We had this Q&A with college students on 19th Decemeber 2019 in Mumbai, India. There were 9 students in the room. The early adopters who wanted to try and understand this new job role. This post has few of the important questions asked by those students from this session.
What is the first thing I need to do?
You have to pick the business niche and the digital creator theme (photography, graphic design, illustration, blog writing, video etc ). Because the student where from Information Technology or Computer Science. I suggested them to pick the business as Software SaaS business. Pick the business with team size between 10-25 people. You can look them in LinkedIn or Twitter. Re-Read this article again and go to section “What do you have to do and how can you make your side money?”
How to connect with digital creator?
You can put a comment on the Digital Creator’s Instagram post, asking if they would like to collabrate. “I liked the image you have created.” OR “I love the use of colour” OR “I like the way you have use the shadow effect” and add it with “Would you be open for Free collabration with small business to gain more awarenesss for your work?”
Here is an example that I did with one of the Digitial Creator
Use this 1.80 dollar strategy by Gary Vaynerchuk. Re-Read this article again and go to section “What do you have to do and how can you make your side money?“
How do I reach out to Businesses?
Once you pick you business niche, search for the business on LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Once of the offline mode of doing this is by visiting Business Centers or Commercial Complex in and around your area. Once you reach the office ask for a person who is incharge of social media marketing?. For the students in the room I mentioned following Business Centers in mumbai western suburbs.
- Sej Plaza Malad
- PlamSpring Malad
- Profit Center Kandivali
- Xth Central Mall Kandivali
- Raghuleela Mega Mall Kandivili
Re-Read this article again and go to section “What do you have to do and how can you make your side money?”
One of the side effect of this activity both online and offline is you (as a student) will be able to learn more about local software business and could open up an opportunity for intership or first job
What if Digital Collabrator do not agree to do free collabration?
You move on another person
How to convince the Digital Collabrator to do a free collabration?
You don’t because this is not for everyone, Its for people who are willing to do the free work for getting more work. Only thing I can think about is share this article “Blueprint for More Work in 2020” with them.
What should I do if business don’t pay me?
You do the work for free, till the time you can. Make sure you do atleast 100 collabration to get an expereince and learn some craft of negotiations.
Should we share the name of digital Creator on the post?
Yes, because the creator is not getting paid and the only way you are giving value to them is giving them awareness on thier work and the image or video they create will have the instagram or other social media handle at the bottom or top of the content.
What if I want to become a digital creator, am I not creating competition by sharing thier name on post and business?
Even if you aspire to become a digital creator, currently you are not so you can be a student and learn the craft by helping who are ahead in the journey. It will create an oppurtuntity to network with professionals and also find a mentor for you to grow. I think you should not worry about competition but learn more about the craft.
What is the price I can get for each collaboration?
Pricing is a very tricky part of the whole process. However it validates the idea because it gives a value to the work that Digital collabrator does. We ran a small exercise around this and asked every one to put a ballot poll on the price range. You can see the image on top of this article for per collabration (1-3 images per company).
- Rs 30-60
- Rs 100-150
- Rs 100-500
- Rs 200-700
- Rs 800
- Rs 1500-2500
- Rs 4000-6000
- Rs 9000-15000
- Rs 10000-15000
The pricing was all over the place of the amount of work between 1 hour to 4 hour per transaction.
I hope this was a useful post for you. I have a question for you.
Do you think Digital Collaborator role can be done you or any students?
Put your answer in YES or NO in the comments below.
Vikram Shetty 
Yes
Thank you for your answer Aayush. You have asked some good and important questions in the session.
Yes
Thank you for your answer Nidhee. It was good to listen to your ideas too
Hello sir, I’m one of the student who attended your workshop in malad i really liked your idea of increasing network and doing hobbies, my main subject/interest is data science how can i apply your idea for a person who want to start his career in data science?
Thank Pritom, that’s a great career choice. Let’s start looking for business involved in data science. that are in Mumbai from LinkedIn. Connect with owner, VP or Director of them. Send them the original article of Digital Collaborator.
Here is the message you can sent ‘I would like to connect with you because you work with a software company work on data science. That’s my interest too. I am currently a student and would like to help you get free collaboration for social media image post. Here is an article that explains it… https://vikramshetty.com/2019/11/03/digital-collaborator/
I hope you do that with 100 people on LinkedIn