Persona management has been an exercise people take up consciously or unconsciously to extract awe, respect and admiration from their business community and the social structure they are apart of. With the advent of technology and newer media of communication – this behavior has seeped into virtual channels like websites, social networks, media sharing networks, discussion forums and the likes.

Digital persona and its history?

Digital persona is the undivided self of an individual that gets reflected online. It’s no longer a private and a public image concept in the new business world. With the increased emphasis on a higher emotional quotient – your audience wants to view you as a normal human being like them. An exceptional and highly skilled persona gets better acceptance when it accompanies flawed or less than the best side of yours. An occasional mediocrity helps you connect better with your audience and perhaps, with self too.

Bringing up a balanced persona is not an exercise to change the perception of the audience about you – but a collective and conscious endeavor to evolve to a better version of yourself with each passing day.

Historically, persona management was limited and skewed towards reputation management. The practice was to build a pseudo image of a brand or an individual and mitigate or manage a business crisis and continue to drive home an uninterrupted revenue stream.

Cut to today, a bunch of conscious-driven marketers are performing deep researches and trying to understand human behavior and action in propounding a strong yet true virtual self of business heads, thought leaders, academicians and scholars, scientists and researchers and every one of those who consciously want to make an effort in presenting themselves as they are and aspires to become.

Digital Persona:  pause to understand its wholeness

Think of it – what are elements that come together to build a true persona of an individual?  What makes it so easy to feel but so difficult to articulate?

The answer to it can be different for different sociologists, and human behaviors’ research groups. Debatable and open to discussion, we understand that digital persona is an amalgamation of personal, professional, business and social interaction of an individual.  And it can be justifiably represented only when we show up the right mix of above to the outside world

A true representation of a virtual self will only make sense when all these elements are present in it and bringing forth its core value for you.

What your digital persona should exude?

With all its elements mentioned above -personal, professional, business and social interaction, your digital persona should exude warmth, depth and wide-ness!

When we say warmth, what we mean is that your virtual profile must come across as a warm, social, and approachable individual. An individual, who goes out to dinner, enjoys mundane activities, is committed to family and causes and is socially responsible in his behavior and actions.

The dimension of depth emphasizes demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in a way it can be useful for consumption to your targeted audience. People like to follow or look up to individuals who can shake them, guide and mentor them to achieve better results. A deep dimension adds that subject matter expertise and thought leadership qualities to your profile.

Finally, make sure you are not barking up the wrong tree. Identify your audience, your listener and make a personalized connection with them. Be sensitive to what they want, keep the communication channel open both ways and present them with quality, interesting and meaningful content. In no time, your audience size will grow wide and productive benefiting all involved in the process.

How an authentic and professional digital persona helps individuals

Tap the real secret to career growth, reach out to your right audience and present your great work and show them your skills and capabilities with trustworthy recommendations – give your career a make over it’s craving for with help of social handles.  For example – LinkedIn, the world’s largest network of professionals, has over 690 million users in over 200 countries and territories, including CEOs, CMOs, founders, IT directors, VPs, managers, recruiters and HR leaders. LinkedIn gives a huge advantage to businesses who use it as a marketing tool and enables them to create more connections within its huge platform.

With an authentic, exceptional and professional digital persona- thought leaders, academicians, business heads and researchers are finding new ways to speak with just one clear voice that can be transmitted over to the targeted audience. It provides them with the key to evolve as a recognized expert in their industry.

It allows people who are struggling to breakthrough the noise online and connect with their readers, clients, like-minded scholars and trade bodies in new, meaningful ways.

To bring this ever-evolving topic to a simple yet significant conclusion, a digital persona is more than creating a digital alter ego or an avatar – and it is not, most certainly, an image-building exercise. It’s an open, endless opportunity to present yourself in the most integrated, collective and truest to your offline personality. That may lead to exponential business and career benefits if done with the right approach and strategy in place.

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