Lena Pavelyeva, SMM partner of MONSTARS communication agency, blogger relations specialist, launched her YouTube channel PAVELENA. Key topics of the channel: self-building, psychology, digital business, etc. In an interview with Cosmo, Lena talked about her You-Tube channel, her inspiration, shared what next guests to expect and gave advice to budding influencers.
You recently switched to You-Tube. What is your channel dedicated to?
The idea to launch my own channel arose a long time ago, my audience, students and colleagues pushed me to this. Time dragged on, because all my personal affairs always rank fifteenth after the projects of the agency's clients. The self-isolation regime made it possible to make the first breakthrough. For all the time thinking about the format of my channel, there were many format options, including those with complex filming. While we were all in confinement at home, not only time appeared, but also the understanding that it was possible and necessary to make it much easier. The first episodes are home videos with conversations about career and development, about psychology and behavior in general.
My channel is about what I'm interested in. I definitely won't eat menthos with soda in pursuit of views. I'm interested in talking about marketing, business, social networks and promotion in general. Of course, there will also be entertaining columns with guests, but everything is decent.
What inspired you to start filming videos for You-Tube?
Inspired by the demand of the audience to get personal opinions from me on various issues. Inspired by people who open their channels and make interesting content. Gosha Kartsev and his channel, initially in the form of a blog, and now also with game formats with different guests. One of my favorite guests is Alexander Rogov, who also has a very interesting and lively YouTube channel. I was inspired by my friends, their stories and knowledge. Thus, one of the first issues was a conversation with clinical psychologist Karine Avanesyan, and in the next issue we talked about developing ourselves as a professional with Irina Efimova, the author of the book "From Trainee to CEO". Now we are shooting episodes with Maria Minogarova not only on my channel, but also on her YouTube program “Yesterday's News”.
What kind of guests can you expect in the next videos?
Of course, at the moment we have released several videos and the next ones are already being prepared for publication. It became logical, for example, to make “Conversation with a Psychologist” a separate area, after understanding how useful the information is for the audience. For example, the new heading "By the mouth of a grandmother" is dedicated to popular music videos by Russian and foreign performers from different times, which must be guessed only by the oral description of what is happening on the video. My grandmother, Elena Afanasyevna, helps the guests with this, who describes in detail absolutely everything that happens in the clips. Together with Masha Minogarova, we tried to guess which of the foreign performers drank strong drinks while people in white coats watched him through the glass, and who in a red dress and fur coat started some kind of confusion.
Thinking about different formats, this option came by itself and I am very glad that my grandmother reacted so positively to the offer. The clips are selected by my friends and team, passed on to my mother (who is also a cameraman for my grandmother, since they live in Vladivostok) and I don’t know what awaits us before the start of filming, just like the guest. Now we are developing other formats with no less interesting guests.
We know that you are creating various educational courses on relevant topics. What topics do you cover in your courses in more detail?
On my educational platform PAVELENA. COM there is my author's course "Brand and its social networks". There I am talking about the correct structure: positioning first and only then promotion. There are also courses on social media promotion and motivation and we are currently preparing two courses on marketing and content management.
What kind of bloggers do you watch on You-Tube?
I watch a lot of content on Youtube, including television. Starting with Dudya, Minaev, Lebedev and ending with BWD and other humorous programs.
What are the 3 qualities you value the most in your profession?
Correct communication is the first and fundamental. In fact, this quality is important not only in my profession, but for all people in our world. Any amazing idea can crash during its implementation only because you are wrong or, for example, will promote it in a familiar way.
Ability to adapt to reality - in the marketing area it is very important not to be an old believer. When I am asked which book to read on SMM, I always answer - none. This is such a rapidly developing territory that by the time a book is written, printed and put on a store shelf, it can already be burned.
The desire and ability to learn is not only about being on the real-time agenda, which I mentioned above. It's about striving to learn more and listen to different opinions. I learn a lot from my employees, whom I am a leader, but at the same time I do not deny that we can be very useful to each other in matters of development.
What advice do you have for aspiring influencers?
Do not be afraid to try, make mistakes and look further. There are a lot of bloggers, but new stars are constantly appearing. Study the competitive field, see what has not yet been done and how has not yet been submitted. Do not strive to immediately earn a large number of subscribers through affordable promotion. A huge number of charlatans write to each of us and offer a "live audience" for different amounts or take part in givs from the stars. It is always very tempting to get big reach right away, but basically it will only lead to you dead souls in the form of bots that will crush all engagement. In simple terms, by purchasing several thousand subscribers, your real audience will stop seeing your posts and stories. And it will take a very difficult and long time to get out of this. We have had cases when we simply started new social networks for new clients, because it was no longer possible to revive the current ones from such promotion.
Why is it so important to develop a personal brand today?
And today and yesterday and tomorrow it will be important. Any company has ambassadors. Someone was hired because they are in line with the brand's values, and somewhere this “face” is the creator, for example. It is easier for people to trust the person, it is easier to communicate with the person, and not the logo. By strengthening your personal brand, you will be able to increase not only the recognition of yourself and your product, but also the value, of course. These can be absolutely any services or goods. For example, if you are doing a clothing brand. Of course, it is important to have a website and social networks of this brand, but also you, as a designer and founder, and therefore the face of the brand, will promote your business and facilitate sales. This applies to completely different areas: you are a manicure master or you teach taekwondo.
What are your future plans?
There are plans to develop our agency, communication agency MONSTARS, to continue to do cool SMM projects and projects with our bloggers, to release new courses, now we are just preparing two: content management and marketing. Make a lot of interesting episodes on your YouTube channel. Ahead of us are two large conferences CIPR and Biotechmed, which our agency deals with, starting from the organization and ending with social networks. Therefore, I look forward to traveling around Russia. And of course visit your native Vladivostok in August.
