Mani Karthik is an India-based professional blogger and SEO consultant. Mani has an insightful daily SEO blog (in English) with over 5,000 subscribers, a team of overseas employees, and world-class level of search + social media skills that distinguish him as one of the very top international web consultants in Asia. You can follow Mani on Twitter or subscribe to his SEO blog.
Where do you live, what do you do for work and fun?
“I’m from Cochin, India (a tropical city on the southwest coast, in Kerala province). I make a living by helping people sell things online, fine tune their websites to better standards, make them Google friendly and help them build traffic. Basically, I help them sell their stuff, so they can pay me in return. 
So I’m a SEO/Social Media consultant and I blog, too.
Cochin is famous for yachts, one of the most beautiful coastal towns in India
For fun… I watch a lot of movies, spend time with my lovely family, and travel a lot.”
Tell us a little bit about the social media scene in India?
“Social media scene in India is in the infant stage but it’s growing fast. The number of Internet users in India is huge… but the number of potential “buyers” is comparatively much smaller, so a lot of what’s happening here revolves around brand building and positioning. IT is empowering some people in very remote places to build businesses. There’s this concept in India that social media is just about having an Orkut and Facebook profile. But this idea is rapidly dwindling, and more and more people and companies have started fully using social media (blogging, Twitter, video, etc.) to their advantage.
Orkut is a Google-owned social networking site that is big in South America and parts of Asia.
Many of the smartest potential web users are out there on the most popular channels like Orkut and Facebook. And most of the top players are from the real estate / movie / telecom and IT industries…”
Is the Web affecting the social class (or caste system) in India? How is it changing society?
“There’s a huge gap between the web and traditional social classification systems. On the web, there’s nothing significant to classify you to a particular category, except for your occupation/job. When it comes to social media and companies / brands, he most important “classes” are people’s income and their willingness to spend it. I don’t see any other emerging social classes and caste systems online, yet, but I could be wrong.”
Is it possible to keep up with the important little details in both social media and SEO? How do you stay on the cutting edge?
“I don’t want to call it easy, but keeping myself updated with what’s happening online is something I take pleasure in. And since SEO and social media are my favorite subjects, it’s a natural process. You know when you focus so much on something that you enjoy doing, the stress eases off and it becomes a habit. Its become a habit of mine to be on the edge. And I must be lucky, since I love it. ”
A lot of people think that SEO is inherently shady, fake or black hat? Why do you think they have this perception??
“I think it’s because people focus too much and pressure on results… both SEOs and also people who hire them. You put so much pressure that the process becomes stressful, and SEOs go for shortcuts to results. The problem with shortcuts is that even if you get the results, you haven’t earned them and it often proves fatal. You get kicked off search engines, you get Google penalties and it becomes a major business problem.
“I always make it a point never to give false promises to my clients. If you know your stuff, one must be able to give an idea about what can be achieved and even more importantly what cannot. If the client does not know the rules of SEO and Search Engines, try educating them rather than ripping them off for the money they’d spend on your false promises. Unfortunately, in both SEO and social media consulting, there are people who care more about easy money than having a good reputation.”
Do you have any tips or tools for social media productivity or time management?
image: ChibiJosh
- Learn speed reading. Quick reading comprehension is not about how many stories/articles you can read in a minute, but about how many stories you can pick out as spam /
worthless and quickly skip. Being a social media enthusiast, good filtering ability is a must! - Nurture talent and hire imperfect-but-promising talent. I have a team of people working for me from different parts of the world. I often outsource jobs to them with clear instructions on what to do and what not to. With their urge to learn and clear guidelines I provide, it takes the burden off me!
- Don’t stick to a schedule. Schedules and time sheets have not worked for me, even at school. I can’t completely stick to a schedule because I keep finding new things all the time. However, schedules are good for doing mundane things like reports/regular to-do lists etc. Keep a larger part of your time in exploring and finding new things and a very small part scheduled. Try it, it works for me!
What are some “must read” internet marketing blogs?
“I enjoy reading Mashable, Readwriteweb, Problogger, Shoemoney, John Chow, Jeremiah Owyang, Dan Zarrella and Social Media Rockstar.
You’re one of India’s most elite independent consultants and bloggers. What kind of skills, drive and personality does it take to ‘make it’ in this business?
“I think you got to be fun, open minded, hard working and success-craving to keep going. You meet different people from different parts of the world, with different perspectives and ideas, you’ve got to understand each one and be genuinely interested about how you can help them.”
These ancient tidal fishing nets are a prominent visual icon / tourist attraction at Cochin’s habor. image: Jenny M
Do you have tips for making friends and building relationships online?
“Be fun, be helpful and an expert at what you are best at. Do all those things yourself that you want to see in another guy online. And yeah..be ready to work at different time zones – because not everyone is in your part of the world.”
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What are your long-term goals? At what point will you be really stoked and able to relax, knowing that you’ve “made it”?
“I want to either join a team of similar minded success craving group of guys or find the group myself and make something extra ordinary out of it. I have moving targets and want it to remain that way, rather than work over a final goal. But on a personal note, I’d like to travel around the world.”
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