Digital Vidya was recently featured in one of the premier newspapers in India: The new indian express on 24th Oct, 2011. The story mentioned the vision of founders along with the best practices they follow.

1. vol: 2 | no: 32 24 pages | Monday | october 24, 2011
P24 retro star P3 another road
Director Chaitanya had Immunologists are
the time of his life while always in demand.
in college, directing Here is a lowdown
plays and smuggling on how to pursue the
liquor into the hostel evergreen subject
P16 be healthy
Good news for rice
lovers: Don’t abstain
but apply the 1:1
ratio to your meal
and enjoy the veggies
it's your life!
Education Express
Through Digital Vidya, Kapil Nakra and Pradeep Chopra bring to the study table their expertise on online
marketing, which is sure to change the way you blog, tweet and post on social networks | 14-15
Digi marketing
evangelists

2. IN PAGE DOWN

3. The New Indian Express
MONDAY, October 24, 2011 edex
ore than 25 billion pieces of
cover story
Twitter’s web platform
M
content (web links, news, posts,
only accounts for a notes, photo albums, etc) is shared
quarter of its users. every month on Facebook
Seventy five per cent
use third-party apps
[ digital vidya ]
Marketeers, gear up for the
soCial Media avalaNChe
A
p1 Where tweets and Nithya Caleb
recent ASSOCHAM study
found that Indian companies
posts have helped chennai are spending over `1,200 crore
p2 — about 30-40 per cent of their
Presenting a few success stories of digital marketing marketing budget — on digital
indian firms are increasing their web media. Internet is transforming the way
p3 Ching’s seCret: The FMCG brand probably has one
goods are marketed across the globe. Many
of the most engaging communities on Facebook — it has
more than eight lakh people. The firm spends a major part
presence. They require executives firms — young and old — are spending on
an average of `2-50 lakh annually on social
p4 of its marketing budget on social networks and YouTube. who know the internet inside out, marketing campaigns. They hire social
Kapil Nakra believes the brand has been able to catch the
media managers to make the brand vis-
p5
customer's eye because “even the MD and senior manag- don’t mind spending long hours on ible, study consumer behaviour and even
ers post comments and engage with the clients”
taxspanner: When the finance sector was considered social networks, chatting with launch new products on popular websites
like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube
p6 ill-suited for digital marketing came a firm that decided
to use the Net to engage with customers, promote e-filing customers and can use the medium and LinkedIn. Despite the fact that only
about eight crore people use the Net in In-
p7
of taxes and also for some market research. Visit http://
www.taxspanner.com for a personal assessment
to the company’s advantage dia — 8.5 per cent of the total population,
the low cost of an online campaign cou-
Devesh Mishra: An innocuous YouTube posting pled with higher visibility among young-
resulted in a windfall for taxi driver-turned-entrepreneur Pradeep Chopra sters has forced companies to firm up their
p8 Devesh Mishra. In 2008, two of Mishra's Swiss clients online presence, particularly in the social
posted his video on YouTube and within two months he networking websites.
This explosion in social media market-
p9 began earning `50,000 a month! He dreamt of buying a
Toyota Innova. Not only did the Varanasi-based Mishra ing has opened a new avenue for marke-
achieve it but also started a travel agency teers — professionals and aspirants. Such
p10 a niche field requires a certain kind of
specialisation, which Delhi-based Digital
Imaging: M Arivarasu Vidya hopes to equip you with.
p11
The academy
p12 Digital Vidya was set up in
November 2009 by serial entre-
preneurs (more on that later)
p13 Pradeep Chopra and Kapil Na-
kra with an initial investment
of `5 lakh. “This is a new field.
p14 There’s no formal education.
The medium is also evolving
p15 fast. New platforms are replac-
ing existing ones rapidly. A
case in point is Google+ — it
p16 logged 50 million users within
days of launch. Also many
Indians are online these days
p17 — around 10 per cent of Linke-
dIn users are Indians. So I’m
sure people can identify with
p18 our curriculum,” says 34-year-
old Chopra.
p19 What is digital
p20 marketing
Digital marketing is not limited
to social media. It comprises
p21 search engine optimisation
(SEO), search engine marketing
(SEM), display advertising, email
p22 marketing and mobile marketing.
p23 Get trained
Digital Vidya conducts two kinds of work-
shops — public (open to anyone) and cor-
p24 porate. The two-day public workshop fo-
cuses on social media marketing. It costs
`15,000 but for the next two months, you
can avail it at a discounted price of `9,500.
Corporate workshops will be on any area

4. The New Indian Express
MONDAY, October 24, 2011 edex
he first video was uploaded on
cover story T YouTube on April 23, 2005. Called
Oracle’s Chief Financial
Me at the zoo, it was shot by Yakov
Officer, Jeff Epstein,
Lapitsky at the San Diego Zoo
was headhunted for the
position via his LinkedIn
profile
under digital marketing. The duration
depends on the requirements of the
specific organisation.
Chopra and Nakra use a lot of case
studies, videos and interesting exer-
cises to explain concepts. The duo has
held over 75 workshops across India,
Singapore and Malaysia and trained
nearly 6,000 people. They have also cre-
ated a marketing course for an Indian
corporate to be used in their training
programmes. On an average, 20-35 peo-
ple attend a workshop. The team also
held a day long session at BITS Pilani’s
Goa campus in early August.
p1
Who can participate
Digital Vidya’s workshops are mainly p2
targeted at marketing professionals,
PROs, product managers, web manag-
ers, senior executives, entrepreneurs p3
and content teams. While most of the
workshops are conducted by either
Chopra or Nakra, occasionally they p4
call in external trainers. Twitter ex-
perts Shrinath Navghane and Nikhil
Kumar Verma have chaired a few ses-
p5
sions. Digital Vidya presently employs
10 people. p6
What do you learn p7
Participants are taught about the sig-
nificance of social/digital media for The Digital Vidya team
marketing, how to strategise, plan and p8
execute campaigns successfully and
become a pro. “The workshop was very
informative and interactive. The train- without engagement does not produce p9
ers answered all our questions in detail Know the trainers results. Companies need to understand
and made the concept clear,” says 26-
year-old Akshat Mathur, senior plan- Pradeep Chopra and Kapil Nakra graduated in BTech from IIT-Delhi (1995-1999). While
this,” says Nakra.
p10
ning manager, Madison India. “Since I Chopra worked in TCS for a year, Nakra was with Kizna, a Japanese start-up before the Remuneration
am with a digital marketing agency, I
need to have a basic understanding of
entrepreneur bug bit the duo. In 2000, they started Whizlabs Software. “My only aim
then was to start something different. Luckily the change in the exam pattern of Sun Freshers with good writing skills can
p11
how the medium works. After the work- Microsystems helped us become a leader in the IT prep domain,” says Chopra. earn `15,000 monthly. Veterans can
shop, I’m able to convince our clients to In fact Whizlabs proved to be the foundation for their foray into internet market- hope to earn as high as `1 lakh per p12
invest in online marketing.” ing. “This is where we learned all our digital skills. We were forced to sell our products month. But how does one find employ-
Jiveshdeep Singh Sandhu, deputy online,” recalls Chopra. “Since no one was buying our e-learning programme for Java ment? “Jobs sites are the best places.
manager-marketing, Toyota, who has certification, we posted it online. It was picked up by various discussion forums and the At the same time, before listing your p13
over 10 years of experience in the field, product started selling. Even now 95 per cent of our revenue is generated outside India resume, update and expand your pres-
found a positive difference after he be- ence on social media networks. This
gan implementing the tips he picked
purely through online marketing,” adds 33-year-old Nakra.
Whizlabs was so successful that they could sign on top clients like CISCO without will definitely help you to understand p14
up at a Digital Vidya workshop in 2010. even meeting them. In 2004, Whizlabs was given the ‘Most Innovative IT company’ the medium,” says Nakra.
“The practical insights they offered award by NASSCOM. Last year it earned around $0.4 million. p15
was great. Earlier we were not engag-
ing with the customers in the best pos-
The successful use of online marketing for Whi- dvBytes
zlabs convinced the two that this is the future
sible manner. After the workshop, we
revised the content we post on our so-
and they decided to specialise in it — all of In April, Chopra and Nakra set up dv-
Bytes. It offers social media marketing
p16
their ventures are related to digital and
cial pages. This significantly improved social marketing. services and caters to FMCG, e-com-
our level of interactions with our cus- Early this year, during the ICC Cricket merce, tech and entertainment sectors. p17
tomers,” he says. World Cup, they launched the world’s The income generated from this ven-
first social network for cricket, Soch.la. ture is used to fund Digital Vidya.
Qualities of a good Chopra describes it as “a place where While the forecast is bright for social p18
people have fun with each other around media managers, at the moment the
marketeer field is in its infancy. Just 5 per cent of
The only way to excel in marketing,
a sport”. The website has over 3,000
members. Despite a successful launch, the the ads are digital. Brand building is p19
says Nakra, is to “participate as a peer, duo is planning to rebrand Soch.la in order still largely done on other media. “Only
focus on the target groups’ needs rath-
er than your business objectives, be
to attract a wider audience.
They also founded OM Careers and
few internet-based businesses exclu-
sively use the digital world. However,
p20
authentic, disciplined with your post- OMLogic Consulting. Both specialise in online contribution of the digital for building
ings on social networks and focus on
engagement more than acquisition”.
marketing — Careers works as a network-
ing-cum-training platform and Logic offers
and promoting a brand is increasing
given the number of people present on
p21
marketing services. this medium,” says Chopra.
Challenges Despite contrasting working styles —
Chopra is more into the details and
The duo’s future plans include ex-
panding the workshops to new geogra-
p22
As it is a relatively new field — only Nakra prefers to look at the overall phies, continuously increasing custom-
two-three years old, people are skepti- picture — the two have stuck on er delight and scaling up dvBytes ■ p23
cal and new performance metrics need since college. “We were friends in — nithya@newindianexpress.com
to be evolved. “Connecting business college and our desires matched.
objectives with the needs of the target We also have a mutual respect p24
group is a must to create an engag- for each other’s calibre and that’s get in touch
ing community. Businesses currently why we decided to do something Mail your contributions
are focusing only on community size together,” says Nakra ■ Kapil Nakra and feedback to:
(fans, follows etc). But community size edex@newindianexpress.com