Social Media and the Future of Society

And How Personal Branding will Evolve in Future?

Social Media is going to play a major role in globalization and evolution of our society. Many of these social trends are already visible and some of these trends will either emerge or become more prominent in future. These trends will cause macro shifts in the way we live and handle human relationships. So you must be having suspense by now that what are these trends and how are they going to impact personal branding in particular. So let us discuss these trends one by one.

Social Trend 1-Creativity becomes more critical

If your content goes viral on internet, you can transform overnight from a local company to a multinational by spending $50. Blentec based in Utah, USA has demonstrated this many years back as their Youtube videos with spontaneity and a unique theme caught the attention of the netizens across the world. A local personal brand can become a global personal brand, if your content goes viral.

Impact on personal branding

Becoming viral is not in your control but creating likable content which has a probability of going viral is in your hands. In fact, I use a term “Limited virality”, so if 20+ people share your post on Facebook, you have started the virality journey. The conclusion is either you need the support of creative people to create excellent content or you have to become creative yourself. Creative content is the starting point of developing a great personal brand.

Social Trend 2-Collaboration becomes a better tool for success than competition

Competition and aggression have helped people become successful for ages. In future people will notice that the great personal brands will be the people who are great collaborators. Collaboration can take several forms viz. promoting each other on blogs/websites, writing joint columns and so on.

Impact on personal branding

To collaborate, you need to inspire trust and only those people with positive attitudes will be able to inspire trust. If you work in a hyper competitive environment, you will find it difficult to trust people and to inspire trust in others. 

Social Trend 3-Personal growth is critical for success on social media

Social Media is a glasshouse and your persona is visible to your network. You can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing for sometime but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Personal growth means an attitude of looking for win-win situation and developing higher levels of emotional intelligence. The higher EQ you have, the more empathetic you will be to your network resulting in better connect in relationships and better support from your network. 

Impact on personal branding

The higher EQ you have, the more your network will share your content and help you in achieving virality. If your network sees you as a selfish person and does not trust you, then…….

The more you grow as a person, the more you will be successful on social media and a strong personal brand will emerge as a result. 

Social Trend 4-Spiritual people will become more successful on social media

“Spirituality and personal branding-what the hell are you talking, you have gone bonkers”, you must be thinking this. Let me explain this. 

Firstly a direct connection has been found between meditation and creativity. The same has been discussed by Indian spiritual guru Osho and personal branding expert Dr Hubert Rampersad (in his book on authentic personal branding). Personally I wrote a blog long back on how I regained my lost creativity through meditation.

Secondly a genuinely spiritual person with a higher level of consciousness is more likely to inspire trust in others. A drama of being spiritual will not last long and your posts and comments will reveal your true nature and immaturity.

Impact on personal branding

Social media is not a platform where one can use dictatorial style of leadership and expect your friends/connections/followers to follow your commands. Either your content has to be excellent that people feel like sharing it with their network or they have a certain soft corner for you because of your courteous behavior.

Social Trend 5-The Shift of Power from Organisation to the Individual
(Social Media as an empowerment tool)
Social media has given the power of a (citizen) journalist to every citizen. It not only results in the empowerment of the individual but also balances (by shifting more power to individual) between the organisation and the individual. The organisation will slowly lose its extreme power over the individual. 
There will be a shift from training to coaching (already happening in the western countries) and professions like peak performance potential coach will be in high demand as the individual will balance between organizational loyalty and maximizing his/her potential.

Impact on personal branding
The easy availability of social media and online tools will result in more middle class people developing into personal brands. Such ease in becoming global and famous will result in more people searching for their deepest passions, before starting the personal branding/career journeys.

So let us become Creative, Collaborative, Spiritual and start the Personal growth journey. Who knows you might end up as the next celebrity in your country or region or over a period of time, on the global circuit?

Also read (by DK Matai)
Wisdom Renaissance: How to Embrace the Conceptual Age? Unite the Left Brain with the Right!