For this top global marketing thought leader, audience centricity and producing daily content are key to getting noticed
By Jim James, Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.
Vladimer Botsvadze is the no. 1 global marketing thought leader ranked by Thinkers360. He has built a personal brand out of nothing. Now, itâs got over 100,000 followers in just a few years â all based on a few basic principles.
In the new episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, he discussed mobile and audience centricity and how you can build a global personal brand next to no cost. He also talked about how he helps entrepreneurs and big corporates get noticed.
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Sharing Future-Proof, Actionable Strategies
Vladimer considers it an honour to be called a global marketing thought leader. Heâs also excited to be invited to global marketing summits, where he shares actionable insights with executives, startup owners, and marketing managers.
What sets him apart is practicality (which he says is something thatâs missing throughout the world). He helps global clients understand where customer attention is â on social media platforms.
Whether theyâre building a startup, representing a Fortune 500 brand, or marketing executives excited to have their personal brands, he shares with them how to stand out in a global digital marketplace by creating content that is in their followersâ best interest.
What he started in 2014 has become a personal brand that roars with success. He has since been putting incredible work into helping clients discover future-proof, actionable strategies that help them maximise their success. And the winning formula for global brands is to create content and win attention across eight to 10 social media channels.
Image from Vladimer Botsvadze
Establishing Social Media Presence
Patience is a foundation for everyoneâs success. Without patience, nothing great happens â Rome was not built in one day. Thereâs a need to take one step at a time.
Vladimer advises clients to start hitting the ground running on Twitter because the platform offers an easy way to connect with prospective clients in the business world. An estimated 85% of global technology leaders use Twitter. A single reply to entrepreneurs can make a billion.
He himself has greatly benefited from his social media presence to maximise his success. His clients also start winning through Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media channels.
There are 8 billion people in the world â around 4.6 billion of which are social media users and over 5 billion mobile users. Itâs paramount to create content, be in the spotlight, and make yourself conspicuous. Keep in mind that consistent actions create consistent results.
As his clients become consistent in marketing, they can hit the ground running. And they consider Vladimerâs actionable insights key. He considers himself honoured for being invited as an advisor and working on billion-dollar marketing projects with award-winning Fortune 500 brands.
Image from Unsplash
Vladimer, however, believes that you shouldnât depend only on one platform like Twitter or LinkedIn. You should put eggs into different baskets.
In his case, he also ensures he has a strong presence on Medium, WordPress, Tumblr, YouTube, and other social media channels â whether itâs a microblogging or a video platform. He has taken advantage of every kind of content, including blog posts, media interviews, and video marketing content. He capitalised on all this to maximise success and reach new heights.
The More Content, The Better
Vladimerâs business involves helping clients create content to build their brands. Based on his experience with them, the more content they create, the more successful they become.
Further looking at the startup ecosystem in India (they have more than 100 unicorns), he noticed that players are capitalising on every social media channel. They have podcasts. They create blog posts. For Indian entrepreneurs, when thereâs a will, thereâs a way. They are very open-minded.
Open-mindedness is a bedrock of success â because the strategies we learned from business courses are already outdated. In fact, the World Economic Forum has ranked active learning as the number two skill. Learning actively and daily and connecting with thought leaders is vital to maximise your success.
Image from Unsplash
Itâs a big mistake to only focus on one channel. As the saying goes, the mouse that has but one hole is quickly taken. So you need to depend on several channels, and Vladimer advises clients to pay attention to eight to 10 channels that dominate the screen.
In the Active Communications Index, the formula to measure your publicity efforts is content times channel times frequency. In terms of frequency, he encourages marketing teams to put out 100 pieces of content across those eight to 10 channels daily.
Take note that the digital space is a very competitive field. To stay competitive and ahead of the curve, you need to distribute your content wisely across those channels.
For instance, when he speaks at conferences, he uses that content for his Twitter or LinkedIn page for different purposes. If you run a podcast, you should distribute your content on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. Itâs vital to share with the world what you create.
On Brand-Building
Regarding the type of content that companies should produce, Vladimer considers it essential to offer content that promotes themselves.
Some organisations are in the marketing and branding business; others are in the sales business. If you look at Jeff Bezos or Nike, youâll notice that theyâre at the forefront of their industries because they are in the brand-building business. They are close to their consumers. For example, the âJust Do Itâ campaign has taken Nikeâs success to the next level.
This is similar to the case of Vladimer, only that it involves using tweets. Twitter built his career and personal brand. Twitter, he emphasised, is a brand-building platform and not a sales one â just like LinkedIn, Instagram, and LinkedIn (Google, on the other hand, is an intent-based marketing platform).
When creating content, you must create one that is in your followersâ best interest â and not your best interest.
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If youâre a sales business and send sales pitches to your prospects, youâll find that many salespeople rarely manage to build their brands because theyâre focused on short-term goals. People who create content are at the forefront of marketing because they are long-term thinkers. They create content that follows their audienceâs best interest.
Whoever is close to the audience always wins in the long term. Vladimerâs own journey itself has been put on a pedestal because of that audience centricity.
Optimising for Mobile and Google Searches
Every website should be optimised for mobile devices.
When Vladimer built his website a few years ago, he re-invested every penny from it to optimise his website for mobile. And now, heâs been greatly benefiting from it. It helped him start winning on Google as well.
Today, if you search for âinterview with digital transformation thought leader/influencer,â his interview from different websites will appear on page one (Currently, he has more than 40 media interviews). Google chooses his interviews because of his strong personal brand and success. Heâs also winning in mobile because of his social media presence, global publicity, and work (for instance, heâs a jury and an advisory board member).
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To be effective on mobile and Google searches, the words you originally choose are important. You must have a uniquely created website â an authentic, bona fide website with bona fide content that truly portrays your authenticity.
Take his website, for example; itâs now winning on Google because he wisely invested when creating it. Everything matters â from his original content to his images. He also invested in game-changing trends a few years ago.
Having original content â content with twists, content that changes the game, content that is authentic and showcases that youâve put in the work â will also help you win on Google.
He also incorporated social media links on his website to help him in his Google search results. Every little element helps if you want to stand out in a mobile-only world.
Tools and Resources to Use
Vladimer recommends Brandwatch and Meltwater.
The former is an amazing brand-watching platform that gives you a birdâs eye view of the whole industry â what your customers are talking about and what your followers are tweeting about your brand. Meanwhile, the latter is an excellent monitoring platform.
With these tools that use Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can make better, smarter, and more strategic decisions and maximise your success.
In his case, though, he never depended on social media tools. He built his Twitter page organically, without having to schedule his posts. From 2014 to 2020, he used to work 14 to 15 hours a day on Twitter â and now, his hard work has paid off.
He did everything on his own. Nobody helped him on his journey â heâs a solo entrepreneur, a one-man band standing on his own two feet and pedalling his own canoe. And itâs because of his strong passion that sent him to the forefront of marketing.
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For brands that donât have time to do things on their own, he suggests hiring great graphic designers to help you create great content. To produce video content, and if you can afford it, you can also hire video editors to record your daily journey and share your hard work with the world.
You can find these people on LinkedIn. You also need to Google them to see what they do â if they have great results or are renowned in their fields. Vladimer doesnât believe in degrees and curriculum vitae.
You should make your decision and do your research. Look at what they tweet, their Facebook profile, and their Google results. It will help you decide whether itâs worth working with them or not.
To learn more about Vladimer Botsvadze, visit www.vladimerbotsvadze.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
This article is based on a transcript from my podcast The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, you can listen here.
