Ten top tips: George Konstand

George Konstand, Founder of Brandology, shares his top tips for actors looking to define their personal brand. 

George Konstand is the author of The Game Entrepreneur and Founder of Brandology, a TOP10 Australian Cool Company. George Konstand is an expert in branding and innovation, a Judge of the SMART100 Innovation Awards. He started his career in media, working on television segments So You Think You Can Dance, Australia's Next Top Model and X Factor, before consulting internationally for A&R Universal Music Group GR. This year the company launched Brandology Co. a personal branding boutique for artists looking to set themselves apart in media, arts, film and entertainment. For more information visit www.brandologyco.com

1. You are a brand. Acknowledge that whether you intended for it or not, you have a brand. The gut feeling people get when they meet you, or the feeling that resonates with them when they hear your name, is your brand.
2. Personality is power. Your personality is one of your most powerful tools as an actor. It is your ”vibe" - and a vibe is a brand.
3. Social media is here to stay. Embrace social media as an extension of yourself, use social media as a platform to express yourself, to explore yourself curiously - seek to evoke emotions - this is how trust is earned, how influence is built.
4. Decipher your strengths. Are you naturally funny or comical? Or are you a born dramatist? Charismatic like Jennifer Lawrence or Clint Eastwood severe? Learn your strengths and play into them, seek out opportunities to showcase them.
5. Branding is authenticity. “You try hard, you die hard.” Authenticity is branding! Here’s why: your physicality, your looks, your demeanour, your overall appearance is always and forever subject to judgement - make sure they are all as you intend them to be, that they speak truly of who you see yourself to be, then just be (!).
6. Likability. Part of the pleasure in observing an actor is the marriage between their personal brand and the character they play. In fact, your inability to allow your personality to truly transcend a role is what limits your likability.
7. Don’t be a carbon copy. "Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what’s better!" Your face is new. It’s like going on a first date, you are hopeful about this new human and what they can bring to your life, think of the disappointment you experience when you realise they are just a new version of your ex *insert eye roll*! How you are experienced by the industry is much the same! Caution not to be a new face with the same old story.
8. Consider, what makes you irreplaceable. Actors exist within an emotional realm, a subjective realm, this is the opposite of politically correct. So then, seek to be about something… unapologetically! Seek to explore your own emotions and personality with sheer abandon. Be loved or hated with nothing left in between, indifference is death in branding!
9. Less is more. What did the “blank canvas” sulk about to the “Jack of all trades”? ...."but why are we the master of nothing?!” If you wish to succeed as an actor you have to narrow your focus, not expand it, you must have an idea or attribute of your own to focus your efforts around, in order to build a position in your audiences mind.
10. Make the character yours. The characters you play are built like houses, they need solid foundations or they sink into the earth. You are the foundation of every character you inhabit. That character relies on your face, your body, your personality. In a situation where twenty actors audition to play one character, a Director expects to have 20 variations of that one character. Make the character yours!