How to build your personal brand

Social media has created an opportunity to amplify and reach more people. But be extremely careful how you use its power

About a couple of weeks ago, I chanced upon the latest cover story in Harvard Business Review. The theme and the title were indeed provocative: “Build Your Personal Brand: How to Communicate your Value to the World.” Although I would still encourage people to read it, the experience of reading the piece, which was a step-by-step playbook, was somewhat underwhelming.

The theme has clearly gathered momentum in the last couple of years. More and more leaders I know are seeking answers from their executive coaches on how to craft their personal brand. After all, social media has allowed us to amplify and reach more people. Using the power of social media, a strong personal brand is today seen as the key to unlocking career advancement and being seen as influential in the right circles.

Even as the personal branding movement has gained traction, I’ve remained somewhat ambivalent about its value. It would be fair to label me as a sceptic. So to avoid succumbing to my biases, the next thing I did was to have a set of freewheeling conversations with three people — Kavi Arasu, Raj Bowen and D Shivakumar — whose views I respect.

Distilling all of it would require an in-depth feature. Instead, here are some of the insights from what emerged:

1. When senior leaders ask for advice, they invariably focus on the “how” rather than the “why”. Finding a social media expert who can teach you how to build your profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram is the easy part. The more difficult area is to figure out who you are, and what you stand for. Or else, it invariably becomes a case of putting the cart before the horse. Start by getting better at working on yourself. And then see what you want to tell the world. This aspect needs focus and attention.

2. Being self-aware is a journey. It doesn’t come easy. There are, of course, many tools available to define purpose and understand your own self. To construct a purpose (for the sake of building a brand) and then living a life to reflect that brand is simply not sustainable. During this process of self-discovery, there is a cardinal rule where many senior executives tend to trip up: They aspire to model themselves on a set of well-known personalities. Nothing wrong with that, except that it sometimes does not reflect who they really are at their core.

3. By now, there are so many so-called influential leaders who have burnished their reputations and created carefully curated identities on social media. Again, building an online presence is important, in case someone decides to look you up, but make sure that you don’t put on a mask. If you pretend to be someone you are not and you get found out, your porcelain-like reputation could be smashed to smithereens in a couple of hours. Authenticity in the way you come across and how you deal with others is key. Also, the concept of a perfect human being is flawed. Unlike a branded product, we are in perpetual beta.

4. If you’re a high profile leader, your every move will be watched and scrutinised by your employees, colleagues and your partners. If there is any dissonance with your public persona, those signals will get picked, for instance, when a headhunter looks to do background checks on your candidature for a senior leadership role. Your carefully scrubbed LinkedIn profile may not save you, but might create dissonance with your potential employer.

5. This is exactly where you need to make a departure from the world of branding, marketing and advertising. After all, you aren’t a bag of cookies that can be baked into a mould, but a living, breathing individual with your own set of values and hopefully, a consistent signature in the way you live and behave. However, don’t get obsessed with tracking likes, comments, followers — and the dopamine rush that comes with it. Ask yourself if it is worth the time and effort. Also, don’t just project your brand. Instead, try living your values.

6. It is relatively easy to be able to have short, quick easy wins with a crafted message and relentless “artificial personal brand” effort. However, the rules of marketing apply: If the product belies expectations, it flops. Build the right expectation. Life is not a short race. It is certainly not a marketing campaign. In fact, if you have to relentlessly build your profile, there might actually be something amiss. Occasionally, you may spot a former colleague or a batchmate rise up the ladder, even though you know they are faking it. Rest assured, they invariably get found out — and land with a thud.

7. Whatever you do to communicate your special brand, do not overdo it. Subtlety is a lost art in personal brand building exercises. It’s so easy to mistake social media numbers for real value. A 100-plus people liking your comment isn’t the only dimension. Likes, follows and engagement online are a function of many parameters. You are an adult. Not a kid counting the number of friends who turned up for your birthday party!

The writer is co-founder at Founding Fuel