Just like the Matrix our virtual online world is growing in leaps and bounds given the instant access and power to connect with millions with the click of a button. New age gadgets, smart phones and digital apps have enabled us to become digital journalists and evangelists in our own right. But just like Uncle Ben would constantly remind Peter Parker, Spider Man’s alter ego, this is a constant reminder to us too that “with great power comes great responsibility”.

Whether you are in-focus in front of the camera or behind the lens using your smart phones, it’s important to watch how you portray yourself in front of others. With our increasing participation as an invited speaker or as an active audience member we ‘all’ have a role to play particularly while attending corporate events and conferences. Here are some quick and easy dos and don’ts to keep in mind.

Don’t let your Surrogates get larger and overtake you. (I’ve hyperlinked to the movie wiki incase you’re now curious about this movie.) But getting back to the point, keep the decorum and maintain your tweeting etiquette especially while live tweeting at events. Be your own PR proponent and try not to get yourself in the foot-in-the -mouth predicament.

Easy tip – Unlike Vegas, what’s stated on Facebook or LinkedIn travels all over the digital world and back! So keep it professional, friendly and informative.

People do judge a book by its cover – Let’s face it, we live in a multi-tasking era with “time” being a precious commodity than ever before. So why waste time in creating your first impression that would detract away from ‘who you are’ as a person. Make it easy on others and dress appropriately keeping your end goal in mind.

Easy tip – While attending formal events, don’t dress per your mood or climate, dress per the occasion. Leave your guests with a positive lasting impression vs. a haunting impression!

Don’t ever lose track of the limelight – Yes, when it comes to participating at corporate events, you do have a role to play. You are a brand ambassador for your company no matter what your job title states. A lot of factors contribute towards how a company’s brand image is created. Their ‘people’ play one of the largest roles as it has a direct correlation to a good customer experience.

So project yourself in the best possible light, both literally and more importantly figuratively. You never know when you are being watched and by whom, especially when most of the events these days are being livestreamed and posted on YouTube.

Easy tip – Stay away from inside jokes and gossip instead stay cheerful and project a positive image.

Stay mindful of these easy tips and you’d be a superstar at any given event! Can you think of any others to add to this list? Let’s hear from you!

Photo by Hamed Saber

Point I’m trying to make is businesses today are very much at par in being technologically savvy and in-tune with what their competition has to offer, and matching that. What that translates into for customers is a whole array of products that look pretty identical in their features and capabilities. So going back to my original question, how do you think she chose one type of coffee over the other? It was quite simply the brand she preferred.

So what constitutes the brand? I see it as the aura, the vibe, the sentiments attached and basically the essence of your product that emerges which forms to be the differentiator! In traditional marketing, it’s all about getting the 4 P’s in the perfect proportion – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. There is a lot of planning, strategy, research, science and advertising amongst other things that is involved in the making of a company’s brand image.

It’s dealt with strategically, scientifically and purposefully, in a kind of ‘causal relationship’ between the initiators within the company and their external audience. This all happens in a streamlined and structured fashion, feeding the external audience with the finished product in the form of the ‘agreed upon’ image, identity and messaging the company would like its audience to accept as the brand.

While this model still works in several cases, we have been witnessing a rising trend in how brands are being created and perceived lately. Like the advent of spring, social media has infused a new life into how a brand is born and defined today. People are no longer simply accepting this definition of a brand that is presented to them like a perfectly packaged shining trophy that they can only admire, but not touch. They are more interested in getting up close and personal with it even if it means getting your fingerprints all over it.

Brands are no longer produced in a sterile, climate controlled environment.  With the explosion of social media the sheer definition of – ‘what is a brand?’ has evolved and now grown organically.

The users are no longer looking for a picture perfect image because that seems sterile and made-up. For companies it’s about being more vulnerable not necessarily in a negative opportunistic kind of way but appearing more real, approachable and accessible to its audience. The digital age has shifted the paradigm from a funnel type communication, to a much more intertwined and overlapping model. One where each of the factors: be it the opinion of your competitors, support from your partners, the chatter from your user communities, the online product reviews, or the strategic press releases and marketing campaigns, all infuse with one another influencing the brand image today!

Today’s social media has given each of us a voice that collectively determines what morphs into a company’s brand image and identity. Brand has become this multi-faceted and multi-dimensional entity today that has the colors and flavors of numerous stakeholders.

The onus lies on the companies to not fight or defy this flow but to embrace it and cultivate it by truly building an empire targeted towards your customer centric needs and solutions. This is when you stop ‘talking over’ but start truly ‘engaging with’ your audience.  So do you believe you have that green thumb?

With the omnipresence of social media, it also brings to the forefront the critical issue of transparency. Everything is shared, liked, voted, and forwarded these days! Pictures of your wedding, video journal of your Europe trip last week, footage of your baby’s first steps, declaration of your new job and title, an aerial view of your new house and your neighborhood..the list goes on!

The point I’m trying to make is, we are living in a day and age where our entire profile and lifestyle is available with the click of a button; a Google search or a Bing away. Far flung from the days where you needed a social security number to get detailed information about a person :)!

Today, you have multiple avenues to get to know a person without even meeting him or her physically. The virtual world is packed with all kinds of data and information. It’s easy to learn about a person’s likes/ dislikes, who are his friends? Where does she live? What did he eat last night? What are their holiday plans this Christmas? What are their kids’ names? What are his New Year goals?

As a global community I believe these social media tools have made our world smaller making our connections tighter. If you think about it, we are all connected to each other with perhaps six degrees of separation. However, on the flip side it comes with the threat of great misuse of personal information and photos. We all need to be responsible and draw our own lines when it comes to the question of how much is too much? Are we overindulging with perhaps sharing way too much of our lives online? What about those who like to share every aspect of their daily lives online with others? Tweeting or perhaps wall posting about when I woke up, what appointments I have for the day, how did my meeting go with that client, what do I feel like eating for lunch, where do I plan to meet my friends over dinner. Do you think we are revealing too much of our selves without deliberating on what the implications of that might be?

As much as we enjoy the privileges of these modern tools we all need to be responsible about the usage and exercise caution and more importantly use common sense! Adjust your privacy settings on each of these platforms. Do you want your personal information and photos to be visible to everybody or would you rather give access to only your friends? In the same token, each one of us need to use good judgment when it comes to revealing and sharing parts of our private life online. Agreed, this is not a foolproof method to protect your online identity but at least you are not opening the door wide to welcome complete strangers into your house. You are using some discretion and caution.

Another important point I would like you to think about is the image you project on the different social platforms.  Just the way you’d intend to ‘position’ a product or a service based on your target audience shouldn’t a similar principle apply to your ‘social audience’? Whether you are on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube identify and recognize the purpose of that medium and segregate accordingly. As authentic and genuine you need to be across these platforms, make it a point to chalk out a line between these tools as they are meant to serve different purposes.

Remember you are the ‘same person’ but there is a subtle difference in the way you’d interact with your family, friends, co-workers, vendors, future employers or neighbors. Each of these circles may get to see a subtle shade of you, so why not use the same principle when it comes to interacting with the same folks online through these different social mediums! Wouldn’t you think?

Photos by fisserman and tanakawho