Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Kyler Canastra and Nilofar Humayun, senior marketing manager at Charles Taylor InsureTech, on EMEA social media marketing:

Kyler Canastra 0:13
Hi, everyone, I’m Kyler from The Content Mix, and I’m happy to be here with Nilofar Humayun, marketing manager at Charles Taylor InsureTech. With over 100 years of experience in the insurance sector, Charles Taylor currently has over 3000 experts based around the world in more than 120 locations across 30 countries. Throughout her career Nilofar has become an expert in capitalizing on multiple marketing channels in order to drive account-based marketing, event attendance and brand awareness. With experience ranging from marketing analysis and research to work in product marketing and experience with social media marketing strategies, Nilofar has dedicated her career to giving a voice to organizations that she’s working for. So without much further ado, I want to welcome Nilofar to our show. And it’s a pleasure to have you with us on The Content Mix.

Nilofar Humayun 1:04
Hi, Kyler, thank you for having me.

Kyler Canastra 1:06
Yeah, it’s a pleasure.

Nilofar Humayun 1:07
It’s great to be it’s great to be on a podcast. Thank you.

Kyler Canastra 1:10
Yes, it’s good to be able to do this, even though we’re, so Nilofar is connecting from London, I’m in Madrid. So it’s really fun to be able to connect and talk and get some insight from you. So I guess to get the ball rolling and start the interview, where are you from? What’s your background? Kind of tell us a bit more about how you got into content marketing in Europe?

Nilofar Humayun 1:30
Gosh, I’d love to talk about myself. Yeah, let me introduce myself. My name is Nilofar Humayun. I work for Charles Taylor InsureTech. I lead in all the marketing activities here. I am a marketing professional with around 12 years of experience. Working here in the UK, mainly in London. I’ve worked my way up from a marketing graduate to now marketing overall activities. I’ve worked for Gartner, previously HSBC, and Gulf News in Dubai. I was actually born and bred in Dubai, and I went to university in London. So I was very, very multicultural. And originally, my background’s from Pakistan, so it’s very, it’s very like from Asia, the Middle East, the UK. And I think that’s really helped me culturally and from a marketing perspective to understand different cultures and build different multi-channel campaigns. My connection to content marketing in Europe and it’s been mainly been with EMEA. So it stems from my experiences growing up in the Middle East, my roles in the UK and the companies I mentioned previously, it’s mainly been focused around EMEA so I think that’s where most of my experiences lie and mainly in B2B.

Kyler Canastra 2:51
Now, I think I totally agree with that, like in terms of the work that you do, especially in marketing as someone that also has lived in different cultures and has exposure to other cultures, it really opens your mind right to understand how other humans function and it kind of gives you this like awareness of what’s going to be effective and what’s not. So definitely really interesting that you have that background and now you’re able to move to the UK and I’m assuming you fell in love with the UK now…

Nilofar Humayun 3:12
So yeah, I’ve been here for like 14 years now. So it’s different because in Dubai, the culture is very different and here it’s very, it’s very, you just respect and understand different marketing, because the way I would market in the Middle East, compared to the UK is very different.

Kyler Canastra 3:29
For sure.

Nilofar Humayun 3:30
But I think growing up in different countries that gave me that look, that outlook to see what what it looks like and how we can build into strategies.

Kyler Canastra 3:39
Exactly. And what are some big differences like if you can summarize, I’m sure there’s plenty of them but just like maybe an example of a big difference between the Middle East versus the UK.

Nilofar Humayun 3:49
So I think within the UK where—this is just my personal opinions and what I’ve seen—here in the UK so when I first came to the UK and I was just… Have you been to London, Kyler?

Kyler Canastra 4:03
I have, yes, many times.

Nilofar Humayun 4:05
So when I first came here and I just thought: Why is everyone always running on the tube? What’s going on? Everyone is so stressful. But I think it’s just, not that, in the Middle East as well we are off because we have our working patterns, our working life. So but I think in the UK, it’s just things are more, it’s a lot more fast paced, and it’s a lot more stressful. And that’s why I think from my experiences in the UK, we are more tech-focused because, like for example, even during lockdown, everything was ordering stuff to Just Eat, looking and connecting through social media, zoom calls, zoom chats, whereas in Dubai, it’s a bit more relaxed, and we are a bit more personal. So I think it’s just just cultural differences. In Dubai it’s more of a direct approach, whereas in the UK, I feel it’s more tech-focused.

Kyler Canastra 4:59
That’s interesting. I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. You know, the UK, especially London’s like on the go and people are moving quick. It’s kind of like the US. So yeah, it’s definitely a different approach. And you have to give people like quick answers, quick, you know, information they want to consume quickly. So it definitely will impact your marketing strategy for sure. And so you mentioned too, like, you worked through lockdown. And I kind of want to know, like, nowadays, since we’re kind of, I don’t know, in this new, they call it like normality, or whatever you want to call it these days, but how are things for you? And like, what’s your daily life at work like now?

Nilofar Humayun 5:31
Um, my role here at Charles Taylor, I have to wear a lot of different hats. Yeah, it involves very different areas of marketing. I’m currently also managing two team members. And they’re great. They’re very creative, intelligent, very proactive. So what I have been working on is I’m working on implementing the strategy with them. But looking more at the bigger picture. So trying to see what the future looks like, what what we’ll be doing, what what will we be doing in 2022. And then actually working on creating a tactical plan. So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. Also, because I’ve joined in halfway through the year, looking at the current campaigns we have and how to optimize those. So that’s why I said wearing different hearts, it’s very much about looking at what we currently have, how to optimize those, plan ahead for next year. But for, in order to plan ahead for next year, I need to start now. So look at what needs to be done. Start strategizing, start planning. So next year, when it comes into play, it would have all been in place, we just have to push start, right? That’s kind of what I’ve been doing. So it’s been, it’s fun, I really enjoy it. And my passion lies in project management. I like working through like different puzzle pieces to try and get them together. But I really enjoy it.

Kyler Canastra 6:59
So that sounds really fun. I like project management, too. I used to do that. I love like solving puzzles, but also it must be like really difficult, because a lot of people that we’ve spoken to on the show, they said like, you know, going into 2020, they had all their strategies planned. And then all of that got flipped upside down, and they had to adapt, but then you’re coming in to a new role like in the midst of all of this, trying probably to deal with things currently happening, and not knowing what to expect right now. But also, you’re planning for a future that you have no control over.

Nilofar Humayun 7:27
Exactly.

Kyler Canastra 7:28
We have no idea how things are gonna be or what’s gonne be more effective or not. Because the world has kind of been flipped upside down.

Nilofar Humayun 7:34
Yeah.

Kyler Canastra 7:35
So, definitely a challenging position that you find yourself in.

Nilofar Humayun 7:39
But I think what I’ve seen, and I’m sure, you know, you must have seen it on your side as well. We are, as a world, becoming more digitally focused. There is a huge digital transformation we’re going through. And so no matter what happens next year, definitely digital is going to be a large part of it. And we are going to… Think about it with us, all of us in lockdown. We only had tech to connect with the world outside. So I think that’s the future: tech and going digital.

Kyler Canastra 8:08
I agree. That’s like… I always say like, imagine if we had to do all this without technology. And like…

Nilofar Humayun 8:13
Do you remember the dial up days?

Kyler Canastra 8:15
Yeah, right? We’d be like, we’d be very screwed. We have no, especially as people with family abroad and like, thank God, we had that because with FaceTime and everything, it was really good to stay connected. But yeah, so things are shifting digital, which also then leads to the kind of the next portion of our interview which is something that you wanted to talk more about social marketing mix strategy, and kind of the work you do with that. So can you kind of tell us a bit more about that strategy, what it is, and yeah, kind of give a brief explanation, because I’m sure that you could probably talk about it forever.

Nilofar Humayun 8:49
Forever. Yeah. So the reason why I chose social media to talk about more, I think, with any marketing mix, social media plays a really crucial part. In all my experiences, I focused mainly on B2B as I mentioned earlier, but the reason why I believe social media is such a crucial part of the overall marketing campaign is because of digital transformation that we just spoke about. The end of 2019, remote working in isolation, it provided more of a way for people to connect. It provided a way for other colleagues and other marketing, or even outside of marketing, having other individuals within businesses interact with each other, network with each other. So people really want to connect. And I think social media was the way that we we found that. That was our loophole to try and sell, meet people virtually and connect and find out what’s happening in each other’s lives. It also provides a way for having a two-way dialogue. So for example, with an email, you’re waiting for them to respond, whereas with social media, it’s almost like a window into what your business is doing to provide. Like me, as a viewer, I can look at what other businesses are doing and how we can, what’s new in their industry, what’s the latest updates. And it provides me a way to find out what’s happening on their side rather than them approaching me.

Kyler Canastra 10:22
For sure. So it’s a totally different strategy and kind of the way yeah, social media, how it’s evolved. I mean, if you think about when Facebook came out, I remember that and then now it’s like, we have all these different platforms and all these ways. Like you said, connecting with people. And I think that’s what people are craving now, is that connection.

Nilofar Humayun 10:38
And I think it’s changed a lot. So if you remember, like, this is me telling my age now, like hi5 days, we had hi5 and oh, hi5 and Myspace… So these were the ones that were before Facebook, and they were just a way to network. It was just to make friends and network. But then Facebook happened and LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all of these have changed the way social media marketing is. It’s become a fun way to advertise and market. And so rather than being called selling, and just seeing an ad, it’s a way to educate your viewers and also sell to them but making it fun. And I think that’s why people resonate well with that, because they maybe essentially don’t know they’re being sold to.

Kyler Canastra 11:28
Right, exactly.

Nilofar Humayun 11:29
Yeah, I think that worked really well.

Kyler Canastra 11:31
Is that why you find like a passion for this strategy or for social media is that you can bring kind of joy or positivity to people’s lives?

Nilofar Humayun 11:38
Exactly. And I think because I’m quite creative, naturally, I try. I really enjoy different creatives. So whether it’s creating an ad through video, or a GIF, or like animations, I enjoyed that. And I think people also really resonate well with it.

Kyler Canastra 11:56
Yeah, for sure. Now, but there must be some disadvantages, right? We’re talking about all these positive things, social media, and the social marketing mix strategy, but are there disadvantages that you’ve encountered, as well?

Nilofar Humayun 12:07
Um, I think some of the disadvantages would be sorry, Kyler, I need to think of some disadvantages. I think it’s a disadvantage. Okay. Well, I’ve been thinking about is advantages.

Kyler Canastra 12:21
Well, I mean, with social media in general, I think a lot of it kind of… not backlash, but it could be that people are trying to promote things that are inaccurate, or, you know, kind of manipulate people. I mean, there’s definitely the dark side. Yeah, social media. So I guess that’s kind of why I was asking, like, have you found it? I don’t know that to be something you encountered in terms of like the work you’re doing or other, you know, maybe other organizations you’ve seen are doing things in a negative way, maybe?

Nilofar Humayun 12:46
I think what I could talk about is more. So not not necessarily a disadvantage, but one of the challenges with social media is having, thinking of the right platform to market on. So for example, as an organization, in my previous experiences, sometimes it could be LinkedIn is the best tool to use. And Facebook is just not the right messaging for us. Or there might be times where Instagram and LinkedIn are the best, better combination. So I think more of a challenge is don’t just use a blanket approach on all the different types of social media platforms. See what your business strategy is, and what your brand guidelines are, what’s your tone of voice, and use that. So for example, with LinkedIn it’s more professional, we all know that LinkedIn is more professional, that’s the tone of voice for LinkedIn. With Facebook, in my experience, it’s more around B2C than B2B. Instagram is a bit of both. So I think do some research first on the different types of platforms, and what do you as a business, what kind of guidelines and tone of voice do you want to use? And then choose the right platform accordingly.

Kyler Canastra 14:02
So now I’m curious to see like how you’re doing this and implementing this strategy in your current role at Charles Taylor, because that’s an insure tech company. So kind of how are you doing? Like, what are you doing with social media there and kind of what’s your strategy at the moment?

Nilofar Humayun 14:17
So what working really well with us, and I think this is why I recommend anywhere is, rather than just making content for the sake of making content, doing the research and starting, take a step back, plan and analyze what it is that you want from your social media marketing. Are you trying to gain more leads? Are you trying to build more brand awareness? What is it that you want to do? Are you trying to drive traffic to your website. Once you’ve analyzed and gathered which does you’d like to achieve, strategize and plan for it. And with social media marketing, what you do have to do is keep it fresh, keep it updated, and you use a mix of education, thought Leadership, and then your product messaging or your service, whatever it is that you are selling. So having a mix of that, and what worked really well with me, is to plan the content beforehand. So I know, in the following month, I’ll be promoting this. And the following month, I’ll be promoting that. So it avoids having to put, like I said, provide content just for the sake of it. Yeah. And it keeps fresh, and people know that this thing’s coming. And it helps them be educated, while still learning about what you’re doing and your company’s doing that. And I think that’s worked really well, for us.

Kyler Canastra 15:36
I think a lot of people forget that, like, you know, I think we’re very, we’re in a culture, right, or society where instant gratification, we got to do things fast, too quick. Something you mentioned right in the UK, is something that’s really part of their culture there is that it’s more on the go, they want it fast. And they forget, like maybe we should probably take time right to plan the strategy. And like you said, not just post things for the sake of it. Now, I kind of want to hear more too about like, your approach to like, getting the right target persona, understanding the people you’re trying to connect with, because I think that’s also something that people struggle with is like that human side of social media marketing, because I think a lot of times we can see, okay, we just want numbers. And we just want to connect with these people just to hit a goal and maybe not even doing enough research about the people we actually want to connect with. So how has that been for you and your experience, like getting that human approach and making sure that the person is not just a screen and kind of lost behind the screen.

Nilofar Humayun 16:29
So what’s worked really well me and kudos to the team, we, I work very closely with the product marketing management team. And what they do is we work together, we work together on building messaging, building results. So they help build the personas, we look at the job title, we look at the industry type, we look at what’s happening in the market. And then we work together to build the portfolio, so then I work on building portfolio or job titles, the industry types, looking at ages, geographical locations. So with social media marketing, you have to be as targeted as you can. Because if you prefer, yeah, if you’re providing all this content, and it’s not relevant, you’re just wasting your efforts and your revenue. So I think that’s what works really well. So I’ve been lucky enough to have a great product marketing team that I work with. And we work very closely together. So I think that’s worked really well for us.

Kyler Canastra 17:34
And how do you… like the company, as I said before, is like very big and it’s international, like how do you think the buyer like the buyer persona and your target audience changes in the different markets that you work in? Or different countries? Because we know EMEA is a very big region. So kind of how do you navigate that and kind of what is your buyer persona?

Nilofar Humayun 17:54
So it depends on the product. So we have around 11 products, and each product has a specific solution that we put help, they really target a specific challenge. So each product has its own persona, its own messaging, its own criteria that it helps solve. And definitely, we have to evolve. There’s not one blanket approach for all the different industry types. And I think that’s what’s worked well. So if and if I look at it from a social media marketing, I can then build imagery accordingly, I can use fun creatives for specific industry type, looking at their personas, the type of where they’re from, which country, they like you said which country they’re from, which region, what industry type, I can build a story on it. So and that’s worked really well for me in the past. So building imagery around that, building messaging, and then carrying that story on. So each campaign has its own story. And I think that’s worked really well for me.

Kyler Canastra 18:55
Yeah, no, I have to ask so because we’re talking about social media, which is your favorite platform to use, like as a consumer I guess, and what’s your favorite one to work with?

Nilofar Humayun 19:07
Okay, that’s a really good question.

Kyler Canastra 19:09
I’m just curious now. It kind of came to my mind.

Nilofar Humayun 19:11
Of course, as a consumer, I really enjoy Instagram. I enjoy the reels and having the opportunity, try and make fun video, the voiceovers, the music, the filters, I really enjoy that. And because I get very targeted ads, so I’ve chosen the ads I would like to, of course, I’ve been a social media marketer myself. I know what to do. So I’ve chosen the ads I’d like to view and I get ads that I am interested in. Yeah, I really enjoy Instagram. But as a marketeer, and again more for B2B, this is why I said it depends on the type of tone of voice that your company is looking for. We’ve used LinkedIn, LinkedIn has worked really well. And I really enjoy creating campaigns on LinkedIn, because there’s so much you can do. You’ve got LinkedIn carousel, LinkedIn text ads, you’ve got so many more, you can do videos on it and retargeting. And there’s also an option where you can put in a pre-approved list of contacts that you would like to target. And you can, you can choose specific ads that they can see. You can create an upload specific creators for those lists. So that’s why I think there’s so much you can do. And that’s worked really well in my experiences.

Kyler Canastra 20:42
How is that pre-approved. Is it that the people give their consent for you to put them on the list?

Nilofar Humayun 20:45
Correct. Yeah. So they, when they have, it’s easy to recampaign in the past, or perhaps a lead gen form that they have filled in. So they take that they give consent, and it’s still, it’s still very relevant. And if, for example, I’ve used that for retention strategies, so because their clients are already part of the business, or if there was something like perhaps a new event that we were doing, I could target them with that ad about the event. So it’s still relevant to them, and they know who we are. So it’s just saying this is an event happening in a few months, don’t miss out. So that’s worked really well.

Kyler Canastra 21:22
That’s fantastic. And I feel like LinkedIn too, has really stepped up in the past couple of years, like I remember when it first came out was kind of like, okay, but now it’s like, there’s so many different tools that you said and strategies and really kind of a great place to connect and connect with, you know, potential customers or clients, but also with these other people that, like we connected, you know, through LinkedIn. So kind of have that network. And like you said, we can’t do in person things. So it’s been a really cool way to like, still make connections, but online. Completely online.

Nilofar Humayun 21:50
LinkedIn has another tool of the sales navigation. So that’s also worked really well for us. So you can, and then you can marry that up with your CRM that you have. So it’s quite integrated, which I really enjoyed. Really

Kyler Canastra 22:02
Cool. Now, I have to ask too, because we talked so much about social media, and also your past experience, what’s an example of a campaign or a strategy that you’ve used in your career that has been very successful? And why was it successful?

Nilofar Humayun 22:14
So this is actually a campaign that I’ve worked in my previous experience at Gartner. So this is something about me, actually, I really enjoy events marketing. If I had to choose one marketing area to focus, I would have chosen events marketing. And this was a case scenario of an event. We were looking at five different, five different audience types for one event, so it was very challenging, because you’re essentially building five sub campaigns within one large campaign. And I think this is why I said, I really enjoy creating campaigns on LinkedIn because I was able to build a story for each of the five audience types. And I created themes, sub themes for each of the audience types, and created creatives for it and then played around with animation, played around with gifs. But what really worked really well because it was an event, building them into campaign stages. So the first stage was around educational, what they would achieve by coming to the conference, what knowledge they would be gaining, the thought leadership. Then it was more around like case studies, testimonials, hearing from other past attendees. And then it was more around the actual event itself, the benefits of the events. So that worked really well and we we had a really successful campaign. So I think that was one of my most proud moments.

Kyler Canastra 23:47
Yeah, for sure. And it’s seemed like you did a lot of comprehensive research and kind of were able to get like a well-rounded vision of what needed to be done in terms of…

Nilofar Humayun 23:55
Exactly. And I think what worked really well was the planning and strategizing for that as well. So that’s why when I said earlier but actually planning ahead and getting into place what you would like to put out in each month or each or even every two weeks if you wanted. It depends on how long of a timeline you have or how short of a timeline you have, planning all of that in advance.

Kyler Canastra 24:18
Right. That’s fantastic. Now I also have to ask too, to kind of be devil’s advocate, but as someone that you’ve worked in social media… you’re a fan of Instagram, you consume social media yourself. What are some things like maybe a campaign or organization, something that an organization does that you say um… that’s not right. Kind of something that would you recommend someone not to do basically.

Nilofar Humayun 24:42
Um, I think sometimes some adverts can be a bit pushy. And I think it’s also you. So well, this depends on how much of a brand reputation and how much of a brand presence you have. If you are a new company or just coming out into the market, it really, you would need to build your brand credibility first. Build brand awareness. Why you? Why not another company? What’s unique about you? What is it that you are trying to help viewers with? So is it something you’re helping them solve? Is there a need that you help provide? So rather than going in cold, and just selling coldly, I would say build up, build a brand, build a reputation, build that credibility, and then talk into your product.

Kyler Canastra 25:31
Exactly. It’s all about storytelling, right? I think a people forget that when we’re doing marketing, or social media, or content marketing, it’s all about telling the story. And I think that’s like, people forget that… it’s more I think, sometimes they want to just put the product in your face and say yes, 1999… But I think people really, you know, feel comfortable or more attracted to brands like a Coca Cola, it’s like the, you know, the ideal brand, right? They’ve done not only, I actually like was speaking to someone that works at Coca Cola, not for the podcast but for something else. And I was just telling them, like, as an American, like, it’s very much part of our culture, and it’s just a can of soda, you know, but they’ve told great stories through their marketing. I mean, they’re the ones that invented Santa’s Claus in the red jacket. So it’s kind of like, they’ve done so much culturally. That’s a good, what it is is storytelling, they tell great stories.

Nilofar Humayun 26:20
And I think with Coca Cola, what they’ve done is, they have a global, like when we’re talking about regions stuff now and geographical locations. Even growing up in the Middle East, we had whatever was new, if there was a new celebrity or a new song that was out, they were on it, the ad would have the new celebrity, have the new song, have have the new campaign around it. So they know if they’re keeping up to date on whatever’s happening in each region. And they’re using that in their tools…

Kyler Canastra 26:49
Which is very important. And to be aware of those things and make sure you’re localizing everything. To make sure your audience. Now I have to ask too, if someone is more like interested in learning more about social media marketing, the next strategy and everything we talked about now, what are some resources that you would recommend to them to kind of get started or to kind of do some further reading.

Nilofar Humayun 27:09
So I personally have registered with the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and also the Institute of Digital Marketing. So I read like, I get newsletters from both those Institute’s and reading up on blogs, but also just keeping up to date with the actual social media platforms themselves. So LinkedIn has a tool called LinkedIn learning. It tells you what’s happening, what’s new, what the new trends are. And you can learn about different strategies, different ways of marketing through LinkedIn. So I think a bit of both.

Kyler Canastra 27:43
Yeah, it’s important, it constant learning right, and staying up to date. I think it’s really important. So I think like that question. Not only is it targeted at someone that doesn’t know much about it, but even people who are involved with it, we got to keep learning all the time daily and reading new research and new sources, for sure. Now, we’re kind of shifting towards my favorite part of the interview, which is the recommendations. And I kind of wanted to know, like, personally and professionally some of your favorite recommendations that you kind of are, you know, hacks or productivity tools that you use on a daily basis. So kind of what are some daily habits that you have that you would consider that contribute to your success, like your daily success, professional success, especially like in this past year, we kind of all reevaluated no, like the habits we’ve had and kind of how to stay mentally sane and physically in shape, and all these different things being stuck at home. So what are some daily habits or productivity hacks that you have?

Nilofar Humayun 28:41
So of course, the last year has been difficult for all of us, working remotely from home. I haven’t been in an office in almost a year and a half now. And I just went to the office last month for the first time. It was surreal. It was very different. Wow, I’m actually traveling into, traveling into London. What’s going on here? Yeah. I think what’s worked really well. And this is really focusing on your mental health. So yes, we’ve all been about I mean, I think about it before 2020 we were all in a rush. We were all, it was all eat sleep, repeat. Yes. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. Sorry. So it was very much like I don’t know about you, but it was very, it was very fast paced. It was very, we didn’t take time out to actually sit and live in the moment and breathe. And I think that’s worked really well for me because it was it was an uncertain time for all of us. None of… Nobody could see this happening. Nobody could see this coming in. But I think trying to stay positive. What works really well for me is meditating, personally for me, so I took some time to just meditate and even going out for walks. So going out even around my block, because obviously when you’re in a nine to five work life, you don’t really have time to just explore your area around. You see what’s on your street, having a walk around your block. And just spending time with your family, spending time with family and friends. And then I think, keeping a good work and life, work life and home balance. That worked really well for me. And then what I think once for me, it was focusing on the mental health, I then use the time to upskill. So when you were talking about how to keep up to date, that’s when I registered with the Chartered Institute of Marketing and IDM, to try and upskill us that time learn more, and you just with work, with a nine to five lifestyle, again, I wasn’t taking enough time to actually get myself up to speed and get myself upskilled. And it took, I think it was really good to use that time to just learn what else was happening on the market, what the latest trends are. Yeah, yeah.

Kyler Canastra 31:04
It’s good to like, use the time to dedicate to your crafts, but also to yourself, no, your mental and physical health. And learning to appreciate the things that you have in your life, whether it be like your walks, as you said, or seeing your family and friends. Like it’s so important. I think these are like, although, yeah, you know, we talked about COVID. And it’s all negative. And it’s been, you know, the worst year ever, but actually a lot of good things come out of it, whether it be personal or on a bigger scale. So like, a lot of it, in my case, too, is like good habits and kind of learning, I need to take a mental break, or I need to disconnect for a bit and kind of prioritizing what’s important in life, because we realize life’s very short and we don’t even know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. So it was a really, really good. Yeah, tips, I think meditating, I think is really a great one and important.

Nilofar Humayun 31:47
Yeah, definitely, like my husband and I, we both work. And before 2020, it was just like I said, work, work, eat, sleep, repeat. But we got some time to actually go out, go out for walks together, spend some time together and just live in the moment.

Kyler Canastra 32:04
So important. Now, a lot of people, I’m sure are gonna listen to this episode, and be like and take inspiration from you. But I kind of wanted to know, if you have any professional role model or source of inspiration that has kind of pushed you in the direction that you’re going now in your career.

Nilofar Humayun 32:20
I’ve actually had a number of inspirations. What my managers at Gartner and my current experience at Charles Taylor, they’re both really successful leading women. And the way what… why I was really inspired was we would look together at what was coming next, what’s happened, and I received the support I needed. And it wasn’t just focusing on professional development and career development, but even me at a personal level, understanding what is it that I liked, what is it that I enjoyed. And I think that’s… when you get that appreciation from senior leadership, it inspires you to do more. And personally, my family, my parents, my husband and my sister, brother in law, their kids, we’ve come from a line of really hard working professionals, everyone’s doing something out there or the other so you, and when we’re together as a family, you just feel like everyone’s accomplishing something. And it drives you to do more. So I think that’s what really inspired me personally and professionally.

Kyler Canastra 33:32
Amazing. Yeah, I think a lot of times when I ask that question, a lot of people might think oh, like professional or this, you know, big name, person, but you know, your family or your friends really can inspire you in a kind of… in surprising ways. I guess you could say. Yeah, they’re not directly working with you in the office every day and working… maybe they don’t understand what you do 100%. But they’re supporting you. They’re giving you setting examples in their own lives that you can, you know, adapt and bring into your own. So it’s really nice to hear that. Family is important. Yeah. Now, do you have any other recommendations in terms of apps or tools, platforms, or books, you mentioned LinkedIn Learning as something that you like to use, but I was wondering if you have anything else, whether it be marketing related or personal.

Nilofar Humayun 34:14
I think more than apps or the tools, I would say more on tips. So if there’s anything, even networking and learning from your colleagues, so one of the things you started kind of with with this podcast was saying how we can all learn from each other. Whether it’s your senior leaders or junior team members, every idea counts, and every whatever you can gather from each other. I think that’s worked really well for me. So something that we used to do in my previous experiences with let’s say, a campaign, if it was trailing behind or needed a bit more effort, for any reason, we would all come together as a team. We’d all book a meeting room, back when we were in the office, book a meeting room and understand how we could help the colleague build on their campaign and achieve their target. And that teamwork, I think was really something that brought us together as a team. But also, it helped each other understand, okay, because we as individuals have different ideas, we have different ways of thinking. But oh, yeah, I haven’t tried that. Let me try that. So I think working together as a team was also one of the things that worked really well for me.

Kyler Canastra 35:22
It’s perfect. No, I really like that. And it’s a really good tip to, I don’t know, be more observant right of people that we work with and that every idea is a good idea, just to kind of how you view it and what you take from it as well. So speaking of takeaways, we’re kind of at the end of the interview, unfortunately, I feel like we could talk a lot longer. You have really great insight in a lot of things. But yeah, I guess if you had to give two or three takeaways from what we’ve spoken about today, what would you tell our listeners? Like? What are the main takeaways from this conversation?

Nilofar Humayun 35:52
Um, so I think, if I think I’ve probably talked enough about strategizing, and planning and executing, but test and optimize, so all these tests, something that worked really well for me, in my past experiences, testing different types of creatives. So whether it’s just what you wanted to use a static image, or if it’s a GIF, or video, test, try different things. You know, don’t be afraid of trying different types of platforms, different types of ideas. Because if it doesn’t work, you can switch it off and try something else. But you wouldn’t know until you don’t test and optimize. So once you’ve done your LinkedIn execution, or whichever platform’s execution you’re doing, you do need to optimize and stay up to date, stay fresh. See what else you could do out there. And I think that’s one of my key takeaways.

Kyler Canastra 36:43
And be open minded. Right? Yeah. Observe, take things in, welcome change, something we’ve all had to do in the past year and a half. But you also mentioned before that you’re active on LinkedIn, but what’s the best way to get in touch with you, if someone listener kind of wanted to reach out or, you know, ask for insight? What would be the best way to get in touch?

Nilofar Humayun 37:04
Yeah, I think LinkedIn is the best way. Since I’ve graduated in London, many years ago now, I’ve used LinkedIn as the best platform to stay in touch with. So I think that’s the way. Yeah, if there’s anything I can help with, any tips or ideas, please reach out.

Kyler Canastra 37:21
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much Nilofar for sharing your insights with us today on today’s episode.

Nilofar Humayun 37:27
Thank you.

Kyler Canastra 37:28
Thanks everyone for listening in. So for more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, as always, you can check out veracontent.com/mix and keep tuning into the podcast for more interviews with content experts across Europe. See you all next time. Thanks again.

Nilofar Humayun 37:45
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai