We recently connected with Shama Hyder and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shama thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

The hardest battle today is not for attention or visibility. It is for relevance. Even in the best of times, you are slowly falling out of product market fit. In business, just like in nature, there is either growth or decay. No stagnation.

EVen Google agrees!

“In Google’s Media Lab, we’ve made a commitment: We won’t present a stakeholder with any media plan that doesn’t have integrated paid, owned, and earned components. We talk about the whole thing together, the way users experience it.” – Joshua Spanier, VP of Google Media Lab

The key here is – “the way users experience it.”

So much of marketing today is structured for business efficiency but not buyer effectiveness.

Do you think customers separate marketing into brand and performance?

Customers buy in the messy middle, and it takes all the channels – owned, earned, paid, and rented – working together to guide them through the process from awareness to champion.

I am sure our clients and my team are tired of me saying it, but it is true –

Repetition Drives Revenue.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started Zen Media in 2009 with a focus on social media marketing, as I was a very early adopter (I joined Twitter when it had under 2,000 users) and saw the massive potential for businesses on social platforms. From there, Zen has grown into an award-winning PR, marketing, and full-service communications agency. As the founder of one of the first digital marketing companies to address the unique challenges of the social media age, I have always been ‘Chief Innovator’. We serve some of the world’s best b2bb and b2c brands looking to maximize their key moments, drive demand, and ultimately – drive dollars. Clients see an average of 96.2% increase in demand gen and a 63% lift in sales after working with Zen, and this is all due to the foresight that the team puts into leveraging innovative trends.

We walk our talk!

One of the biggest and most recent innovations I put out to the world is a tool that we developed with my PR team called ‘Snooze or News’, a first-of-its-kind AI-powered press release tool to help determine if an announcement is newsworthy. I looked around and saw some AI tools that could correct press releases, but they were boring and honestly not that helpful beyond a glorified spell-check. We created a tool that also provides creative suggestions to make a press release more media-worthy, an amplification strategy, suggestions for distribution, and of course, editing for grammar, spelling, and even AP-style. This innovative technology and strategic application was a completely new approach to media communication tools, empowering professional communicators to enhance their press releases, receive expert feedback, and gauge their company’s newsworthiness.

Our ‘bread-and-butter’ innovation that serves every single client we work with is Zen’s tried-and-true formula that allows businesses to maximize momentum and amplify successes. For example, when we get a media hit for our PR clients, we amplify that hit in a multitude of ways to not only extend exposure, but to help drive sales. Our innovative approach to exponentially leveraging success helps clients take a small win and turn it into lead generation, SEO-improvement, and countless opportunities to share their messaging with the world.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Approach it as a marathon rather than a sprint. Consistency isn’t sexy as a word but it beats one-off tactics. Focus on what will get you results not just tomorrow but what will keep paying dividends in the long term. There are no shortcuts here although technological amplification can certainly make it seem like that at times.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When most people start agencies, they have a ready-built network of potential clients, vendors, contacts—I had none of that. I was just out of school, and on top of that, I was selling something most people didn’t know a thing about.

I knew that I’d have to convince people to give my business a try. That meant I’d have to do two things:

1. Get them to trust me.
2. Give away so much value they’d be crazy to go with anyone else.

I focused on building my relationships, which meant helping in any way I could. I didn’t care if you were a Fortune 500 or a mom-and-pop shop down the street—if I had something of value I could offer, I’d offer it.

I also walked my talk. I used social media daily to connect with people, share knowledge, and build my network. I responded to every single comment or tweet or interaction I received. I still try and do this!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zenmedia.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/shamahyder
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/shamahyderpage
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/shamahyder
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/shama
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/shamatv