Speaking Social: Crafting a Digital Avatar With Heart

• Fosters relationships & interactions across platforms

• Uses technology playfully AND meaningfully

• Connects behavior with products/brands

• Visibly networks & combines ideas & outcomes in new, positive, creative, and unexpected ways

Today’s startup culture is so tech-driven and competitive, it’s easy to forget that part of achieving self actualization is transitioning from Me to We. It’s easy to forget the “social” in social media, which is often used for trivial posts, selfies, and written promo-selfies. While those are part and parcel of the human condition, and result from our drive to grow customer loyalty and sales, we need to remember to “talk human”. To craft a digital avatar with heart. It’s more than just using stories and hashtags to promote activism and subsequent emotional attunement.

While both are important byproducts of digital avatar use, its real purpose is to consistently and creatively engage people in 3 ways:

• Educate them

• Entertain them

• Encourage changes in their behavior and thought process

This will have a ripple effect on the creation of impactful and meaningful social media exchanges between like minded people sharing an ecosystem, not just a digital platform.

One’s digital avatar is useful for an entrepreneur’s personal branding and for convincing someone why to purchase your service/product. It’s also quite useful for showcasing one’s archetype which can resonate with other people’s buyer personae. This gives your business a personality and subsequent leverage; something that I’ve learned, and that Millenials understand well. Something that’s often overlooked by seasoned, less tech-savvy CEOs.

The truth is that social media training is no longer optional.

Crafting a digital avatar with heart shouldn’t be either.

That’s why it’s time for us to rethink our social media “war room” strategy and our mental approach to success and mentorship; in real time and online. Especially women entrepreneurs. Why? Because we are particularly effective social media users who are biologically hardwired to appreciate its global reach and accessibility. Because we can use empathy and collaborative skills to make it work for us by networking, creating cultural innovation, and acting on our understanding of how buyers buy.

Entrepreneurship today is rife with opportunities to create, communicate, and collaborate with people in different locales, industries, and venues. Thanks to technology, especially social technology, ecosystems are being defined and refined on an almost daily basis, thus promoting disruptive innovation and new opportunities. The trick to creating a digital avatar with heart is finding that balance between being playful and being meaningful. Between intellectual interactions and emotional overtures to build relationships and branding. It’s about showcasing the absurd in the human condition, and "sharing a moment" by collectively laughing about it, and then sharing solutions and ideas. It spurs collective change, and gives the competitive, solitary, sometimes grueling nature of entrepreneurship in the iEra its wings to be free, and be more in touch with humanity.

Penina Rybak is the founder/CEO of Socially Speaking LLC, and the creator of the Socially Speaking™ iPad App. Penina is a national speaker on the topics of social communication development and strategies, iPad App integration into professional workflows and educational curricula, and practical and psychological aspects to female entrepreneurship. She is the author of The NICE Reboot-A Guide to Becoming a Better Female Entrepreneur: How to Balance Your Cravings for Humanity & Technology in Today's Startup Culture. To learn more, visit her websites: www.niceinitiative.com and/or sociallyspeakingLLC.com, and follow her on Twitter: @PopGoesPenina.