Interview with Priyanka Dalal of DigiWhirl.com

In the hot seat: Priyanka Dalal, Founder DigiWhirl.com

Priyanka Dalal is an avid Tweeter and Blogger. She has been working in the social media field for over 2 and a half years largely with startups and SMEs in India. She started her Virtual Social Media Marketing company a few months ago, which has now grown into a 10 people team with clients from varied industries.

Here’s the interview below:

Tell us about your startup in your own words.
DigiWhirl is a focused social media marketing company. We are a team of passionate individuals who work towards building a relevant and genuine community for our clients on various social media platforms. The work we have done so far has been with B2B and B2C clients from varied industries and on various platforms including linkedin, facebook, twitter, posterous, email systems and other.

How do you see the market for social media growing in the next 5 years?
Already social media has gotten a lot of buzz worldover and there have been quite a few campaigns which clearly showed that it could be very beneficial for companies. In India even now some social media bloopers keep coming up where a company goes for short term social media stint and then disappears altogether. I think over the next 5 years companies should realise that social media presence must be a long term commitment from the company, short term campaigns can always build on the ongoing activities.

Do you have an organization culture. How do you define it in 5 quick words.
Our organization culture is probably quite unique in India, cause we are a virtual company. We have various people working with us from all over the country Bangalore, Delhi, Goa… now that we are a team of about 10 people ways of interacting within the community are being looked at. Obviously the first tool to try out is Yammer, cause we don’t get enough of Twitter

In 5 words I would say, Online collaboration, Quick email responses, Skype, Quality work and passion

What do you prefer experience or talent when hiring?
I would say talent cause in social media the work can be learnt pretty quickly if the person is web savvy enough.

What are your best practices when it comes to HR management?
Our HR practices are still in the process of being finalized, so to speak. Some of what has worked is, small test before starting – I can gauge their skills and their eagerness to work from their response well defined job descriptions, being flexible in terms of when the individual wants to work in the day and also about what work he/she wants to do.

Thank you Priyanka: We wish that your budding endeavor grows into a full-fledged agency soon!