E22: Karthik Srinivasan - Mastering Personal Branding

“When I do the corporate workshops, most people start from this point of view. They are about 35 to 50. They are probably in the peak of their career-related progress, they are doing well, they can easily get their next job. It's not a big deal. They are very well connected offline or online. They’ve networked well, they attend industry events; perfect. Everything is going swimmingly well. My only concern or the only point that I start with is, think of personal branding as insurance. When would you take life insurance or car insurance? When things are going well; when you have money, you will take insurance.”

Welcome to the Story Rules podcast - today we speak with Karthik Srinivasan, a leading communication and personal branding expert. 

In this conversation, we start with the habit stack that makes Karthik so productive in sharing his work online. We discuss his reading habits, content curation, simple note-taking process, reflection habits, and finally how he articulates his thoughts. The surprising takeaway – Karthik relies on the simplest of tools to ship his work. For those who are stuck figuring out the ‘best note-taking tool’, the 'number one content-tagging system', or the 'ideal productivity app'... stop searching. It doesn’t matter. Go with any tool. Just get started.

In fact, if you are a mid-career leader who is not actively sharing specialised content on social media, a blog, or a newsletter, this episode will hopefully serve as inspiration to get started on your personal branding journey. 

Personal branding is not just about promoting oneself. It's about being genuine and sharing your unique knowledge and perspective with others who can benefit from it. And as Karthik says, you will be the biggest beneficiary of this effort. I loved the frame that Karthik gives of looking at personal branding as career insurance.

During the conversation, Karthik and I also geek out on the evolution of advertising as a means of storytelling - especially how adverts have transitioned from being forced on viewers to being on-demand.

We then discuss some common tools used in advertising, such as:
- The element of surprise to hold the audience's attention, 
- Using emotions to form connections with the audience, 
- The use of framing, 
- Analogies and 
- The need to start from where the audience is. 

Finally, Karthik shares his nuanced thoughts on the emerging use of AI in advertising and marketing, using some relevant examples. 

It’s a must-listen conversation for anyone keen on personal branding and modern advertising trends.

Let’s dive in.

Show Notes:
Karthik's website and profile on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram

Karthik's talk on mastering the 9-second attention span

Ads discussed in the episode:
- Ad of Asian paints
- Sudha Murthy thing
PhonePe ad campaign featuring Alia Bhatt, Aamir Khan
- Semiosis
- Brooke Bond ad
- Spotify ad
- Birla Pipes ad
- Thai ad
- Rahul Dev ad
- Jaguar light fittings ad
- Cadbury