Getty ImagesBy Sreeraman Thiagarajan
What do Alpenliebe, Limca, Vivel, Citizen, Metro, Sony Vaio, Anne French, Head & Shoulders, Lakme have in common? Kareena Kapoor endorses them. The question is: why do brands need a celebrity? It's simple and surprising - brands have no life but people do, which is why they want to associate with 'real people' to gain the rub-off from a celebrity's larger than life personality.
Not everybody has the looks of Kareena Kapoor, the fitness of David Beckham or the charisma of Richard Branson, but what we do have is a unique identity, character and personality.
In the rapidly changing Indian digital scenario, there are a little over 50 million registered users of LinkedIn and over 100 million users of Facebook in India. Study shows that recruiters are scouring social platforms (beyond job portals) to attract talent and reach out to passive job seekers. Many company HR policies now warrant employees to add 'Views are my own' on their social media profiles. Case in point - Disney fired the Guardians of Galaxy director from the franchise over his old tweets that were inappropriate.
The critical case in point is that whatever you do in life eventually lands up on your social media profiles. Many give away more than they intended to, and in most cases, we give away the lighter side of us, which may not be very 'light'.
The concept of personal branding has slowly filtered down to everybody in the society - an ideal to aspire amidst the smarter race and a norm for the over-achievers. What are the odds that you stand apart and position yourself as not another person but as a 'brand'?
More often, the character you exhibit in real life is not necessarily how it's projected in digital space; your parents, friends and peers also play a role in shaping your digital personality - those seeking a unique identity to stand apart must master the art of personal branding. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. Here are a few tips that might help you leverage the power of digital medium to build and project a better you:
Creating a unique and uniform identity
It's time to change that profile picture you cropped from the last vacation and re-write the 'about me' sections. It's worth spending a few hours composing a good bio of yourself in about 100 to 250 words and asking one of your DSLR enthusiast friends to shoot a personable portrait of you against a non-disturbing background. Use the same text and image across social networking sites (includes matrimony sites and dating apps too, if not already married!) to update your profile details. Additional note: If your profile photo includes a picture of your significant other, you'll be perceived as seriously codependent. Also, never use your child's picture or a favorite celebrity you aspire to look like on professional forums like LinkedIn.
Set Objectives
Whether looking for a growth in the organization, job change or seeking a date, chalk out the objectives and goals for the near future and amend your profile and credentials accordingly.
Harvest contacts
Not including your ex and former Hari Sadu boss, you have no choice but to add 'friends', request 'connections' and click 'follow.' Nevertheless, the focus should be on quality over quantity - avoid strangers, spammers and fake or impersonating profiles.
4. Managing points of presence
Self-consciousness, self-control and projecting a memorable character
Being aware of yourself and taking control of your appearance, actions and emotions are imperative. Posting pictures of parties and vacations are fine, as long as they adhere to certain levels of decorum. Remember the maxim "show me your friends, I will tell who you are"? Often we let others perceive and portray a wrong picture of us due to the company we keep.
Understand technological nuances and limitations
All digital mediums and social networking sites gives you options to control privacy with varying degree - the intolerant comments you post about your neighbor's annoying dog can be made visible only to your siblings and buddies and not to your current employer or future spouse. Prudent is not to swear online, smart is to control visibility.
Understand the audience
Classifying Facebook 'friends' as acquaintances, colleagues and close friends helps you maintain privacy and have a clutter-free inflow-outflow of personal and professional information.
Maintaining reputation
Search your name across search engines and see your standing. You can use tools like socialmention.com or Google Alerts to micro assess and take corrective steps by deleting or modifying negative content that you posted. You can also ask your friends to do so.
Enhance reputation
Ask for testimonials on LinkedIn from teachers, clients, vendors and peers. Tag yourself in genuine pictures only, 'like' pages only if it truly interests you, 'follow' people whom you admire or aspire to keep up with. Use every opportunity to portray your competence, image and personality.
It's time to engage
Don't assume that the moment you've tried the above points, the whole world is going to see it. Put in efforts on communicating better and 'engage' with your target audience. Participate in relevant, interesting and active forums, post your views and comments with minimal sarcasm (no hatred and no cuss words) and more importantly, don't ever wash dirty linen in public.
Quick Tips & etiquettes
Unlike commercial brands, personal branding is not a campaign, it's a commitment; until otherwise it's authentic and genuine, people will perceive your efforts as egocentric and misunderstand your activities as an ego trip. Think long term, have consistency, take caution, pause one second before posting something, think, do, do well.
The writer is co-founder of Agrahyah Technologies. He tweets @sreeraman
What do Alpenliebe, Limca, Vivel, Citizen, Metro, Sony Vaio, Anne French, Head & Shoulders, Lakme have in common? Kareena Kapoor endorses them. The question is: why do brands need a celebrity? It's simple and surprising - brands have no life but people do, which is why they want to associate with 'real people' to gain the rub-off from a celebrity's larger than life personality.
Not everybody has the looks of Kareena Kapoor, the fitness of David Beckham or the charisma of Richard Branson, but what we do have is a unique identity, character and personality.
In the rapidly changing Indian digital scenario, there are a little over 50 million registered users of LinkedIn and over 100 million users of Facebook in India. Study shows that recruiters are scouring social platforms (beyond job portals) to attract talent and reach out to passive job seekers. Many company HR policies now warrant employees to add 'Views are my own' on their social media profiles. Case in point - Disney fired the Guardians of Galaxy director from the franchise over his old tweets that were inappropriate.
The critical case in point is that whatever you do in life eventually lands up on your social media profiles. Many give away more than they intended to, and in most cases, we give away the lighter side of us, which may not be very 'light'.
The concept of personal branding has slowly filtered down to everybody in the society - an ideal to aspire amidst the smarter race and a norm for the over-achievers. What are the odds that you stand apart and position yourself as not another person but as a 'brand'?
More often, the character you exhibit in real life is not necessarily how it's projected in digital space; your parents, friends and peers also play a role in shaping your digital personality - those seeking a unique identity to stand apart must master the art of personal branding. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. Here are a few tips that might help you leverage the power of digital medium to build and project a better you:
Creating a unique and uniform identity
It's time to change that profile picture you cropped from the last vacation and re-write the 'about me' sections. It's worth spending a few hours composing a good bio of yourself in about 100 to 250 words and asking one of your DSLR enthusiast friends to shoot a personable portrait of you against a non-disturbing background. Use the same text and image across social networking sites (includes matrimony sites and dating apps too, if not already married!) to update your profile details. Additional note: If your profile photo includes a picture of your significant other, you'll be perceived as seriously codependent. Also, never use your child's picture or a favorite celebrity you aspire to look like on professional forums like LinkedIn.
Set Objectives
Whether looking for a growth in the organization, job change or seeking a date, chalk out the objectives and goals for the near future and amend your profile and credentials accordingly.
Harvest contacts
Not including your ex and former Hari Sadu boss, you have no choice but to add 'friends', request 'connections' and click 'follow.' Nevertheless, the focus should be on quality over quantity - avoid strangers, spammers and fake or impersonating profiles.
4. Managing points of presence
- It's time to change that funky email id (wizkid_love4you@hotmail.com) to a sober one like firstname.lastname@gmail.com (there are enough free tools to migrate mailbox, please ask Google) and start using this as the official personal id for all communications, newsletter signups and social networking sites.
- A frequent and small update to your LinkedIn profile will do miracles - updates as big as job changes and promotions to appending details about the two day seminar you attended (could have been boring) from college or office - this update sends out notifications to all your connections and helps you stay on top of their mind. Remember, it's better to be criticized than ignored.
- Own a piece of web: try owning a website with your common name, if that is taken, try full name or least is- try a medium.com blog or yourname.wordpress.org - both are highly customizable web platforms and extremely search-engine friendly. Of course, needless to say, free.
- Synchronize your URLs, Handles, Page names, Websites and Profile links to one single name e.g: sreeraman.in, twitter.com/sreeraman
Self-consciousness, self-control and projecting a memorable character
Being aware of yourself and taking control of your appearance, actions and emotions are imperative. Posting pictures of parties and vacations are fine, as long as they adhere to certain levels of decorum. Remember the maxim "show me your friends, I will tell who you are"? Often we let others perceive and portray a wrong picture of us due to the company we keep.
Understand technological nuances and limitations
All digital mediums and social networking sites gives you options to control privacy with varying degree - the intolerant comments you post about your neighbor's annoying dog can be made visible only to your siblings and buddies and not to your current employer or future spouse. Prudent is not to swear online, smart is to control visibility.
Understand the audience
Classifying Facebook 'friends' as acquaintances, colleagues and close friends helps you maintain privacy and have a clutter-free inflow-outflow of personal and professional information.
Maintaining reputation
Search your name across search engines and see your standing. You can use tools like socialmention.com or Google Alerts to micro assess and take corrective steps by deleting or modifying negative content that you posted. You can also ask your friends to do so.
Enhance reputation
Ask for testimonials on LinkedIn from teachers, clients, vendors and peers. Tag yourself in genuine pictures only, 'like' pages only if it truly interests you, 'follow' people whom you admire or aspire to keep up with. Use every opportunity to portray your competence, image and personality.
It's time to engage
Don't assume that the moment you've tried the above points, the whole world is going to see it. Put in efforts on communicating better and 'engage' with your target audience. Participate in relevant, interesting and active forums, post your views and comments with minimal sarcasm (no hatred and no cuss words) and more importantly, don't ever wash dirty linen in public.
Quick Tips & etiquettes
- If you help and promote someone else, they'll be more likely to do the same for you! Remember to give before you take.
- When sending CV to friends or asking for a reference or introduction, write a few lines about why you think you're the right fit for that opening.
- Avoid sleaze in any form and abstain from profanity - memes and trolls are funny only if posted by someone else, not you. (f***, B@$#@rd, $#!t are considered profane too!)
- Be less annoying - do not post the same and repetitive content on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It will make you look desperate to gain attention and bore your audience.
- If you're responding to a friend's status update when you're due on responding e-mails from boss or client, the whole office knows what your priorities are.
- PDA (public display of affection) is a cliché and infuriating to others in the digital world - please get an inbox for those romantic mails to your significant other.
- Don't build third-party conversations in someone else's wall/status update; inbox rules as above apply.
- Seniors should avoid the temptation of sending connection/friend request to subordinates/juniors. The vice versa is the norm.
- The word 'LOL' occupies 27% of Facebook's server space, enough said.
- When posting comments and wishes on 'occasion led' pictures of not-so-close friends, ensure if it's their own wedding or their kid or nephew they're posing with. It's extremely annoying to get wrong wishes and irrelevant comments, just for the heck of it.
- Don't tag others in pictures that are not real; it's extremely irritating and rude. Remove such tags of you too.
- Abbreviations r gr8 2 sav space but use em sparingly othrwise dey just let evry1 no dat u don no how 2 spell.
Unlike commercial brands, personal branding is not a campaign, it's a commitment; until otherwise it's authentic and genuine, people will perceive your efforts as egocentric and misunderstand your activities as an ego trip. Think long term, have consistency, take caution, pause one second before posting something, think, do, do well.
The writer is co-founder of Agrahyah Technologies. He tweets @sreeraman
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
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