I have always been an early adopter, and in the year 2002, I got curious about blogging but avoided indulging in it for some time. By 2003, I had given in to my desires to share my creative writing with anonymous strangers and became a “blogger” when hardly anyone could understand the word without thinking about “block”. By 2004, I had started organising blogger meets around Delhi, that graduated to photography walks, heritage walks, food meets, blog camps, India’s first social media camp (2008) and India’s first wordpress camp (2009) over the next few years.

New social networks kept emerging, some old ones faded out and I kept joining the bandwagon of those that excited me. I always realised the intense potential social media had and wished to get out of the IT industry rut some day using the same. Soon opportunities presented themselves and I landed a job as a social media consultant (2009) with a digital marketing agency, purely because of my active understanding of the medium and being able to tap the pulse of the Indian social media scene. I worked as a freelance SM consultant also for a while, but between my two loves, I preferred photography and continue to be a professional photographer.

The blogging legacy, kept transferring to new social networks and today that has led to a new phrase – Social media influencer.

Influence Marketing is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers. Influencers may be potential buyers themselves, or they may be third parties.

Right from when PR agencies starting using social media in India, for their outreach in various industries, I’ve been contacted by various brands for the same since 2009. This includes brands from Photography, Tech, Food, Travel, Lifestyle, Beauty, Fashion, Automobile spaces among others. Working with people like me, helps brands target a different demographic compared to the one that gets targeted via the traditional means of marketing. My audience – comprising of Blog readers, Twitter/Instagram/Google+ followers, Facebook page fans, and overall network – gets to read about my experience pertaining to specific brands and thus helps increase buzz.

Here are some social media rankings for my online network, based on Kred and Klout:

Brands that have engaged with me in the past for activities of various scales –

Samsung, Micromax, Lenovo, Norton, Fujifilm, Tamron, Sandisk, Adobe, Saffola, Philips, Panasonic, Ford, Goa tourism, Kingston University (London), Jim Beam, Cointreau, Hyatt, Godrej, Nokia, Lava mobiles, YU Yureka, Colourbar, Monkey Bar, Britannia, Garnier, Fiama Di Wills, ITC, India Art fair, Wills Lifestyle, Skyscanner, Turkish airlines, NewZealand Embassy, Tourism boards of various countries and many more

If you are one such brand which wants to engage with me, do get in touch.