Vidya Iyengar By Express News Service BENGALURU: Addictive, time-consuming and often envy arousing, social media has taken over a large chunk of our time and life. And this was the trigger for Karthik Srinivasan, city-based communication professional and author of the latest book Be Social: Building Brand Online, which was launched over the weekend. “All of us are hooked to social media. As per the Global World Index’s latest report, we Indians spend about 2.25 hours every day on assorted social media channels. All these channels are totally free. Yet, the most expensive fee we are paying them is with our time (and data). But we never ask the question: ‘What are we getting out of the 2.5 hours that we spend on them?’,” says Srinivasan, arguing that it is possible to get something “meaningful and tangible out of this huge chunk of our everyday life spent on social media platforms. The target audience for the book published by Westland Publications – the main content of which was ready in about two months in early 2018 – is every working professional. Freshers, he says, have an advantage over others who have not thought about their personal brand yet, while for the experienced, the book could work as a self-help guide to first identify a brand positioning for themselves and nurture that brand consistently. “Building on your personal brand is like insurance. You need to invest in insurance when you have money and are healthy so that it helps you when you lack both, later in life. Similarly, investing time and effort in your personal brand when you have a steady, well-paying job is essential so that you have something to hold on to when you find yourself without a job/prospects, which could happen to anyone,” he says. In an industry where ageism is prevalent, Srinivasan explains that people older than 40-45 see themselves being replaced by younger, cheaper (salary-wise) people. “To avoid such a scenario, it is important to start taking your personal brand seriously as early in your career as possible,” he says. While one would assume that the best way to reach out to the audience would be the online space considering the content of the book, Srinivasan says that in the course of writing and publishing the book, he realised the power of a printed book. “I’m an obsessive blogger from 2000. I blog every single day, either on my own blog or on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter. Even for such a compulsive daily writer like me, I see the value people ascribe to a printed book. In a printed book form, there is a certain coherence of thought and mind, for the reader. They sink into the topic and gain specific knowledge with limited distraction,” he says.

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