An Interview with Mizanur Rahaman Mizan, A Community Relations Manager at weDevs

Mizanur Rahaman Mizan, A community relations manager weDevs is with us today for an exclusive interview so without further ado, let’s hear it from the man himself.

WPJuicer: Hi Mizanur, let’s start with a conventional question: Who is Mizanur Rahaman Mizan? What’s his story?

Mizanur: Hi, Thanks for having me on WP Juicer’s Interview! Well, I am Mizanur Rahaman Mizan, people often call me Mizanur. My friends call me Mizan or Miz. I am from Chittagong which is a port city in Bangladesh. It is also known as the business capital of Bangladesh. 

I am a computer science and engineering Postgrad who happened to love and has a passion for community initiatives and digital marketing. That is how I have joined my recent workplace – weDevs.  

Right now I am working as the Community Relations Manager at weDevs that has the headquarter in Dhaka – the capital of Bangladesh. I also have a small business based in my hometown named TechnoCrews, from which we provide IT enables services ( ITES) and also develop WordPress Themes from our brand named Theme Rally. 

I personally love to contribute to the community in any way that I can and love to share my knowledge. I do make some knowledge sharing videos from my YouTube Channels. One of them is in English and the other one is in my native language Bengali.

That’s pretty much of a short story about me. 

WPJuicer: What should readers know about all the stuff you’re doing in WordPress these days?

Mizanur: I am doing a few things. I would love to categorize them as follows: my personal interest based on WP, my community involvement with WordPress, and what I am doing from my current job for WordPress.

Personally I have been working with WordPress since 2007. But back then I was just using WordPress as a blogging platform. I have been blogging since 2007 and I have around 20 blogs that generate some revenue for me. This is how I have gained practical SEO and marketing knowledge that I possess at this moment which actually compliments my web development skill. 

As a computer science student, I have been developing software and web applications since 2005. So I found WordPress development interesting from the early days of my using WordPress as a CMS. But back then as I was in my Undergrad, I was also using a bunch of other open-source content management systems.  So instead of developing a full-fledged theme or plugin, I was doing custom tweaks needed for my blog through my coding skill.

I have started developing a custom theme for myself from 2010. But if you ask from when I have professionally fully migrated to WordPress development, then I would say it was in 2012. But then again, I was doing freelance theme and plugin development for my clients. 

I started my own startup on August 10, 2015, and launched our own theme selling platform named Theme Rally. Till then, I never stopped and did some exciting things.

In 2017, I have officially started WordPress Chittagong Meetup Chapter backed by the foundation as the lead meetup co-organizer. 

I got to know about WordCamp back in 2018 and then I applied to 3 WordCamps. I have been selected in all of them as an international WordCamp Speaker but due to some limitations and personal affairs, I have only gone to WordCamp Pokhara 2018 in Nepal. So my first WordCamp was a WordCamp where I was also a speaker, yay! 

In 2019, I got selected as an organizer for the first-ever WordCamp Dhaka 2019 and I was also a speaker. By observing my passion for the WordPress Community and getting closer to the people with my conversation, weDevs founders ( Tareq Hasan and Nizam Uddin) approached and offered me to join weDevs brand new initiative Community Relations as the Community Relations Manager.

I have without a second thought said yes, and that is how I am getting the opportunity to do something from communities around the world with weDevs.  

As a  Community Relations Manager, I  develop strategies and programs that are designed to represent the organization favorably and make positive contributions to the community. I create and plan programs that engage and support the community and employees. Being a Community Relations Manager, I also develop and expand relationships with community leaders and media representatives. I also support marketing initiatives and represent the organization at events.

Phew, that was everything about me and about what I do with WordPress. I hope the audience won’t get bored listening to it or reading the written version of it. 

WPJuicer: How do you see the future of WordPress in the next 5 years?

Mizanur:  The future of WordPress is pretty bright and interesting that I must say. WordPress is adopting all modern development technologies and thus making it more compatible and robust to develop any website. You can build anything using WordPress ranging from a conventional blog, business websites, heavy-duty eCommerce to any web application. That’s the beauty of it. 

And the improvement in the Rest API has made it easy to communicate with any application and control anything using WordPress is another beauty of it. 

The Gutenberg block editor is the next generation content editor that is going to change the whole picture of how we create content. I am optimistic about the Gutenberg block editor and I believe it will continue to be improved and a lot of things could be done inside from the editor itself. And, the latest updates are making it more secure and user friendly that WordPress will gain more market share. 

And, you know well that WordPress is a very open market for anyone with good ideas. So there will be newer and newer ideas based products which will empower the entire WordPress ecosystem. 

I would also like to see even more focus on security and accessibility since these are issues that are sometimes brought up quite often by the end-user. 

WPJuicer: Can an affiliate marketer replace SEO with paid marketing?

Mizanur: It depends! But the paid marketer needs to spend a lot of money to figure out a great sales funnel based campaign and target audience. And no audience has a regular buying intention i.e it is hard to get an evergreen audience. So it is a tricky question. You might get occasional success with paid marketing. But it will never replace an organic SEO based inbound marketing technique. Paid marketing is part of outbound marketing which is always challenging as you are trying to push someone to believe in something that they might find difficult to convince.

When through the inbound marketing techniques, where SEO happened to be one of them, we can easily win the trust of a potential buyer through the content. It will help them to purchase something that we are trying to review as an affiliate marketer. And it will get good sales for sure which will then bring more affiliate sales commission for the marketer. 

So in a nutshell, unless you know what you are doing with paid marketing and also, your affiliate commission for the product is very high i.e it is a high ticket item, it will be always difficult to get profit from only a paid marketing campaign. 

WPJuicer: What events would you like to recommend affiliate marketers to attend? Do you have any personal favorites that you never miss out on? 

Mizanur: Affiliate World Conference and also WordCamps! In the affiliate world conference, you are going to meet a lot of fellow affiliate marketers with whom you can share views and techniques. It broadens your mind. And, the sessions by world-renowned marketers are a gem! And a lot of company representatives also visit the affiliate world conference, which will allow you to find great products or services that you can promote.

As you are getting a direct representative, you can ask any questions or doubts that come to your mind to them and they can give a good explanation. So it reduces the time required for researching and convincing to promote an item as an affiliate. But the most important part is, when you are doing an in-person deal, you can ask for more commission if you are someone who truly deserves it. 

And in WordCamp, you get to know people and influencers from the WordPress industry and most of the products are very profitable in terms of commission. So attending WordCamp in my opinion is very important too. 

WPJuicer: Being an affiliate marketer, how running targeted paid campaigns has helped you achieve success within an already competitive industry?

Mizanur: Yes, it did. Actually I am doing it quite often. But to achieve that I am also doing organic inbound marketing. I am constantly keeping up with the changes to build a funnel. I regularly nurture my audiences with quality content, reviews, newsletters, and videos. Then I do the final sales using paid campaigns and it gets good results for me. 

WPJuicer: Can you tell our readers, how WordCamps helps the WordPress community? How does speaking at WordCamps help your career? Do you have a group of buddies whom you love to hang out with at WordCamps?

Mizanur:  WordCamp helps the audience in many different ways. In WordCamp, you get to know a lot of people. I would say like-minded people who are trying to do something with WordPress. So, if you are looking for some motivation for your next project that you want to build, you can easily get that. You will get developers, WordPress users and marketers who are willing to help your business initiative.

If you are a new WordPress user, you will get all the information about what’s going on in the WordPress industry and you’ll get a lot of help from seasoned WordPress developers who are very keen to share their knowledge with people. And, it will motivate you to start your journey with WordPress.

As a marketer or business owner, you will get a lot of potential leads to grow your business initiatives. And there are more benefits. 

Actually, I can go on and on and on with the benefits that you will get if you attend a WordCamp. You just have to believe me that you should go to a WordCamp, you will experience the rest.

WPJuicer: What do you look for in a managed WordPress host?

Mizanur: I believe people should concentrate on their business ideas and content. So for a regular WordPress user, it will be difficult if they have to maintain their web hosting needs such as monitoring the uptime,  keeping their site secured from any external breaches from attackers and hackers,  and in peak time, the site needs to serve every visitor what they are looking for.

So in a managed  WordPress web hosting, I would look for, 24/7 uptime,  regular backup, a good firewall,  DDoS protection from attackers,  good file permission system managed by the web host, and proper load balancing when there are high demands for the content.

WPJuicer: Who should we interview next, and why?

Mizanur: It is a tough choice to make. I know a lot of people around the world who are doing great. And their stories might help others to motivate themselves to achieve their causes. So, it will be unfair to mention one person’s name. And I will mention 3 gems from my fellow country who are doing exceptionally well.

If you want to have a good visionary who is very much technically sound, and with his technical knowledge he is innovating new products into reality then I would suggest you interview Mr. Tareq Hasan, Founder &  CTO of weDevs. The reason would be to have a grasp of his knowledge which will help new developers to start WordPress based careers. 

If you are looking for someone who has wisdom about life and also has a good approach to lead a team, then I would suggest you interview Mr. Nizam Uddin, Co-founder & CEO of weDevs. A humble down to earth CEO who always thinks about his team first. 

Last but not least, if you are looking for a constant hustler and who never is afraid to do any work for the development of his business and team then I would suggest you interview Mr. Kawshar Ahmed, Founder of Themeum. If needed he can play the role of a genitor for his company up to a CEO which he is. 

These are true leaders from our country whose stories can help thousands around the world. 

WPJuicer: We have talked too much about your professional life. Let’s tell our readers about your hobbies and interests. What does Mizanur do other than work? (Can we have a pics)

Mizanur: Well, I am a workaholic person. But when I have free time, I love to sleep a lot, watch movies, travel around the world, and go close to nature. I love trying different foods from different cultures. I love to hop on a flight and see the world from a birds-eye view. 

WPJuicer: Any other thoughts or things you wish to mention?

Mizanur: Thank you for having me on your platform. It was an honor to be interviewed by WP Juicer. As we are suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic, my condolences are with the people who have lost someone beloved to them. But as humans, we always have overcome such situations. We just have to believe that, the bad day will end soon and we shall overcome it again with even better success. 

I would also like to invite individuals around the world to take a look at weDevs Brand Ambassador program. By this program we want to partner with individuals from different countries to grow their community, empower them, and make successful professionals. 

Thanks for the conversation. 

How to connect with me? 

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