Exclusive | Harnessing the power of Social Media: Digital Vidya's Pradeep Chopra

Digital Vidya is India's largest Digital Marketing training company and the first to launch Social media marketing workshop series in India. Since January 2010, over 2000 professionals (including CXOs) from brands such as Nokia, Google, eBay, Reliance, Star TV, Cisco, MakeMyTrip, Naukri, Citibank, Toyota, Intel, ITC, CNBC, Madison and CII have participated in 99 workshops by Digital Vidya across India, Singapore, Malaysia and Oman.

 

Pioneering social media training in India, Digital Vidya’s workshops help its participants learn and leverage Social Media Marketing for brand building, lead generation and customer acquisition.

 

The workshops are led by co-founders Pradeep Chopra and Kapil Nakra, who have an   extensive experience of over 12 years in Digital Marketing.

Digital Vidya will celebrate its 100th Social Media Workshop by organizing its 2-day workshops in Mumbai on July 19-20, in Delhi on July 26-27 and in Bangalore on Aug 7-8.

 

Adgully caught up with Pradeep Chopra – Co-founder and CEO, Digital Vidya as he talks about the workshops and provides useful insights into the world of social media.

 

Talking about the idea that inspired the birth of social media marketing workshops, Pradeep said, “We have been practicing digital marketing since 2000, when we started our first venture. Since then we are informally helping our friends, associates and fellow entrepreneurs leverage this new medium by sharing our experience at various forums. Towards the end of 2009, we were looking at starting a new venture; we thought it would be a great idea to convert our passion into business. Thus Digital Vidya was born and we did our first social media marketing workshop in Delhi in January 2010.”

 

Shedding light on the usefulness of social media workshops, he said, “Our social media workshop is a 2-day hands-on, case study driven workshop for professions, who are serious about leveraging social media for brand building, lead generation or customer acquisition. Our commitment is that participants of our workshop don’t just leave the workshop being excited about this new medium but also would have gained enough confidence to apply the learning of our workshops for their organization. The workshops are quite comprehensive in terms of content.”

 

Some of the key aspects that the Digital Vidya workshops concentrate on are creation and execution of social media marketing strategy, measurement of ROI and leveraging social media to attain business objectives. Besides, the participants also learn about the latest trends and social Media channels such as Pinterest, Google+, through fruitful discussions.

 

Pradeep exclaims, “Case studies and examples form an essential part of our workshops. And, instead of just sharing case studies of large, global brands, we present numerous examples of Indian brands (both small and large), which have been successfully leveraging social media for business benefits. The examples represent brands across various business verticals and from both B2C & B2B categories.”

 

Commenting on the prowess of social media to build a connect across different age groups he said; “On social media, parents and children are friends today. When it comes to social media, age is no more a boundary. At the same time, brands can effectively leverage these relationships. For e.g., a company which offers products and services, which are targeted at old age people can target their children on social media even if their end customer (i.e. parents) are not present on social media.”

 

Speaking on the opportunities that the social media platform offers, he says, “The real opportunity that social media provides to any brand is to reach out to and engage with its customers. Here ‘engagement’ is the key. The ability to converse with customers on a daily basis creates an opportunity for any brand to build an emotional bond with its customers. Unlike other forms of advertising, where reach is the biggest value, social media is about building relationships, which play an integral role in the brand building process.”

 

Talking about some of the future plans of Digital Vidya, Pradeep said, “We are really looking forward to celebrating the milestone of our 100th Social Media Workshop through our upcoming workshops across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Since Jan 2010, we’ve organized 99 workshops for over 500 brands across India, Singapore, Malaysia and Oman. In the later part of the year, we aim at expanding the horizons of the workshops by taking them to newer geographies across the world. Also, there would be newer training formats beyond physical classroom trainings. Ultimately, we want to make significant contribution in the growth of this industry by empowering and enabling individuals and organizations across the world in leveraging Digital Marketing.”

 

Digital Vidya also offers customized workshops for corporations across various areas of digital marketing - social media marketing, search engine optimization and online advertising. | By Aditi Popat [aditi(at)adgully.com]