Boyana Stoilova – guest lecturer in Advertising and Brand Management

Boyana Stoilova, guest lecturer in the Master’s degree program of Advertising and Brand Management, shares her many years of experience in digital marketing, showing our students various digital tools with which they can reach users in the online space, as well as the appropriate Internet channels for effective advertising. In an interview, she told us more about herself, but also shared her impressions of the effect of the recent state of emergency on digital marketing:

Introduce yourself in a few sentences. Tell us what you are doing at the moment and what are you teaching at ARC academy?

My name is Boyana. I have been working in the field of digital marketing for the last 6-7 years, and I am currently a freelancer and partner with several NGOs and small companies. I try to run away from labels such as expert, specialist, strategist, copywriter because I believe that one always has something more to learn and that online marketing gives a vast field for expression and development because the dynamics are great. At ARC Academy I teach “Digital Marketing and Social Media” in the program “Advertising and Brand Management”.

What has been your professional path so far?

Before turning my focus to marketing, I worked in the field of trading and finance. My path to digital marketing began in 2014 in one of the, then well known digital agencies. 

And about two years ago I switched entirely to independent practice in order to have more freedom in choosing the projects I work on, and more opportunities to share and exchange knowledge and experience. I have been, and am lucky to work actively at every level of online positioning of many brands – local and international. I learned a lot about how to make optimal use of channels, how to create strategies and how to implement them, what is valuable in creating quality content, and how to target the right audience. I can already see the evolving role of digital marketing in the overall mix. Interesting things are ahead.

Why did you choose to develop in the field of digital marketing?

I felt it was interesting, unfamiliar, and quite fun. Also, the quality of the people which Mladen had gathered in our team at the time, was instrumental for my decision to stay in this line of work.

In fact, I still keep in touch with many of them. Over time, I saw that there is a lot of creativity and the realization of an idea or strategy is something that attracts and inspires me.

What inspires you as a teacher?

I love the very process of sharing knowledge and experience, and the connection between learning and teaching.

“To teach is to learn twice” by Joseph Joubert – these words seem to explain it best.

How do students accept online learning?

I can only comment on my observations and I think they are doing great. They listen with interest, get involved with a lot of timely questions and appropriate observations. Like any group of people, some are more active and share more, while others prefer to listen and absorb. They had struck a good balance and collaborated wonderfully. It was obvious at times, that they lacked the live contact, but even through the screens, their cohesion was felt.

How do you think the state of emergency has affected digital marketing?

It forces many processes in general. For many of these processes, we thought it took months, even years, to happen, and we saw how our education system went online in days. Many businesses have decided to have or increase their online presence. And like any crisis, this one started new niches, taught us a lot, and forced us to find new methods and tactics.

Would you share useful resources to enrich the knowledge of current and future students at ARC Academy? (books, videos, articles, etc.)

I follow the blog of HubSpot and Mailchimp and read the help community forums of Google & Facebook. I often listen to, or watch The Futur, as well as various courses on SkillShare. I can propose two books – “Building a Story Brand” and “A Technique for Producing Ideas”. I recommend the Netflix series “Abstract: The Art of Design”, as well as the movie “Art & Copy”.