What comes to mind when you think of social media marketing?

This is what most beginners would say: Just make an attractive-looking creative or click a nice photo and post it on your brand’s social media account. Then sit back and wait for the likes and comments to roll in, and start replying back to them. Build engagement.

Sounds easy, right?

This is, however, the same trap everyone falls into when they’re starting out, and I was no different. I would direct most of my effort into creating the most aesthetic creatives and continuously editing the pictures until I was…

You are working laboriously at your shop which you managed to build after years of hard work. Though you know it is a low-paying job, it provides for the means of survival in a slowly developing country. Your attention is then caught by a television advertisement announcing that you could be the lucky winner of one million pesos. All you need to do is purchase a bottle of Pepsi and hope that the number printed under the bottle’s cap matches the number being announced on television in the evening. Eager to earn more than your normal meager income, you give…

If you are anything like me, it is always your desire to put out your best effort as you try to be as productive in a day as possible. The satisfaction of knowing that you have exceeded your own expectations in a day is unrivaled. However, only 15% of people claim to have never procrastinated. Procrastination has been called the thief of time, and rightfully so. It can even be termed as the greatest heist that’s being pulled off every single day, with the people being robbed also complicit in the crime.

There wouldn’t be a single person who does…

For a larger part of my life I did not understand social media at all, and purposely maintained my distance from all platforms. My understanding was limited to just the thought that social media was meant to be the place you share the best pictures you have of yourself and try to get some form of virtual validation of the same.

However, the true potential of social media from the point of view of marketing dawned upon me when I began working in a digital marketing agency. …

One of the most outrageous moments of the 2006 film ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ was a made-up version of the Kazakh national anthem. It was just one of the many stereotypes that the movie exaggerated as part of its satire on the American way of life and ideologies. However, it’s not surprising that the immediate response in Kazakhstan was not that welcoming. The government was not pleased with the way in which the country was portrayed and released a four-page ad in the New York Times to state the reality of their…

In the present day, there is nothing more ubiquitous in a movie experience than the signature sound of the Netflix theme playing in the background of its logo. It is prevalent to such an extent that by reading till this point you would have probably heard it play in your head numerous times.

It’s a piece so unique to the brand that it makes it instantly recognizable among the plethora of our daily online activity. The “ta-dum” sound sets the tone for a dramatic event that is about to play out, fitting perfectly as the introduction to a show that…

In this country, the usual way of casually greeting someone is by saying ‘habibi’, which translates to ‘my love’. However, in the past few weeks, the words have changed to “hamdellah ’al salama”, or ‘Thank God for your safety’. Lebanon has been suffering from the malpractices of a corrupt government and with the coronavirus lockdowns, the economy that was already trying to hand by a slight thread has fallen down a deep ravine. And it all exploded a few weeks back.

As in literally exploded.

The cumulating economic and political unrest is very well described by a riddle that is…

Picture yourself on an idyllic island, living in a rustic village that has been your home for over the past two decades. It is the perfect place for you to recover from a viral infection that has been plaguing the world for five months. The fresh sea breeze and the much-needed rest play their part in improving your health, and you smile as you look at the unadulterated blue sky as you pass your days. It takes about two weeks, but you begin to get better, and soon the results come back with a negative test result. …