Content Circuit : A Good Bye to Traditional Marketing

Let's face it, before this week, few of us had ever thought about the term content marketing and monetizing on content and even cast a blind eye towards it in our ventures, however, on 2nd July, occurred the ultimate enlightening - Content Circuit( an initiative of Desiredwings.com and BW disrupt) with Wannapreneur2Entrepreneur, Startup grind, Pixr8.com, and Startup Leadership Program as the community outreach partner, Zengatv and One Digital Entertainment Private Limited and Venue partners Awfis Space Solutions CP, New Delhi , special mentions Rohan Sehgal (Blogger| Restraunteur| Startup Entrepreneur) . Just like an electric circuit connecting different appliances in different combinations to create a sophisticated system, Content Circuit amalgamated the various opinions and advice of pioneers and industry leaders to curate a densely packed chunk of readily consumable information. The chief beneficiaries of this initiative were startup entrepreneurs, a rapidly growing breed of professionals in India, for whom this event was a powerful defense against the power of the powerhouses in the corporate world.

Kicking off the event was a keynote speech by Sandeep Amar (CEO of India Express Digital). In a short span of time, Mr. Amar managed to deliver large chunks of information and wisdom to his audience, talking about various topics such as 'options for content management systems', 'how content can help entrepreneurs' and 'options for delivering content to greater audiences'. His words were the perfect start to this day-long event. The key takeaway from him was “Content Business if structured well, can generate good ROIs”

Next up, we had the first panel discussion, covering the topic of ' Building Business out of Content'. Participating in this event were Aroon Kumar (General Manager - Global Marketing CricHQ) as moderator, Angad Bhatia (COO - Indiatimes.com | Indiatimes Lifestyle Network - Times Internet Founder @MensXP), Panshul Jhinghan ( Chief Revenue & Strategy | One Digital Entertainment) and Sahir Usman ( Founder | CNMsports.com) as panelists. This panel witnessed vibrant speakers as the discussion included topics such as the 'types of content that can be monetized', 'the ethicality of buying likes to promote content' and the 'possibilities of building businesses out of content in different fields'.The panel ended on the note “ content monetization needs to be strategized in order to incur good returns”.

Subsequently, we had the second panel discussion, covering the topic 'Content as a Marketing Tool'. Participating in this event were Bianca Ghose (Chief Content Officer | HCL Tech) as moderator, Apurva Chamaria (VP Corporate Head Marketing | HCL Tech) and Samriddh Dasgupta ( Chief Marketing Manager | Times Internet : Dineout) as panelists. There were a plethora of topics covered such as ' Building Consumer Trust using Content', ' How to Effectively Sell Solutions to Consumers' and ' Types of Content Currency and How To Utilize Them Within Your Brand Narrative'.Very effectively this panel was able to make the listeners know that “Content Strategy, needs to be very well defined and so does the distribution”.

Soon after that, we had the third panel discussion, covering the topic ' Building Communities and Conversations'. Participating in this event were Sudeep Singh (Country Director India and West Asia, Startup Grind) as the moderator and Siddhartha Sharma ( Editor Technology and Automobiles at Network 18 Digital), Bhawna Grover Bagai( Content Head | Goibibo.com), Vivek Jain (Founder and CEO of Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd.) and RJ Simran Kohli ( Prominent RJ & Consultant to Unicef) as panelists. In a content-rich session, they discussed about a myriad topics such as ' Using Vernacular to Connect to Greater Audiences', ' The Importance of Q&A in Community Interaction' and ' How to Maintain Community Attention'.

As the Concluding session, we had the fourth panel discussion, covering the topic ' Emerging Avenues of Content'. Participating in this event were Rajesh Menon (Entrepreneur and a Digital Marketing Expert) as the moderator and Sharat Bhattatiripad ( Programming Head | Fever 104 FM) , Samir Kapur ( Head, Adfactors PR) as panelists. In a rather entertaining and engaging session, they interacted with audience and conversed with them about topics such as ' The Multiple Sources of Content ', ' Creating Audience Interest in Different Content' and ' The Further Diversification of Content'.

In Conclusion, Co-founders of Desiredwings.com Mohammed Sirajuddin and Vikas Sharma along with Sumit Lakhani(Chief Marketing Officer| Awfis Space Solutions) delivered a vote of thanks to all the speakers and audience members and gave way to a session of networking over lunch along with a news that Content Circuit Mumbai is on the Rolls with biggest names of the content Industry!

All in all, the session was attended by approx 120 people this included bloggers, authors, brand marketers, Digital marketing enthusiasts and many more and so was a much needed eye-opener, not only for startup entrepreneurs but also for other corporate professionals in order to expose them to the often underutilized but very lucrative tool of content.