’s been a long journey, as you said 12 years. It started off in Mumbai. So I’m originally Indian and I grew up in Mumbai. So my career started in PR and I worked in a couple of agencies, MS&L, Burson-Marsteller and in my last job with Burson-Marsteller, which is around 2010, I came across this new wave in communication, which was called Digital PR at that point. And it seemed really intriguing, really fun. I didn’t know how to go about it because it was such a small scale. And that’s when I quit my job and just decided I want to explore this. This thing’s really interesting. It’s so different from public relations, and it’s online and there’s more writing and creativity. And so I moved into social media sometime in 2010, with a really small startup, which is like one of the first in the country. Back in 2010 we were a group of five people. So it’s the same person who does the copy, who manages the platform, who does the listening analytics, client servicing, everything’s one person. And we did all of that. And so that’s how I started in 2010. I worked in India for around another five years. Then I moved to London in 2014. When I moved countries, obviously there was a bit of a gap and it’s difficult to adjust in such a sphere in a new country, there are hurdles every time they’re like these little potholes that kind of put the brakes on your journey. So then I decided to take a step back start kind of afresh. So I started off again as a social listening executive, try to get to know the market again. And I worked with the GSMA and for the Mobile World Congress, there were these contract roles in social listening on Radian six. They were like little copywriting roles. I did that to gain experience in this market. And in 2018, I moved to the BBC, and I’ve been working with them since.

Carlota Pico 3:12
Okay, well, what a fantastic brand. And I think totally resonate with your story as well, because most of my work is actually abroad. And right now I’m based in Madrid, and I moved back to Madrid in 2018-2019. But before that everything that I had done, which was PR campaigns for government, had always been abroad. So coming back, even to my home market meant that I had to really readjust to the culture, although it was my home culture,

Kavitha Das 3:41
Definitely. It’s this industry. It’s the environment, it changes so quickly, that you really need to take a step back and kind of get in pace to be able to run with your peers and run with the industry.

Carlota Pico 3:55
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I left Spain back in 2004, and I didn’t come back until 2018 so you can imagine how much of the world changed. Okay, well talking a little bit about the skills that you’ve acquired over time, I do want to zoom into that. But I also want to zoom in to the qualities of you’ve acquired and that you have innately in you. So a lot of times when we’re interviewing for jobs, we oftentimes zoom into or concentrate too much on the skills that we can offer to our future employers, but not very often do we look at the qualities that we can also offer to our future employers, which I think are equally as valuable and equally as important because we’re born with qualities, right. Whereas skills I mean, we can be educated to have certain skills, you can be trained to have certain skills. So let’s say that you’re promoted tomorrow and you’re tasked with the job to find a candidate for your new role. What qualities would you watch out for more than skills?

Kavitha Das 4:57
That’s a really good point actually. Because when we are looking for people we quite mix both those entities of skills and qualities, but they are distinctly different things. And truthfully, I honestly look for qualities more than skills because I know that social media is a tech industry. And you can teach them the skills, you can teach them to run ads manager, you can teach them to deduce the analytics. But what you need are those qualities to run the show. But one thing first and foremost I look for is this quality of fearlessness, and being able to experiment and not being scared to try something new. Because there’s so many new things that come on the different social media platforms every day. You can’t be saying that, oh, that’s new. I don’t know how it’s going to work or how it’s going to look like. You’ve got to try it. You’ve got to see how it is and this is what I look for in a peer or colleague who’s working with me in social. Back in 2010 when one person is to everything if I didn’t put in or risk my 200 bucks to say, what do Facebook ads look like in 2011, I would never be able to do paid social ever. You’ve got to try, you’ve got to experiment. And that’s one quality I look for. Another one, because when you’re working in any kind of organization, you’re not working in silo, you’re working with a lot of other departments, you’re working with a client, you’re working with vendors. And so two things that I think are really important is being able to have this quality of being relentlessly in pursuit of things. If it doesn’t happen the first time, you can’t drop it, you’ve got to be at it. You’ve got to make sure it gets done and you’ve got to be at it, you got to pursue it. People forget. You’ve got to get in touch with them again and say – Do you remember we had this conversation? We need to try this again. And thirdly, I would say it’s patience and the ability to follow through, because things don’t get done immediately but you got to have patience. You can’t be angry at things, you can’t get frustrated soon. You’ve got to be able to be patient and work through things. I think these are three qualities mainly that I look for, and people with these, I can work really well with.

Carlota Pico 7:23
That’s fantastic advice. And I completely agree. And I think it has a lot to do with our background as well, because we have to reinvent ourselves so many times going from one market to the other that we’ve had to be curious. We’ve had to be flexible. We’ve had to adapt.

Kavitha Das 7:37
Yeah. These kinds of things transcend all jobs. It’s not just in social, I think an employee or a peer or colleague or manager who has this is really easy to work with and can be really productive.

Carlota Pico 7:51
And this actually transitions perfectly into my next question Kavitha. Facebook’s CEO was quoted saying the following – “In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” Based on your experience, what’s a personal or professional risk that you’ve taken, which has really paid off.

Kavitha Das 8:17
If I think about it, I think I mentioned earlier, when back in 2010, when I just quit my job without anything new on the horizon to just take stock of what I’m doing, I was four years into my career. I just finished with my junior role. My time as a junior executive, it was my time to kind of step ahead and step up the ladder, move on in PR and everybody was quite surprised like you’re doing really well, why are you quitting now? And I was like, no there’s more. There has to be more, this other thing seems really interest, it’s not big, but I really feel that when there’s so much technology around me and moving so quickly, this is going to be somewhere and I just quit my job. I sat at home for three months, just figuring out how to go about this. Who do I contact? How do I get into this industry? And I think that was a big, professional and personal risk that I took at that point, but I did it and I think now in hindsight, I’m really happy I did that because I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t taken that. Professional risks I mean, I’m majorly into paid social and advertising I mean, that’s a professional risk every day because you don’t know what you’re getting. You estimate something and the CPM and CPC and the rates change every day. Wel that’s a professional risk but that’s the job description.

Carlota Pico 9:53
Yeah, definitely. Okay, moving into your field of expertise, we’ve already touched upon it quite a lot, but according to the CEO of Walt Disney, the heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation. In light of the global pandemic Kavitha, which social media campaigns have you admired lately and why? And of course, I’m asking you this question because you breathe and live social media every day. So who better to tell us about the brands that right now are the hottest ones?

Kavitha Das 10:25
That’s a really good question, because I felt that the brands that really did well, in these past four or five months are the ones that were successful in kind of relating to the audience in informing them about the situation and then assisting their audience about the situation or providing something extra, not just pushing their products at the audience to say that – Oh, my sales are going down. I really need to push this more and get people to buy my stuff. It can’t be that because you’re speaking to another human being, and that human being is going through a really hard time. So I think the brands that were able to tap into that emotion and kind of speak to the audience with that kind of empathy are the brands that did really well. One brand that I know, at least in this market, that did really well was Guinness when they came up with the whole advert around St. Patrick’s Day, where they showed the kind of understanding and empathy to say that – Yeah, we celebrate every year, but this year is a bit different. But we’ve got our plan for 9000 year lease. So we’re still going to be here when you’re back from this hard time. And I think that message would have really resonated far and wide with their audience because it was really heartfelt. It showed different aspects of Irish country life and how it connects Guinness to the world. That was a really nice brand. And another one that I think that really well was – it’s a very small move by Timeout in every city where Timeout adapted itself so well, by understanding their purpose in their audience’s life. So Timeout was not like – Oh, now there are no physical events happening, There’s no beer festival or there’s no theater So I don’t know what to talk about. But they adapted their social content to say – Oh, we have all these live streams. There’s a yoga instructor at this time, this time, and this time, there’s this live DJ session at this time and this time, and so they were still able to blend themselves into the audience’s social life and kind of keep them going with what they would have done in the physical world. They’ve been able to get their audience to do on the virtual world, which I think was a really amazing way for them to adapt to the new situation.

Carlota Pico 12:49
Yeah, I think you touched upon two really interesting topics is that one, it’s really important for brands not to push their own personal agenda through their social channels and two, its really important for them to also listen to their audience and empathize with their audience, because their content is not going to resonate, unless their audience is able to connect with the brand. And I actually read this fantastic quote the other day, and it said that content is king only if you’re read. If nobody’s reading you, then your content doesn’t really matter.

Kavitha Das 13:23
It doesn’t. That’s very true, very true.

Carlota Pico 13:26
Okay. I also want to talk to you about the major lessons that you’ve learned throughout your career. And especially during this time, what do you think the future of social networks will look like?

Kavitha Das 13:37
So there are two paths to this. The lessons that I’ve learned in the past, even during this time and even before because with my changing situation and the constantly changing situation in the world. There’s a really interesting article, which kind of very succinctly puts the lesson across. It’s an anecdote about how in Honduras, there was a river. And they were planning to build the bridge over it. And they call the Japanese and they built a really durable bridge over it. And after a couple of years, there was a massive rainfall and huge monsoon and a storm. Also the river just changed. So then the bridge was not over the river anymore. The river was beside the bridge, and the bridge was over land. This didn’t make any sense. This was an article that I read in one of the really good business publications in India, it’s called Business World. And the writer very succinctly put across that one of the biggest learnings in our current times is to not build things to last but build things to adapt. So it shouldn’t be built to last it should be built to adapt. And that is one big learning that I think all of us should learn, as brands as individuals and our personal lives and everything is that you should be to build something that will endure all kinds of times. And I think, taking this forward, I think the social networks, because they’re all about the people, it will be more about the changing human relations, a change in human interaction. So till the pandemic came on, you could see how much human interaction had reduced and it was all about individuals with their phone, they wouldn’t look up and they would just walk across each other without noticing each other. But I think this lack of human interaction that people have felt during this time, I’m hoping that the social networks adapt to that and they’re able to promote social interaction more than get people away from each other and are also able to kind of bridge the gap between technology and humans and not kind of increased the gap is what I think social networks should work towards in the future.

Carlota Pico 16:02
I love your response, Kavitha, because I’m a former entrepreneur. And so I think part of your response also is because of your experience at a startup a few years ago in India, right. And as startup, startups constantly how to adapt, right? They’re building a brand and they constantly have to pivot one way or the other way so that their customers are able to use their product or buy their product or services, etc. So they’re constantly adapting according to customer feedback. But I think that lesson needs to transcend across all types of brands, startups aren’t the only ones that need to constantly adapt their features or their content or their services to the public. Big brands need to do that as well. And I think that’s a fantastic example that you zoomed into, thank you very much for bringing that example to our attention. Okay, since you curate content, in your current role, how do you know what content will work or won’t work across social media channels?

Kavitha Das 17:07
Again, there is no clear guideline or there are no pointers to that because there’s so many variables on a social media campaign. It’s what country are you speaking to, what kind of person are you trying to send the message to, what your content is and even the platform on which you want to share your content. Because if it’s, say, a piece of content on tourism, it would be so different from content on business or trade, it will be so different from content which is about education, because then the platforms are completely different. But I think one thing that rings true through all this content is that it should be something that has multiple perspectives to it. So it can’t just be one opinion. There has to be multiple sides to it so that it kind of relates to every kind of person. So if it’s about a university, you have different kinds of students. There’s some students who like the academic part of it. There’s some students who like the extracurricular part of it. There’s some students who just like to go to college that has beautiful architecture and a beautiful library. So if you have a piece of content, that’s only saying – Oh, we have an amazing math program or we have an amazing astronomy or astrophysics program, and just talk about the academics, you’re alienating the students who want to come to your college for the extracurriculars, the drama club or for the sports. Or you’re not talking about your legacy and history. Say I’m a 300 year old University, and I have this beautiful Gothic library. You need to talk about all of that so that you can connect with every kind of human being. So I think that’s what I think is great content which has multiple perspectives. And it needs to be shareable. It has to be succinct. If you’re talking about a particular particular point, it needs to be quick. Because social networks and platforms and users when they’re on social networks, patience is really low, they just scrolling through. So you need to be quick, whatever you need to say needs to come out in 15-20 seconds and you’re catching your audience in the first five seconds. So in the first five seconds, if you say something great that will hold their attention, then you have them for like the next minute. I think that’s really important.

Carlota Pico 19:30
I think what I would also add to that response is that, although it’s great to obviously create content for multiple personas, I think it’s also really important to keep in mind that as human beings, we have a lot of different types of interests. So we’re not black and white, I mean, even within just one person, you can be talking to them about the same subject, but looking at it from different perspectives, because that may resonate both subjects may resonate equally as well with thatone human being.

Kavitha Das 20:00
Yeah, that’s a really good point. You might even enlighten somebody by saying that they might be thinking something completely different and you might just enlighten them and they’d be like – Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I should probably go for that.

Carlota Pico 20:13
Yeah, definitely. Well, you’ve already offered great tips, Kavitha. But I want to talk a little bit about engagement. So what are your top three social media marketing tips for increased engagement?

Kavitha Das 20:25
When I think of engagement, it’s not just about how many impressions I got on a post or how many likes I got on it or reactions I got on it. Engagement, for me, is quite a wholesome thing. That’s why I think tracking our posts is really important, because then that kind of gives us an idea of the journey your content has gone. So how many times has your link been clicked on, where all has itbeen clicked, what kind of countries has it been able to touch upon. When you read the comments and the shares with a comment to it, those are the most rich form of engagement, because that’s when you get direct feedback about your content, when people are telling you what they like about it, or don’t like about it. Or you realize that what you’re trying to say isn’t quite reaching, it’s something completely different that the audience has taken out of it. And that gives you time to go back and change something about what you’re doing and come back. So in that way, I think engagement needs to be one of the foremost objectives while doing social content. I know it’s always about how many clicks we got, or how many video views we got. But it’s also about how much feedback you get, which I think is a very important part of engagement.

Carlota Pico 21:49
So does that mean you would advise social media managers or professionals to also optimize their content according to the feedback that they’re getting? Like, let’s say if I post something that’s just not really resonating well with my community, would you advise me to go back on that channel and kind of tweak it to see if whatever I’m communicating works better in another way?

Kavitha Das 22:11
Yeah, definitely, which again brings us back to the A/B testing practice on paid social because we create five variations of the same content. We put in different pictures, different kind of copy to it, which again brings us back to the fact that there are multiple facets to human beings. So we put in copy with different story angles to it and see which one is resonating the best. And then we say, okay, fine, if it’s about this country, maybe people really like the binaries here. The binaries are doing really well, so let’s keep talking about that. Or, the architecture is really cool, so let’s keep talking about that. So I think that really helps us hone or kind of chisel our strategy.

Carlota Pico 22:55
Okay, Kavitha. So to finish off this section of the interview, I want to ask you about any advice that you have for marketers like myself who are struggling to create engaging and valuable content for their social media channels? So for example, a concentration tool or what do you do?

Kavitha Das 23:12
Actually it’s combination of things. We all go through this, we’re working on a particular brief and at some point, you just reach a block and you can’t think further and your creative juices just run out. What I specifically do is I switch from the right brain to the left brain and left brain to the right brain which is more analytical than creative. So once I feel that, oh, I can’t think beyond and I am not getting any new ideas, I say, okay, let’s stop doing something creative. And let’s do something more analytical because we’re using a completely different side of my brain. And I go and look at my budget. So I look at my invoices, look at my finances. And, you know, try to do my PO system and that’s another part of a social media managers life, all the finance that comes into our advertising. So while you’re doing that, you get a little break. And then when you come back, you realize that you feel so much better about the creative process. And it’s like you’re starting afresh after a good break. And so you can kind of work through that block. What also works is just taking a break, get out, go have a glass of water, speak to somebody, and come back, and what’s amazing is that the creative process is a lot about your experiences. So you might just go talk to somebody, come back with a couple of stories, and it might just bring out a new idea in your head. So yeah, I think the creative process, at least social storytelling, is all about your experiences and the stories you listen from the environment around you. So I think that’s the combination of all these things together.

Carlota Pico 24:53
Yeah, I agree. Actually, it’s a funny story because I’m going to be on holidays two weeks from now, and so I wanted to buy a really good book, but at the same time, a book that would be valuable for my everyday job, which is to do interviews with fantastic marketing professionals like yourself. And so I came across Larry King’s autobiography, and he’s a fantastic journalist. He’s been doing interviews for the past 20 years. So I bought it and I can’t wait to start reading it so that I can pick up on some of his tricks.

Kavitha Das 25:25
That’s a great book. It’s really nice. You should definitely try that. It’s very engaging because he writes a lot of anecdotes, so it’s not a lot of just preaching. It’s all stories in the middle. So it’s very interesting.

Carlota Pico 25:41
Well, I can’t wait. This actually leads me to my next section of our interview, which will be our set of rapid fire questions. To get this section started off I’d like to ask you about your source of inspiration could be so who do you admire? Who inspires you?

Kavitha Das 25:56
I mean, I have different inspirations for different parts of my life. So, my family and especially my parents, they really inspire me for being patient and relentless because both of them are like a force of nature. So they will push you and they will stay at it and they have brilliant follow through. So, that’s one part of it that inspires me to be at it and if you come at a block, you’ve got to walk through the block, you can’t just turn direction and change it, you’ve got to walk through the block and go through. That’s really inspirational. But on the other hand, one woman that really inspires me is Serena Williams. I know it’s a cliche but she does. She’s misunderstood for being brash and rude on the court. But there’s this other side to her which is just being so determined. She doesn’t give up, she went to such a high medical period but she decided to jump back, she might not have done great, but the amount of effort that must have taken her to come back and not really do well, the first time she had come back, it’s very brave. And she left the tournament with her head held high, which is very inspirational. It really inspires you to be at it and your problem seems so small.

Carlota Pico 27:23
It also ties nicely with what your parents always recommends as well, right? If there’s a hurdle, you just have to go through it. And you have to just face it head on and find a solution to that.

Kavitha Das 27:37
Because one thing that I’ve learned from them is you should try to be the best version of yourself. Like, you don’t have to be the first or the best at anything, but just be the best you can, the best version of yourself. So that’s just what you should strive for. That’s it. That’s all we can do.

Carlota Pico 27:54
Yeah, it’s like do better, right? You should always try to be doing better. Okay, what about a book, a hashtag, because you’re in the social media world, or publication that you’d like to recommend?

Kavitha Das 28:11
There’s an Instagram handle that I really follow and love is the NASA Hubble. The NASA Hubble Instagram handle is just brilliant. It’s a telescope, and they keep posting pictures that the telescope keeps clicking of the different planets and the nebulas. And there’s one of the Orion Nebula which is just fantastic, and of the Northern Lights. It’s one Instagram thats just awe-inspiring. So I always look forward to content from the NASA Hubble. And also, in this lockdown period, I’ve got a lot of time to read. And it’s been a mixture of a lot of books. So it’s a bit of fiction. It’s a bit of philosophy. So there’s this book that came out, The Silent Patient, and that was a real kicker. And it’s really interesting. It’s a psychological thriller and it really keeps you in your chair. But on the other hand, there’s also this really concise version of the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, who was this Roman Emperor. It’s a lot of philosophical learnings of himself. It’s kind of his diary, which is published. So it’s in a layman language, it’s not very philosophical, but it is really helpful in in these hard times to give you perspective to help you kind of cope with the situation. So I think these are the few books and few handles that really helped me through this period.

Carlota Pico 29:36
I’m gonna have to add those books to my summer reading. They sound great. And to finish off today’s interview, I like to ask you about what’s your favorite app at the moment and why?

Kavitha Das 29:48
My favorite app in social media is definitely Instagram at the moment. And with the introduction of Reels, I’m really intrigued how Reels is going to do. Reels is like the new TikTok on Instagram. So I really want to see what kind of content comes on there. Because it’s not a separate app. It’s within Instagram. So how does it do as compared to TikTok? And personally, I love playing board games. It’s a very content writer niche. I love playing word games. There’s a solitary app called Wordscapes. It’s like Boggle, you keep making words with the alphabet they give you. I don’t know when 45 minutes to an hour passes by. And I’m like, oh, I passed 15 levels. But it’s a really engaging app. And it really keeps your mind flowing and keeps it exercised if you want to call it that.

Carlota Pico 30:44
Okay. You must have a really big vocabulary.

Kavitha Das 30:49
I wouldn’t want to go that far to say a great vocabulary.

Carlota Pico 30:56
Well Kavitha, thank you so much for joining us on The Content Mix. It was awesome to meet you to pick your brain on so many different subjects.

Kavitha Das 31:02
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.

Carlota Pico 31:05
The pleasure has been ours. And to everybody listening in today, thank you for joining us on The Content Mix. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out The Content mix. We’ll be releasing interviews just like this one every week. So keep on tuning in. Thanks again, have a fantastic day and see you next time. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai