Lesson 4: Build Your Identity

As part of the Commit or Kill campaign for Book Rapper, here’s Book Rapper Lesson #4.

What Do You Do?

I’ve had some interesting experiences running Book Rapper. One of the most profound is being introduced as ‘The Book Rapper’.

It typically looks like this…

I meet someone and they ask the usual “What do you do?”

Sometimes I reply, “I write Book Rapper.”

And, usually, I get the response is: “What’s that?”

And occasionally, I get: “You’re the Book Rapper!”

It’s a bit like my secret identity has been exposed! It’s weird when it happens. It seems people know me even though I haven’t met them before. It’s a bit like meeting someone you follow on Twitter – there’s a real person behind those tweets?

More Weird

A more weird example…

Two guys came up to me at an event.

One turned to his mate and said, “This is Book Rapper.”

His mate said, “What?”

“He’s the Book Rapper. I don’t know his real name.”

Building a Brand

It just goes to show that when you build a brand or a persona it may just reach a point where it is bigger than you. Ideally, this is what you want. Social media makes it easy to build brands, personalities, profiles and personas that are bigger than we are. Or at least, exist outside of ourselves. Like my example, people know what I do and get value from that and I don’t need to know them personally.

Lesson

Be aware that you will be known in multiple ways. The big split will be people that you know you face to face. And, the people who know you online.

And, this means you need to be consistent and diligent. The easiest way to be consistent is to be authentic and real. Be the same person online as off. And, diligent about what you’re putting out into cyberspace. You never know when it, or they, may come back to meet you in person.