Ananya Narang - Building Relation While Creating Content (Content Creator From India)

                                                                                  

I tried to be honest, responsible, and frank with everything I wrote. If I were to be completely candid, I’d say the brand creation efforts go far beyond what you can see on my profile wall - replying to hundreds of messages each day, helping out people on free consultation calls (perhaps 7-8 calls a week), and building relations with other industry professionals.

1. Tell us about your background and journey?

I am a typical Bollywood dreamer from Delhi, relating to multiple characters, including Geet (Jab We Met) and Rancho (3 idiots). From being a back-bencher to getting an AIR 1 in CBSE’17 and AIR 6 in CBSE’19, I’ve seen myself grow over the years in multiple roles.

As a commerce student, I’ve always had an interest in finance and accounting, leading me to join one of Asia’s best commerce colleges - Shri Ram College of Commerce. For most of my first year, I was involved with The Dramatics Society SRCC, working with a team of 25+ members in organizing DU’s biggest cultural fest- Histrionica, and performing a stage play “Plaza Suite'' on 50+ occasions.

Everything was going well, but then boom! Covid-19 Lockdown happened and everything came to a standstill. Nobody knew how things were going to be and for how long businesses would be shut. I belong to a middle-class family, and that being said, the lockdown brought a whole lot of troubles for us.

That was when I decided to take up some kind of paid job to support my finances. The first one I could find was for content writing. My first pay scale was Rs 2,000 per month and as I stepped into this field and opportunities started to align one after the other. I picked up blogging jobs with other websites too. Today, I have 300+ articles published under my authorship on the web.

Fast forward to November 2021, I started posting on LinkedIn regularly. It became a part of my routine; honestly, I don’t even know how and why. I just needed a place to share my honest rant.

2 months later in January 2022, I got an offer for a sponsored post. That was when I realized that I was headed towards something big. Frankly, I knew people monetized their community on YouTube and Instagram, but on LinkedIn, I wasn’t sure! That was the day I genuinely + actually checked the number of followers I had, and it was around 10k. Funny story, I became a creator before I even knew about it!

2. How did you create your brand?

I come from a business family, so you can say selling runs in my blood. My dad always kept telling us secrets and life learnings to attract attention and make the customer feel important. Those learnings mixed with a little content writing did the wonder.

I tried to be honest, responsible, and frank with everything I wrote. If I were to be completely candid, I’d say the brand creation efforts go far beyond what you can see on my profile wall - replying to hundreds of messages each day, helping out people on free consultation calls (perhaps 7-8 calls a week), and building relations with other industry professionals.

Combine everything together and it might give you a taste of what creators go through every day :)

3. What inspired you to post content on LinkedIn specifically and not any other platform?

I just needed a platform to talk and to be heard. Instagram was too unprofessional for such things, I wasn’t on Twitter, Snapchat is for close folks, and it was hard to be heard via a blog instantly. So, yes, LinkedIn was to the rescue.

Apart from that, LinkedIn has been one of the best platforms to meet and connect with people who don’t really belong to your age group or work profile. If I wanted to connect with a startup founder, I could. If I wanted to connect with someone from another college, I could. Finding people was so easy that it just leveled up my professional game.

LinkedIn gave me a lot of opportunities- I worked with the best-in-their-field people like Boat’s Aman Gupta, collaborated with multiple brands, was invited as a chief guest/speaker in 10+ webinars/sessions, and went from earning Rs 2000 per month to 6 digit figures.

My efforts were recognized by LinkedIn via its LinkedIn For Creators initiative. Within these 6 months, I have reached over 6 million people. What more would I need?

4. What role did internships play in your career?

Disclaimer/TW: I’ve done A LOT of internships in varied profiles, primarily because I didn’t know for sure what I want to do ahead. To find the answer to this question, internships, no doubt, played a crucial role.

The content writing and marketing internships helped me improve my writings, which I could later pitch as a freelance writer and marketing strategist for CXOs and brands.

Finance-related internships and the one in Big4 companies backed my interest in financial profiles and career options.

And, well, the rest, told me that the respective field wasn’t for me!

First, I realized what I didn’t want and then moved on to decide what I really want.

5. What are a few achievements outside of your profession that you are proud of?

I have been a person with multiple interests all my life.

● I’ve been a part of the National School of Drama, an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

●  I’m grateful for random appreciation and thank you messages I receive from people every other day. There’s nothing better than seeing my content actually making a difference in people’s lives out there.

● Currently, I’m working with the HPAIR team to organize Harvard’s Asia Conference in India for the first time in 30 years!

● I was the Publications Head at Shri Ram Consulting and Research Center until last year. We worked day and night to fetch and work on live projects with various companies and industry leaders. Today, one year later, I am interacting with the society’s new cabinet as an industry expert on behalf of my organization. So, seeing the tables turn within 1 year is a really big deal for me.

●I’ve been a sportsperson throughout, winning multiple inter-school championships and even playing Taekwondo on a national level.

                                                                   

             

 Personal blog

Interviewed By - Shashank Sehgal