Specialist Spotlight: Lindon Chen
Our Happily team is diverse, talented, creative, and just plain awesome. So every week we are proud to introduce you to one of our team members.
The Happily team member under the spotlight:
Name: Lindon Chen
Pronouns: he/him
Location: New York City, NY
Happily Role: Growth Marketing Director
Hey! Have you met Lindon?
He is a passionate growth and digital marketer having worked in Big Tech, political campaigns, nonprofits and the underground music scene. Plus, he can speak Chinese and French!
Images via Instagram @lindon
So Lindon, what would you say is your superpower?
I've spent my adult career working in the digital marketing space (at an agency, at Hillary for America, at a measurement startup and at Facebook) and became a SME in paid media advertising and data analysis. For a while, I combined those skills while working in sales, so I had fun selling advertising solutions to help businesses grow with advertising and data.
In life, I pride myself on being a link what connects and brings people together - whether that's working cross-functionally between sales, product, marketing, etc., introducing my creative friends to each other to work on awesome projects or bringing a group of wonderful humans together for a party - I love when I can build a community of like-minded people to get stuff done!
Do you have another side hustle or hobby?
The queer techno community in Brooklyn is so important to me - they are my chosen family away from home. Before the pandemic, I used to work in nightlife as a promoter - using my digital marketing skills and network of ravers - to help femme promoters bring more people to their events and maximize their ROI. Before coming onto Happily, I've worked as an event producer too! I used to book and throw concerts and raves in college, and continue to help party planners in Brooklyn execute their logistic plans.
An exciting development recently, I've been being cast for editorial and commercial photo shoots, in which I'm feeling happy to uplift the visibility of Asian Americans during a time when it's most needed! I'm also very active on social media in sharing resources and information about what's going on the world politically - I enjoy using my political science degree to truth-share and educate my followers on injustice and inequity, in hopes of ushering a better more peaceful world.
In general, are we going to see any changes in the digital marketing industry in 2021 and beyond as a result of the pandemic?
I'm finding that for a lot of B2B companies like ourselves, in-person promotions, like trade shows, are becoming less and less relevant vehicles for marketing your goods and services because of the pandemic. Building a slick and informative website that speaks to each of your target personas and takes them through their unique customers journeys is becoming paramount. At Happily, we've recently overhauled our marketing website to follow these digital-first shifts and with the help of amazing content marketing content from Stories, we're able to hook more people into our brand using an inbound marketing content machine.
What's one marketing strategy that will never go out of style?
As advertising budgets are shifting away from traditional media (like TV and Out of Home), digital marketing acquisition channels are becoming more and more crucial for business growth.
What has been an exciting challenge for you since started at Happily?
At Happily, I've had the chance to put on many different hats... I started off as a social media coordinator, which evolved into being a Marketing Director for our TEDx conference and the brand, and now I'm working in unchartered territory as a Growth Marketing Director!
I love that I'm afforded the opportunity to learn, grow, and expand my skill set as Happily is growing as well. What I find most amazing out Happily is how mission aligned it is - as a queer person of color, it's really important to feel welcomed, represented, and embraced for being my authentic self. Seldom do you find that at any company! I'm happy to see that many of my queer friends have come on board at Happily to fill various specialist and executive positions to make Happily an even more authentic and diverse place to work.
What makes you happy?
I was half-joking about this the other day in one of my Instagram posts as I was squeezing a Rilakkuma bear, holding a shopping bag from Berghain (Berlin's most iconic techno club), and had a facial mask on - the 3 things that bring me joy are techno, kawaii/cute things, and skincare/self-care.
To help me feel grounded in an increasingly chaotic world, taking the time to take care of my skin, to work out at the gym almost every day, and nourish my creative mind with the music I like bring me the long-lasting joy throughout the days. To be able to celebrate and appreciate those things with my friends makes them even better
Listen to Lindon in conversation with Sarah Shewey, Founder and CEO of Happily, via Instagram Live.
Tune in to Coffee O’Clock every Tuesday 10am PST as Sarah Shewey jumps on Instagram Live at @teamhappily, to give a quick update on all things Happily and chat with one of our Happily specialists. Here is a playback featuring Lindon from Tue 18th, May.
