#TheIncredibles: Julian Gamboa Shares His Expertise About Marketing

Julian Gamboa, Marketing and Social Media Manager at ADWEEK also a Linkedin Top Voice is an awesome guy and professional with whom I did a Q&A to better pick his brain and get to know certain stuff about marketing.

Infact, A little less known fact is that I didn't knew about Bit.ly before Julian told me about it. Just imagine. A guy into Linkedin and Personal Branding hadn't heard of it! So, My BIG thanks to him for introducing this wonderful tool to me.

And, Without much further adieu, I will share the answers which Julian gave to some of my questions related to marketing:

(The interview is from the month of November, 2018)

Vanky: Which is your favourite social media platform? (I'm guessing it's LinkedIn!)

Julian: You’d think it would be LinkedIn, but I definitely enjoy Twitter more. You know, with LinkedIn being a professional site, many people put on their professional face and talk in a formal manner. Which is great - that’s the brand and tone LinkedIn has made for itself, but I prefer Twitter because people can truly be themselves without the need to put a face on.

The format of tweets and their short life-span allows for people to take different attitudes based on the posts make or interact with. For example, if you see a tweet about advertising strategy, you’re bound to reply in the same tone: business-like. But if you see tweets about the Warriors or whatever sports team you’re following, then there’s no need to be businesslike! Just talk about the topic you enjoy.

I really like the flexibility that Twitter allows for - whatever is on your mind you can tweet. Meanwhile on LinkedIn, you have to think about it before you post because you’re posting in a website meant for professionals.

Vanky: What do you think of social media in general?

Julian: You know, I can’t be without it. Currently I’m a Social & Community Manager, meaning I spend my whole day on Twitter and LinkedIn seeing what our audience is talking about. You would think I would be tired of scrolling through news feeds and notifications, but I do not think that’s my case. I enjoy social media, I think it’s a good tool for communicating information, AKA Zuckerberg’s “connecting the world,” but I also think that it knows too much about us.

On the first point: it’s a good tool for communication. I left for college four years ago, I am currently in San Francisco but thanks to social media apps like Whatsapp and Messenger, I have been able to communicate and video call my parents back in Mexico. Better yet, I know of UC Berkeley friends that communicate with their parents from other continents and it’s all thanks to those apps we have on our phones.

But all good things come at a cost: which brings me to the second point - privacy concerns. There’s this test I saw on YouTube a while back, about a man that says he has never owned a dog or has never shown interest in purchasing a dog. He then opens Google and talks about for two minutes about different dog topics. He says “I am looking forward to taking my dog for a walk. Dogs are the best type of animal.” Etcetera. After two minutes of dog-centered sentences, Google ads begins showing him dog toy ads. Hardware is always listening, whether you like it or not, so my stance is: just don’t do bad things and you won’t have things to worry about it. I, for example, have never entered my credit card information into any Facebook app, and as things are going right now, I don’t think I’m doing it anytime soon.

Vanky: You are a LinkedIn Top Voice (One of the most coolest and humble I know). Could you share how you got started with LinkedIn?

Julian: Thank you for the kind words, Vanky! Yes, so I started with LinkedIn as many young people are today: via college. In a course, I heard about LinkedIn and it’s networking power, and so I just started playing around with it. Before I knew it, I began publishing articles on social media subjects (fun fact: my first article was about Snapchat’s Discover), and talking with people on such topics.

I really enjoyed writing articles because I read many Adweek articles on the daily, and publishing on LinkedIn and engaging marketing professionals felt great - it put you right in the industry conversation. Now the focus is more on single posts rather than articles, and it really makes you miss the depth that you could achieve with articles because the research led to fascinating discoveries and allowed you to form your own opinions that executives were talking about. So in late 2017, I set a goal to publish one article every week and that was pretty stressful, but I think that really helped for the Top Voice nomination.

Vanky: When we first talked, You shared an awesome marketing tool with me which I didn't knew about. It was bit.ly. It has helped me keep a track of many things. Julian, Any such special secret you want to give away to the audience reading this article.

Julian: Bit.ly is great. You can customize your own shortened URL and then if you add a plus sign (+) at the end, you get many traffic metrics. I think the special secret I use every day, and the one that will be most beneficial to your LinkedIn readers, is your personalized hashtag on LinkedIn.

I used to post daily on LinkedIn when I graduated from college. I’d post a commercial once a day for people to talk about. But LinkedIn had this amazing feature that showed you who shared your video - but it stopped sometime in the summer. So sometimes people would share the ads I posted and add their commentary, but LinkedIn wouldn’t notify me. Sometimes people would share my post and I wouldn’t even know.

So if you create your own hashtag (anyone can do this), you can see all the posts submitted with that hashtag. The best part? You don’t have to convince people to use the hashtag! If the original poster (here, that would be you) uses a specific hashtag (mine is #MyFavoriteAd), then I can see anyone that has added commentary to any of my posts. It’s a great way for maintaining your audience engaged and keeping the conversation going!

And, That's a wrap. My interview with the awesome Julian ends here, but, You can find him on Twitter too where he is quite active.

Also, What's your say, LinkedIn fam? Do let me know about it via your priceless and invaluable comments!!

Also, If you want to stay in touch, You can say hello to me here on LinkedIn.

(The interview is from the month of November, 2018)

About the Author: Vanky Kenny Kataria is a 23 year old motivational speaker and personal brand consultant. He's a 2x Tedx speaker viz. TEDx NorthCap Universityand TEDx BalajiITS and has been featured in publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huntington Post, MSN, Reader's Digest, etc and in books like '30&Under'. 'PeopleMaven' named him one of the 'Top 13 Emerging Communication Skills Coaches' from around the world and has also been awarded with the prestigious 'Radio Mirchi's Youth Icon' of Nashik. He has keynoted at conferences such as the 'Coca Cola Youth Speak Forum' held at Nashik, 2017 and is also the brand ambassador of India for 'Host Your Voice'. He's also a contributor to international publications like Thrive Global, KivoDaily, Better Days Global and others.