Interview With Matteo (Digital Strategist)

1) Where were you born and raised? Also tell us something unique about yourself.

I was born in Sicily and started working at a very young age. I have always felt different from the context I found myself in, shortly after I read Adam Grant's book "Being Original" and I found myself very much. So I discovered I was a nonconformist!

2) What got you interested in marketing and what was your journey?

I attended my first digital marketing event in 2018, it was in both Italian and English. The host was Philp Kotler. I didn't understand anything about the English part or the Italian part and I took this as a challenge. However, he understood one important thing: thanks to this job I would be able to fulfill myself and do something different compared to those times.

After that event I returned home and the first thing I did was create a Facebook page. (I've never said this). From there I specialized in social media and took a dealership I worked for from 7k followers to 14k in less than a year. At that time I didn't know about ads or bots so I did everything organically.

Then I got a master's degree and developed other skills: copywriting, SEO, graphics, Meta and Google ads.

I NEVER STOPPED LEARNING. On linkedin you will see that every year I have invested in the best schools for my education

3) What skills and industry do you specialize in?

My favorite industry are: cars and sports but I recently did some nice case studies in the tattoo industry. The skills I have developed are T shaped. I started with horizontal skills between copy, social, SEO, until I became vertical on ads (google, meta, youtube and linkedin) and data informed. I like to do everything following an organization so time and project management cannot be missing from my professional formula.

4) What is your best soft skill?

Now I'm learning to know myself better so I don't want to be presumptuous. I believe some soft skills are:

- problem solving, I often find myself in difficult situations from which I have to get out or in which I have to get the client or part of the team out.

- flexibility, I try to adapt to customer requests as much as possible.

- critical thinking.

- empathy, this recently developed.

5) What softwares and tools do you use regularly?

I use a lot of google ads, meta ads, ga4, kajabi, google tag manager, clarity, hotjar, similarweb, chatgpt and the most important tool: "my mindset"

6) What are your goals for the next year and into the future?

My future goals are to develop my career and progress. I would like to structure a personal brand and found a unicorn startup.

7) What has been the hardest thing you dealt with in your career path?

I think the hardest thing was that several people close to me didn't believe in me.

8) What is the biggest mistake you made that you want others to avoid?

I recommend avoiding being instinctive about projects and with people. I'm trying to avoid this and trying to fix it as much as possible.

9) Who are your favorite people in the industry that you follow?

Well in first place I recommend my mentor: Federico Sbandi, followed by Valerio Celletti and (recently met) Luca Mastella and Matteo Aliotta. In this period I am following these figures a lot in Italy.

10) Who has had the biggest influence on your career to date?

Definitely Federico.

11) What has been your favorite course that you taken and why?

At the moment I might be biased since I finished some courses recently. Let's say that every year I changed training institutions but all were chosen because I considered them the best in Italy.

12) What would you tell yourself or someone who is just starting out in marketing?

To someone who is starting out I would say: "train yourself, listen to senior figures and try to apply in any way even with your own projects. Be ambitious but stay humble and in a few years you will be where many will never arrive".

13) If the entire world was listening to you, what would you have to say?

You'll see what I'll be capable of.

14) Where can we find you?

This is my Linkedin: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/matteobasile/my

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matteo.basile_/my

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@matteobasile_