Why you must build your personal brand as a PR professional

Aniruddha Atul Bhagwat, co-founder & director, Ideosphere Consulting Private Limited

“To build a reputation online, the first step is to ensure you are building a relevant network, as this would be the audience that would consume your content. Just like building an online reputation for a brand, one needs to understand the issues that fall within their expertise. The biggest way to raise engagement is to give unique, honest and impactful perspectives on industry issues. The more you can evoke conversations with your perspective, the better your online reputation will become.”

Aniruddha Atul Bhagwat, co-founder & director, Ideosphere Consulting Private Limited

“Pace: It is important not to overload your audience with many perspectives. This would not only ensure all of your content is not fully read, but can lead to ignorance of your content by your audience in the future.

Perspective: We need to be an analyst, not just a reporter of news and happenings. One can’t develop a reputation if they do not have clear opinion.

Depth: Each content, opinion, and perspective should have a depth in thought and understanding. The extent of the depth in your content will help one build a strong network online and a robust reputation. 

Relevance: Understand the audience you are speaking to, and ensure the content is relevant and engaging to them. If they don’t find it relevant, they will not give it the attention it deserves, if at all.

Identity: Be sure of the identity you would like to build and in which avatar you are writing (personal or professional). Also, understand the attributes you would like to have your reputation revolve around and develop content close to these aspirational attributes.“

 

Kunal Kishore Sinha, founder director, Value 360 Communications

“One of the easiest ways of doing this is by being an active spokesperson for the industry you represent as part of an MNC. The key is to identify a few areas of expertise or interest that you wish to associate yourself with.

Make sure you keep your name, profile and profile consistent across different pages. Understand how each social networking tool can help you and then tap it accordingly. Give emphasis to the visual aspect of your online presence, so using images, design and colours creatively and attractively is important to score an edge over others. If you follow different newsletters or expert bloggers who are doyens of the industry, regularly share posts and articles by them on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. This makes you a virtual ambassador of your niche industry and will help you gain a following of people who track industry progress through your personal page. This will also help you build a common circle of like-minded peers and spearhead conversations leading to rich knowledge-sharing.

Lastly, if your content is strong, feel free to blog your way to personal glory! This means your posts on vital developments about your company and industry help you emerge as a credible voice. If you have your own website, link your url to your blog updates so people can know more about you if your content interests them. If your company has an official web page, volunteer to write for it. Make sure your content is visible on all social fronts. Engage with your audience and reply to them as often as you can. Frequency of posts and response time are essential to keeping your personal brand alive and trending. “

Kunal Kishore Sinha, founder director, Value 360 Communications

“Yes! Your official twitter handle often gives you credibility but only if you are tweeting the right things. One must therefore use discretion while using the twitter handle to broadcast one’s opinion. Unless it goes against company policies, reveals confidential information about clients or company, or is not in the best interest of the company, one’s official twitter handle can be used to signify or link the importance of the tweet to your profession.

So if you are in the PR field and you work on ecommerce clients, new acquisitions, funding and key moves in the retailing sector should be of interest to you. For example, your views about the government’s FDI policy. In short, your personal opinion can be used to complement your profession through your official handle.

This helps an individual come across as a well-informed practitioner of one’s field with a strong voice and someone who is passionately engaged in following the new developments of his/her industry. However, one must take care not to overdo it and draw the line when it even minutely hints at working against the interest of one’s organisation as this may not be perceived positively in the long run. “

Kunal Kishore Sinha, founder director, Value 360 Communications

“Yes! Your official twitter handle often gives you credibility but only if you are tweeting the right things. One must therefore use discretion while using the twitter handle to broadcast one’s opinion. Unless it goes against company policies, reveals confidential information about clients or company, or is not in the best interest of the company, one’s official twitter handle can be used to signify or link the importance of the tweet to your profession.

So if you are in the PR field and you work on ecommerce clients, new acquisitions, funding and key moves in the retailing sector should be of interest to you. For example, your views about the government’s FDI policy. In short, your personal opinion can be used to complement your profession through your official handle.

This helps an individual come across as a well-informed practitioner of one’s field with a strong voice and someone who is passionately engaged in following the new developments of his/her industry. However, one must take care not to overdo it and draw the line when it even minutely hints at working against the interest of one’s organisation as this may not be perceived positively in the long run. “

Aniruddha Atul Bhagwat, co-founder & director, Ideosphere Consulting Private Limited

“There needs to be clear demarcation in a brands’ opinion vs. an individuals’. While the opinions maybe the same, the brand’s opinion should be communicated through the official handle in lieu of a disagreement of opinions between the brand and individual. One should be cognizant that need to exercise utmost responsibility when commenting from an official handle as it is a collaborative opinion of an organization and brand, not necessarily their own; for which, your personal handles are always available.”