Its takes a lot of sweat and time to reach when Shankar Bakshi stands today. Inspired by John Chow, he started blogging and affiliate marketing, and is now a top affiliate marketer.

1. Engaging entrepreneurs to share their
business skills and experiences.
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2. Shankar
Bakshi
Introduction
Shankar Bakshi is a super affiliate from
India. He has donned many caps,
that of a radio jockey, dabbling in
media and participating in TV shows.
He joined the blogging niche in 2007,
with inspiration from John Chow.
Since then, he has made blogging
and affiliate marketing as his primary
income sources.
Net Profit Mantra is his primary blog and
he also provides web developing
services on Higgs Boson Design.
Apart from this, he runs multiple
successful niche sites.

3.  His Background -
I’m a happy go lucky guy, though life was never easy for me I always find myself struggling
for small things which usually other people get with ease.
Born and brought up in Bareilly, spoiled in Chandigarh . I wanted to earn a name for myself
with lot of money off-course so tried my luck in media, did some TV shows, Radio
Jockeying, Jingles and anchoring but there wasn’t enough money in it at that point of time.
One day while searching on Google in 2007 about some easy ways to receive money in
India, I stumbled upon John Chow’s blog and fell in love with it, and instantaneously heard
a voice in my heart that blogging is where I need to stake my claim.

4.  On Choosing Blogging over Conventional Career -
When I started blogging, it was an emerging media, in some sense it is still on the rise; and I
learned in economics that if you join a business opportunity when it’s in its growing stage
you can reap in huge money as you considered being one of its pioneer member of it and
people respect you for that.
This is true in my case; whenever I need a favor from ANY prominent bloggers they always
come forward to extend a hand.

5.  On Earning $7910 in 12 DAYS – (OMG!)
Well, that was truly amazing!
I was promoting an affiliate product from Affiliate Venture Group Network. I wish I could
explain it in detail but all I can reveal it for your readers is that it was in
Investing/Finance niche and main source of traffic was coming from Media Buying
and Social Media segment.
After running it for 12 days; surprisingly, the earning dropped drastically, I was worried so
I put the campaign on hold.
It happens with every affiliate marketer or should I say in every business. There are times
when your all cards start falling right. I love to repeat that again with Affiliate Venture
Group.

6.  On Blogging & Affiliate Marketing in India
Both have great potentials. Lots of Indian affiliate marketing companies are on horizon like V
Commission, OMG, Komil etc.
I see lots of Indian guys promoting affiliate product through social networking sites.
Blogging, on the other hand, is now entering into its second phase; lots of non-serious
bloggers have dropped out after writing their bit.
I can see quality content being written and promoted on various social media sites. It’s a
good sign that the system has started its own automated filtering scheme. I also appreciate
Google for cutting the crap through its pets Panda and Penguin.
I see so many young talented bloggers from India; I guess they would take over the world
soon with their blogging thing.

7.  On Affiliate Marketing vs. Blogging
I think affiliate marketing and Blogging both are two different domains.
If you are good at marketing and promoting goods and services, you can earn quick money
in Affiliate marketing but one shouldn’t dive into Affiliate Marketing until he understands the
concept well.
People keep on trying different mixes, permutation combinations which sometime works
sometime not. If you don’t know the rules of this tough game. you can end up losing huge
money. Most of the affiliate markers works underground and do their jobs quietly.
But then blogging can give you fame and reputation. Money isn’t everything you know. I was
experimenting with niche sites. These sites were giving me good earning every month but I
was missing something so one day when I checked my dashboard stats on my blog Net
Profit Mantra which read something like 900 posts 8000+ comments.
I immediately decided that no matter if I’m making any money from it or not but I’ll not quit
blogging and will remain an active blogger for the rest of my life. My blog is now like my
other two kids Aditya and Aryan.

8.  5 Affiliate Marketing Tips
1. Build a List by offering a free product on signing up or build a strong community around
your blog niche.
2. Get registered with ClickBank.Com, ShareASale.Com, eJunkie.Com to begin with and
understand the market, choose the one which interests you.
3. Start promoting products using free advertising resources like your email list, Social
Networking Sites or your own blog.
4. When you get familiar with the concept, use paid PPC resources like Google Adwords
and Facebook advertising platform. Allocate minimum amount as your budget; do some
keyword research, run a campaign and monitor its live performance. If initially leads are not
converting stop the campaign, edit/modify it and run again until it do not start converting.
5. Stick to the product which works, stick to the market which converts, stick to the
resource with high ROI, never get over enthusiastic, and do not bid your arms and legs
even if your product is converting fast.

9.  On Wrong Affiliate Product Selection -
See it’s not always about wrong selection of the product, most of the time it’s the selection of
wrong market.
As they say, you are trying to sell ice-cream in Antarctica. Both in Google AdWords and
Facebook, you can drill down, define and filter the market so well that you can actually reach
to the ultimate guy who needs that product.

10.  On Time and Money Investment
I remain online for almost 18 hours in a day.
You asked about the ideal investment in online businesses and let me tell you the Ideal
investment in any online business is of time.
Read as much as you can, be familiar with everything related to your online business. Hand
on with big boys of internet; attend seminars, conferences and meets, that’s where you will
get your all your inspiration to do good and motivation to get going.
Currently I’m looking to build a offline marketing team for my Website Design Venture Higgs
Boson Design .

11.  On Growing a Blog and Networking
Write quality content. That’s what Google wants, that’s what your readers want, and that’s
what people share on social networking sites.
I’m working a lot to improve my writings; I’m listening to various podcasts, reading blogs of
all Big names Brian Clark, Demian Farnworth, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan and Neil Patel.
On Networking
Help them build their business. Promote their content and business, help them fix their
problems and hopefully they will appreciate your efforts and do the same in response.
Probably you will get couple of bad experiences in the way but don’t get dishearten and
move on. There are still good people in this world more than the bad ones .

12.  Message to our Readers
You are the perfect example if someone needs to explain how to start a blog, promote it and
make it big. SocialVani.com today has emerged as best source to learn about how small
businesses can use social media networks and tools to build their businesses and Brand.
Since you are a journalist and a published writer, bloggers can learn a lot from you on how to
write good quality content for their blogs and improve authorship.
I see SocialVani.com as the one of the best blog from India at present, and I’m sure
it’ll be among the best blogs in the world very soon.
[[[Thank you for the recognition Shankar. I feel truly honored. ]]] 

13.  Rapid Fire 
 Website Visited Daily – Facebook
 Best SEO Tool – WordPress SEO by Yoast
 Best Marketing Tool – SlideShare
 Preferred Social Media Site/s – Twitter and Facebook
 Your Inspiration – JohnChow
~ Shankar Bakshi

14. I am a freelancing consultant, blog content manager, blogger and content strategist, a
published Amazon editor and social media geek.
~ Chitraparna Sinha ~
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