Making On-line Personalities

As we become part of the Internet universe we develop on-line alter egos, in certain cases several – They call us Legion for we are many. This is done by the things we do on-line action and words … words and actions. Unlike, in the physical world where conversations, more specifically flippant remarks, are sometimes forgotten. In the Digital World what has been said can be read over and over again – and can be recovered. Digital alter egos or on-line personas become familiar to people who know or follow us with whether it was created using: (i) a blog, a forum, (ii) a social media site, (iii) nearly anything on-line and (iv) in a number of instances on all the previously mentioned areas – anything that can create content can be used.

And we have seen also an increase number of groups create personalities on-line for a company or business. Lets us look at two such undertaking:

THE CASE OF LOLA TECHIE

BayanTel’s Lola Techie. Successfully used by Bayantel as a marketing tool for their broadband service has become the virtual face of Bayantel. Her videos on youtube has generated a lot of interests and her accounts in facebook, twitter and plurks is followed regularly. And she even had a fan’s What is interesting about Lola Techie is that she is a creation of Bayantel: A fictional character created by Bayantel and its partners.

A collaboration between the actress, Bayantel, its blogger and social media team. Lola Techie started out as a concept. And slowly but surely BayanTel’s marketing team led By John Rojo developed the character – a full profile and biography for Lola Techie, who was involved in Ball Room dancing before discovering tne Internet. And this profile and biography was handed over to the bloggers and social media team to develop content.

And it turned out well. Lola Techie was well-received.

And even if she was a creature of fiction it did not matter. As I said well received. Perhaps … because Lola Techie was also entertaining and her adventures were funny.

So the people loved it. According, to Bayantel due to Lola Techie sales of broadband services increased geometrically.

ON-LINE PERSONALITY X

Another business also started to create an on-line personality for their business. This time around a real person was used. Similar to Lola Techie – the person’s name was used in three platforms Facebook, Twitter and Plurk. And so far it has not been as successful or nearly as successful as Lola Techie’s campaign.

Why?

Perhaps, there are too many voices in that character. There is no singular character coming out. Unlike, the one for Lola Techie even if there were many writers all wrote in one voice – one character came out. Therein lies the strength of building a nearly complete biography and character sketch. In Ancient Rome, there were writers who did ghost writing work for Roman Citizens and Roman Emperors. These Ghost writers mimicked the style and tone of writing of their clients – so much so that the Emperor Claudius once chanced upon a book in the library written by himself but had no recollection of it. Yet there it was written in his words and style.

There is the danger of ghost writing for a person’s on-line identity. You cannot. You cannot do it easily. Like the ghost writers of old one must be consistent and constant.

Or at least be entertaining. Otherwise, the on-line persona suffers.

So in establishing an on-line fictional persona it is important to be consistent and better if one is entertaining. I strongly believe that it is ill-advised let anyone subsume or ghostwrite one’s personal online-person and in the process give them access to all data about oneself. It is going to hurt your credibility on-line and come back to haunt you even if you are no longer connected to the business

Also assuming one is successful in establishing a fictional persona. It is important to remember it is not only important to use the on-line persona to preach the word but also to get feedback. In this case of Lola Techie it would be interesting to know if the persona has also been used to get feedback.