More sustainable business in the long term
I’m a digital marketing and social media strategist. I do a mixture of implementing strategies from clients either from hands-on projects and I also train companies and individuals who are looking to upscale their marketing strategies, for either in-house teams or small businesses. I also do loads of workshops around London as well as around the world, speaking at keynotes at conferences. The thing that I love is that I’m spreading the message of how you can leverage the digital to help you create a more sustainable business in the long term, and also bring in more enquiries and business for your own underlying profit as well.
Bored very easily
Whenever I get a call back from clients saying they’ve implemented something that we’ve talked about or maybe a strategy that they’ve heard about at one of my recent talks or workshops and they’ve seen results from it and hearing how much they’ve benefited from that, that makes me really happy because it’s more tangible, in terms of seeing that people are creating impact in their businesses through what I’m teaching or what I’m advising them on. Another thing I love is the ever-changing landscape of the digital marketing sphere because everyday social media channels are changing, every day the different strategies are changing online, and because I’m someone who gets bored very easily, this industry fits me very well because I have to constantly stay up to date with all the relevant information. I think it makes me more excited to wake up in the morning. It lights me up to do what I do.
a lot of people say, ‘go find your passion.’ I find that very vague. It doesn’t help individuals who are in that very lost state where they can’t think about what they’re passionate about
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Twitter had completely shifted its gear
The way Twitter had completely shifted its gear in how it manages its users and everything about the platform really honed in my message that I’ve been teaching for so long – you want to build an audience outside social media. Using social media as a tool to grow the awareness of your brand but ultimately think about how you draw those visitors from your social media profiles to your website and your newsletters, so you can maintain that audience over time somewhere you actually own, rather than a following on social media channels. Twitter just completely demonstrated that point.
Constantly keeping up with changes
It’s a double-edged sword in the way that, because things change so constantly it’s very exciting, but the other side is that I have to make sure that whatever I’m training individuals on or sharing in my talks or my strategies are also kept up to date. There are times when, for example, the Facebook ad platform changed the look and feel again and everything I’d been using in my training, I had to literally go back and redesign, including my slide decks and also my courses. So, it’s things like that where it does keep me on my toes with regard to constantly keeping up with changes. But at the same time, it also makes things more exciting because it does allow me to learn new things about how industries are shifting as well.
It’s one thing that I noticed very early on in my career – how addictive it can be.
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Social media – don’t use it as a consumer, use it as a creator
It’s one thing that I noticed very early on in my career – how addictive it can be. So I always tell my audiences, the key thing is to keep in mind that you are using it as a tool to grow your business. Don’t use it as a consumer, use it as a creator. Think about how you can create content on these platforms to share your message, talk about your values, share what you do, and sell it in a non-sales-ey way through your content. You’re using that as an authentic way to connect with your audiences instead of just scrolling mindlessly through social media or going through stories where you could be on for an hour, very easily on your phone. I think ultimately it’s about thinking about how to use that time efficiently as a business on social media. So think about it from a business perspective rather than a personal consuming perspective. And also for myself, I make sure I don’t have devices in my bedroom an hour before I go to bed. I find that having all that pinging and notifications in your head doesn’t allow you to wind down for the evening and can really affect your sleep, and I think sleep is one of the biggest areas that individuals struggle with, especially in the modern world with all these distractions around us. It’s one of the things that Simon [Alexander Ong] talks a lot about in his book Energize, that at the end of the day, you want to make sure that you’re protecting your health within the boundaries of what you have as a business. And I think ultimately you have to make sure that you don’t have the devices with you all the time but use them within a specifically segmented part of your day. So, when you’re done, you can move on and do things in your business that matters that will move your business forward.
I came from a very traditional banking background
One of my old mentors in my previous career said to me ‘passion is not something you can just go and find, it’s something that you have to discover within yourself.’ So, you know how a lot of people say, ‘go find your passion.’ I find that very vague. It doesn’t help individuals who are in that very lost state where they can’t think about what they’re passionate about because it seems like this pressurised thing to find this ‘thing’ that’s your passion. But I think you have to actually go out and try new things and learn from that experience, and maybe along the way, you will discover something within yourself that you’re passionate about. I think I benefited from that advice because I came from a very traditional banking background before I moved into marketing. For the longest time, I was doing that because my parents wanted me to do that. I realised along the way that it wasn’t what I was passionate about, but I didn’t know what else I could do because my whole life was geared towards this moment of getting this very well-paid job in the bank.
The best advice I’ve ever been given
By going out and speaking to people and going to events, I was able to meet lots of interesting people doing cool things in the creative industries and I just learned from that whole experience, figuring out along the way what I was interested in. I was speaking to individuals doing really cool things in their careers and that’s when I came across a friend of mine who was working in a digital agency in York, and he introduced me to my friend in London who was working in the London branch, and I went in and had a chat and that was the start of a whole new career, and hence leapt me to where I am today. That’s the best advice I’ve ever been given, you don’t just go find a passion, you have to discover along the way by trying new things.
Laurie Wang was photographed & interviewed at Victoria House in London by Laportra.
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