Getting Personal: How It All Started for Me
Getting Personal: How It All Started for Me
It seems everyone I talk to asks the same question: why did you go into digital marketing? The answer is quite simple. I didn't want to go to grad school! Although I am pretty sure there are people in digital marketing who further their education based on what they want to do, I didn't want to put myself into even more debt by being in a field that may or may not be there for ten years to come. I mean, hey, that's what they say about digital marketing right? It's working out well for me so far. I grew to love this field, simply because it just uses all of my best assets: writing, curating and analyzing.
I have been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. I was never the popular kid in school, so the only way I could communicate at times was through writing short stories. I got all A's in my English and writing classes, while I got C's in Math, which is unheard of in my orthodox South Indian household. I also danced, played the flute and piano, as well as being in a number of after school activities growing up, but I always went back to writing. I painted for a while too, but that stopped when I realized I wasn't that good at it. It was when I got on the internet that things started to click for me.
In 2004-2005 the social media boom began, you had your Friendsters, Myspaces, Flickrs, and of course, the ever popular Facebook. Back then I was this 15 year old kid messing around on these websites. Learned basic coding on Myspace like everyone else and started friending almost everyone until I got creepy messages from people. However, it was through those sites I started to discover blogging; after all what teenager didn't want everyone to know about their problems on the internet? After some encouragement from my teachers in school on papers I wrote and friends who read my blog posts on my MySpace account, I began to realize I should do something with this.
At the time, I was told that "going on Facebook would never lead me anywhere" and that i "should do something more useful with my time" you know like memorize algebra equations I would never use again in my life. Fast forward to college, where I had no clue what I wanted to major in, so I chose psychology. While it wasn't a terrible choice, I just knew that it wasn't right for me. I was way more creative than that and my writing skills wouldn't be put to use. It wasn't until I had an assignment in my Business 100 course that I realized I actually want to get into marketing and advertising.
It took me a while to find a job that I could be successful at when I graduated college, but when I did it was amazing. I got great experience in all the places I worked at, which led me to this great 9-5 job I have now. I always had the nagging feeling where I should start doing something on my own, but I never did anything about it until recently. I am glad I made the jump because without this I would be absolutely miserable. It goes to show if you follow your heart and dream big, amazing things will happen to you too!
If you want to achieve your dreams of growing your social media audience to where you know it can be, feel free to contact me at Supriya@SupriyaPrasad.com today!