Channeling your “Inner Celebrity” through Facebook and other Social Media (with thanks to fellow PR practitioner Brian Solis for the title)

In my last blog post, I mentioned about “feeling like a celebrity for a day” because of being invited to model for a couple of product advertorials. Well a fellow PR publicist said that we inherently create our “Inner Celebrity” which we can always make use of in publicizing not just our activities but also our clients’ activities.

So how do you actually promote to the world your “Inner Celebrity”?

Have you ever realized that just having a presence on Facebook, MySpace, Caravat, ecademy.com, Linked-in, etc. or some other blog you constantly post in, or regularly contribute to a chat forum is already a form of “self-promotion”? Even if it’s just 10 of your most trusted and loyal friends, or your buddies at the Friday Drinking Club, sharing your exploits and ideas to a small coterie of friends is already a form of self-promotion. It just doesn’t occur to you that often – because to some, it just comes like second skin.

Some like Julia Allison, a dating columnist for Time Out New York and former editor-at-large for Star Magazine, has no especial talent - can’t sing, can’t dance, but have a remarkable talent for posing in front of the camera – and a nose for finding where the next photo opportunity is – have been using social media and the internet world to self-promote herself (see article at http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-08/howto_allison).

So how does one start “publicizing oneself” to the people that matter, so to speak?

Step 1: Have a message/point/theme to say – and it must strike a chord in your intended target audience’s hearts and wow their brain cells!

Step 2: Assess the characteristics of your target audience. Do they like reading your rants everyday? Are you sharing the same brainwaves? Or like Jennifer Allison, you just want to spread your self-gratifying message to the public at large?

Step 3: Choose wisely your communications channel. Thankfully for us in Southeast Asia, we have our great social media networks to rely on – Facebook, Yahoo 360 blogs, Caravat, Hi-5, Linked-in, ecademy.com, etc. And a growing number of Twitter users here adds up to the choices for social networking.

Now for the meat ; ) A few tips from Allison and myself to get your personal branding machine up and rolling:

* Crash the parties that matter. You know – the one that the Italian Ambassador cum amateur photographer attended with half of the local literati and diplomatic community attending – and pretend that you know the host of the party when chatting with a few unknowns (actually you just tagged along with your friend who was an invitee).

* Crash into every foreign chamber of commerce monthly meeting you read about. Tell them you’re with the party of Ms. So and so from this and that company who happens to your friend’s company.

* Make sure you attend every fashion or new product launch, DJ event at FTV Bar or any similar bar – just so that the FTV cameraman can record your face and that of your gorgeous or not-so-gorgeous boyfriend in the crowd shots. In fact, make sure you strategically choose your place in the crowd – either near the stage or center of the dancefloor, not some obscure corner somewhere.

* Get chummy with any of the fashion mag reporters – and make sure that he/she calls you whenever she gets invited to a fashion shoot or function. Drop some famous names when you’re introduced to some corporate-looking hunk at the party: “I’m ____ and I’m with the party of Mr. ______ of Runway Mag . . ; )

* If you’ve got killer long legs, wear those Manolo Blahnik stiletto heels or other designer-inspired brands, and your genuine Gucci or LV bag, and wave the Gucci in front of a fashion photog that comes into your view – with the chief editor or a young corporate stud on your arm as an additional prop.

* Make sure you bring your “personal photographer” with you – and post your photos with an accompanying essay on Facebook, Yahoo 360plus blogs, MySpace, or Multiply.

* As Julia Allison opines, make sure that everytime you blog about yourself, you inform your target audience about a "certain dimension of your personality" or personal brand. It keeps them intrigued - that is if you are that intriguing ; )

In the world of social media, anyone can be famous – or almost famous!

The Power of Testimonial Advertorials

Somewhere or sometime in my colorful life as a PR practitioner (slash) exotic places traveler (slash) single brown female resident working in Saigon, you get these interesting requests about modeling for a client or so. So when Sony eventually invited me to act as a talent for one of their new camera models, I thought it would be a blast to be in their promotional video.

Little did I know how hard it takes to model for one of these gadgets. The camera alone (Sony Cybershot TX1) is a beauty! For one who had her first camera as a semi-pro SLR Nikon FE, the Sony camera felt like my good old Nikon before a friend of mine accidentally dropped my beloved camera into the sea. Lightweight and razor-sharp photos are what you can count on this camera – a plus to me since I hate carrying those heavy 2-pounder cameras.

And quite easy on the pocket too for a semi-pro camera (I was told it was going to retail initially at US$500+).

So the brief was to dress colorfully and make out as an expat walking around the Dong Khoi area. It was around 12 noon and the sun was glaring down on us. My make-up (they had to make me up, you know) literally melted and I sweated buckets.

Just to make the promotional video just as interesting, we invited some hip young guys like Boy band singer Minh Tuan of La Thang and other interesting-looking young people to be in the video.
But the result was worthwhile. If you’d like to know how the video’s final cut looked like, just pop in at the Sony booth at the Vietnam Computer Electronics World Expo at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center today and tomorrow.