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Joanna Jaoudie

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Joanna Jaoudie

Spokesperson, country and content manager Flipit.com/in

Flipit.com

Blogs (1)

Advice For New Professionals:

Don't give up no matter how ridiculous it is applying to entry-level jobs that require at least two years of work experience. There will always be room for people who are motivated enough to excel. Likewise, if you're already working and looking for a change of scenery, pursue your dreams. Life is short. Sieze the day- carpe diem, and all that jazz.

The Journey So Far:

My journey began when I first joined Imbull, which is the mother company responsible for launching Flipit.com. I already had knowledge of website design, writing creative catchy content and marketing, but becoming the country manager for Flipit India helped me learn a lot about performance-based-marketing and managing a huge site (India is Flipit's biggest market). Since then, I've been extremely active building up healthy relationships with a lot of advertisers (for example: eBay and Jabong) and affiliate networks (for example: Tyroo, OMG, vCommission, iNetwork and Komli), gathering exclusive deals for Flipit users, and contributing expert articles on a variety of money-saving and affiliate marketing topics on several relevant websites. I've had the honour of being interviewed and approached about Flipit's journey several times to discuss how we entered the Asian market and can am excited about how fast it's growing.

Professional Strengths:

That's difficult to say since I'm still growing in more ways than one, but I'd say that one of my strongest skills is definitely writing (including editing/proofreading) about pretty much anything you throw my way without it boring me (and readers) to death. Writing for the web is challenging because you need to know how to optimise your text for visibility and reach without compromising interest and quality. Other than writing though, I happened to have focused on cognitive ergonomics (human-computer-interaction) and user experience (UX) design when I was doing my MSc. I have a background in Psychology, Cognitive Science (Neuroscience included) so adding that technical UX insight on top of that is most likely how I ended up working in the online world. There are several ways you can apply cognitive psychology and learning about human behaviour to how we interact online, with user interfaces and technology. I simply love this stuff.

Degrees That Matter:

This job is rather multidisciplinary and you can approach it from a number of different angles. The most obvious road to take is going for a degree in Marketing, but many people will say that there isn't one path you can take in Marketing. You won't realise that until you get the hands-on experience you need. The kind of marketing we specialise in is affiliate or performance-based marketing. However, that doesn't mean that you can't pursue a social media specialisation, go into e-mail or mobile marketing, advertising, search (SEO) and content (learning how to write for the web) because all these elements are needed for this career path. You could also decide to be the genius that works behind the hood and learn the technical aspects of running a website- go into coding, learn CSS, HTML and JavaScript.

Plans For The Future:

That's a tough question to answer. See, I'm a third culture kid who's literally been hopping from one country to the next (between the east and west) since I was a child which has made it rather challenging to settle down. A couple of years from now, I'd like to see myself really starting to build a home and finding a comfortable base I can fall back on so that I can actually focus on my dreams and career. "Where", though? Ha! We'll see.

Changes In The Professional Environment:

The professional setting at Flipit.com's headquarters has definitely changed quite a bit since I joined. When I came in, we were not more than 10-15 people. Now, the company's grown to accommodate more than 55 people. So we went from working from a tiny office to a massive, epic church (yes, church!) in one of Amsterdam's most popular and bustling districts. With big changes comes big plans and the site has grown a lot, meaning so has our professional environment.

Job Profile:

I am the country and content manager for Flipit India. That entails writing up (or designing) and editing content, managing the back and front end of every page (there are hundreds) to make sure that content is optimised and page elements are spic and span. There's a lot of account management that goes with it as well since I work with several affiliate networks in India that make it possible for me to publish advertisers' coupons and deals. A lot of discounts and offers we get come via the networks, but otherwise, I spend quite some time hunting for those coupons you see alongside a team of dedicated editors who also work for the site. I do a lot of PR and search as well to strengthen the site's visibility and write a lot of articles for both Flipit and other marketing/media/money-saving/you-name-it websites. Apart from all that, I'm also a Facebook administrator for Flipit.com's social presence, and help with similar tasks for other Flipit country sites (we're one big happy family!)

Done Differently:

I don't have to start my whole career all over again just to have done this differently, but I would have definitely mastered the art of programming and coding when I had more time for it. That doesn't mean I can't jump into it now anymore, just that there's a lot more on my plate now then there was when I first started.

Career Profile:

My responsibilities involve making sure that the site's content is always up to date and working for our users. My goal is to make sure that people find what they're looking for, make unique deals they can't find anywhere else, follow up on trends, analyse those trends and integrate that into my work.