The art of being perfectly imperfect: Yesim Saydan on how to build a brand identity at AGS Europe 2021

In an interview with Charity Ovbiagele, Yesim Saydan shares some crucial advice for any creative grasshopper that wants to make their way in the bright and exciting world of social media marketing

Against a never-ending tide of content, the brand new enterprising content creator may feel intimidated. In such a bustling ecosystem, they may feel like they don’t have much of a chance to stake their claim on their own niche. Yesim Saydan, a growth hacker who’s worked on international projects with giants from Google to Citibank, is here to help. Her international background, traveling from Turkey to New York to Amsterdam, has let her gain a truly holistic perspective from a very global emerging industry.

In terms of platforms, the lifeblood of any social media master, Yesim earmarked two specific ones due to their potential in spearheading the growth of our theoretical influencer. The first of these is instagram. As a highly visual medium, Instagram acts as the social media equivalent of an optical CV with a follower being able to skim a remarkable amount of information through the visual presentation and nuances of one’s profile, pictures and captions. This makes it an excellent tool to develop a presence in a chosen niche that may eventually let our enterprising influencer to take the reigns of thought leadership on a given subject.

The second one is LinkedIn. As a more formal and serious medium, LinkedIn is the perfect platform to establish a presence on the grounds of merit rather than identity while having one reinforce the other. As the perfect networking tool, it also allows an ambitious influencer-to-be to start establishing vertical connections with other leaders within the space.

The next step would be strategizing content that would woo your eventual viewer base and skyrocket your growth. Yesim suggests being tactical, choosing your battles by figuring out your audience’s biggest pain points and orienting your content towards giving them a novel way of tackling it.

Because we live in a scroll culture, for them to stop and notice you, you need to first have a hook. You really need to be talking about what keeps them [your audience] up at night. That’s what gets them to stop scrolling and start reading your content or watching your video.

Reflecting on the current state of the social media market, Yesim elaborates that since we are living in a creative economy and a creator economy, it is crucial for anyone seeking to make themselves known in the space to build their own personal brand.

This should be the case even if you’re working as part of a large corporation rather than an independent entity since it works to secure your audience’s loyalty even should you end up moving to a different venture or project. As a recognized voice, you would have stopped being a commodity and would have created a unique niche for yourself in the broader social media ecosystem.

As a content creator, analytics is your best tool to make sure that your hard-hitting content is having their desired effect. Even Youtube now has YouTube Charts to help any enterprising content maker to strategize cleverly through data analysis. She also noticed that short-video vertical format was taking the industry by storm with TikTok becoming a powerful force in the social media world with potential to disrupt the entire ecosystem.

Finally, Yesim drew on one of the most important truths of being an authentic content creator; being yourself. Any anxious junior influencer may feel pressured to come off immaculately but, in reality, audiences tend to fall in love with creators that aren’t afraid to be human, warts and all. Yesim stressed that the best way to be a personable content creator is to be “perfectly imperfect”, fully embracing your flaws and being more memorable for it.

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