Meet the Writer: HackerNoon Contributor Arya Sharan, Content & Community Lead

Let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself- for example, name, profession, and personal interests.

My name is Arya Sharan. I am currently working as the Content & Community Lead of a Delaware-based SaaS vertical SaaS startup, Attentive.ai. My pronouns are she/her. My interests include geeking out over Cricket and Batman, watching movies & constantly updating my Letterboxd, and reading. Reading, be it non-fiction books or online pieces, is the one thing I can never get tired of.

That’s actually how I discovered Hackernoon as well. One of my ex-colleagues shared her piece on Hackernoon and I was like- wow, this is a great community where I’ll always have something interesting to read about.

Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?

It was The Taylor Swift Approach to Community Management: Building Fandoms, Not Just Followings. I was basically decoding Taylor Swift and how her charisma works on a level that brands could only dream of. I tried to understand how she has such a consuming impact on her audience & what SaaS companies could learn from her.

I’ve been working on building online communities for a while now, and just diving deep into Swift’s community engagement mechanism made me realize that there are so many things we could learn from her. About not just building communities but also knowing how to take a horde of people with you as you move forward.

Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?

I do. The topics being community engagement, people, society, marketing, and reaching even more people with content that resonates.

I know the world has become a cesspool of hatred. But even amidst that, all we do is to be noticed by someone else. Be it a prospect, a customer, or a friend who occasionally checks out our blog. And that’s all I write about- people in communities and how that shapes discourses both online and offline.

For instance, I recently wrote about Elmo’s tweet & how that sparked an entire discourse online. I was happy writing it because it was the internet being the internet and people being people.

Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)

I either wake up super early in the morning and write for an hour. However, to do that, I also spend the last 2-3 nights reading a lot. Or I stay up late at night after finishing a movie (no distractions hours) and write for an hour straight given that I have done my reading prior.

There’s no routine, tbh. I just read a lot, an idea comes up, I open a Google doc and just hope for the best.

Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?

I am technically a writer even by profession, but my role is indeed furthest from it sometimes.

My biggest challenge is a boring one- I genuinely feel that until the day I die, no matter how much my writing improves, I will still have trouble crafting introductions.

I know, right?

But other than that, I feel like another key challenge is making the time to read enough. Half of my writing comes from all the content I consume- be it a Mubi-recommended film or a niche Coda article about writing product briefs. You never know what sparks an idea.

What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?

I want to become the go-to person in SaaS for all things content marketing & community engagement. I never thought I’d be one, but I really have fun with LinkedIn and building a solid presence for brands & people there.

Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?

Junk food, Mubi recommendation (at this point, Mubi & Letterboxd should be paying me for all that I talk about), and a cozy blanket.

Or watching a film, I have watched 15 times to cry again at that specific scene that always gets me. Shahrukh Khan FTW, amirite?

Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?

This is just going to sound repetitive, but reading. Or listening to left history podcasts and understanding what we can do today to change the tomorrow we’re facing.

What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?

I am cooking something up on content & (you guessed it) community again. Should be out in a day or two.

What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers?

It is a great platform that allows you room to write about just anything you want. Pushes you to be creative & free.

Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?

So long, and thanks for all the fish!