Meet two avid Digital Marketers: Jagrit Pratap Singh & Truls Aandal

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years, you’d know there’s a lot of money to be made in social media. Today, we’ll be talking with a long-distance business duo who have made things work out pretty much in their favor.

Today, we met with the Chief Executive Officer of Hiptoro, Jagrit Pratap Singh, and the Chief Executive Officer of Your Marketing Partner (ymp.no), Truls Aandal.

Jagrit Pratap Singh is based out of New Delhi, India - while Truls Aandal is based in Oslo, Norway. But although the distance between them is far, they’ve both separately and combined left huge footprints across the digital media landscape. How? Grab your pencil, we’re going to school.

Jagrit and Truls met through forums dedicated to digital marketing. Forums like these are where marketers and enthusiasts share ideas and get help on marketing concepts all around the world.

Jagrit Pratap Singh at Hiptoro has made a name for himself as one of the founding figures and industry leaders when it comes to making things go viral on the Internet. When he launched Hiptoro in 2017, it took less than 6 months for the viral distribution website to reach the list of the most popular websites in the world, with an Alexa ranking of almost 200. He’s also known for his e-commerce ventures where he managed to close in over $2M in sales in a matter of 5 months through viral video marketing over social media platforms.

Truls Aandal at Your Marketing Partner started out rather more simplistic. First as a co-founder of a Canadian marketing agency, and then alongside Jordan Daley, he founded Your Marketing Partner in July 2020. Truls is known for his out of the box thinking. He’s rescued some of the biggest marketing companies with the talent he possesses - overcoming obstacles in a breeze.

What these two marketers have in common, is that they’ve made “big bills” through utilizing social media and monetization tools. Jagrit, for instance - has operated some of the world's biggest Facebook pages, which generated over 2 billion million video views over time. Jagrit’s brainchild Hiptoro Private Limited has an inventory of premium Facebook pages which he built from scratch with no ad spend. Hiptoro’s inventory includes Petrolhead, an automotive niche-based page, The Dog Channel, and Most Amazing Videos on The Internet. The list goes on. The combined followers of the Facebook pages branched under Hiptoro is over a whooping 6M followers with a weekly reach of over 20M. Truls Aandal is an avid client closer, who is known for working with some of the biggest names in US entertainment, business, and fashion, and has been providing marketing services to multi-billion dollar companies all around the world.

How is it possible to acquire such success in such a short time?

• I believe that the harder you work, the more success you will achieve. I believe I speak for both myself and Truls when I say that things didn’t just fall into our lap when it comes to making it in a very competitive market such as digital media. Hours, days, weeks, and months have gone into the smallest details and preparations for something that may not seem like a big deal. But I’ve learned that it’s the small things that really make the difference, Jagrit states.

How did you develop your interest and skills in digital marketing?

• I come from a background in gaming, and never really paid much attention to the social media side of it. Sure, it was cool racking up all these followers that wanted to follow my progress in the field, but I got an eye-opener when I realized that I have actually done something that others are struggling to accomplish. That’s when I decided to begin helping others achieve success on social media, and really started to put effort into learning the technical sides of marketing and how I can guide others, Truls states.

• What Truls mentioned includes a fair point. There are certain elements of marketing that require a specific type of skill set, especially if you want to scale up and do something big in a forever-changing digital landscape. I’ve been in the digital marketing field for over a decade now. I don’t believe there’s a theoretical guide to being a successful digital marketer, you learn it over time with experience, Jagrit states.

How has COVID19 affected your businesses and operations?

• In my case, I don’t feel that COVID19 has had a negative impact on my business, as it has allowed me time to study market behavior and ways I can improve my service offerings. I believe that COVID19 has given me the time I never had to sit down and restructure my business model to meet a growing demand for marketing once we’re back to our normal, boring lives, Truls states.

• I was never a fan of having an office space primarily because I’ve always had a different approach towards work, while others think of it as a boundary and try to get over with it, I enjoy it. I’m thankful to have realized what I wanted to pursue in my life, and I’m not passionate about anything else like I am for my work. All of our employees have been working remotely since the very beginning which has helped us be more efficient and effective in every manner.

Media companies like Hiptoro and Marketing agencies like Your Marketing Partner come and go almost every day, but only a few live to see a month due to the heavy competition. It’s safe to say that both Truls and Jagrit have done a lot more than just mastering the art of adapting to survive.

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Forbes India journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.