By definition, public relations is “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” The future of PR is going to rely on your own personal brand and self-promotion. The fact is, today, we live in a fast-paced and digital environment. It’s no longer adequate to wait for a PR firm to connect you to the “right people” to gain recognition. Social media influencers are getting press features in Forbes, and people recording their lives with their iPhones are becoming household names. In this new age of digital media, your personal brand is what gets you in the press. Not your company, product, or service. You are the new Brand.

I asked myself why hire a PR firm? Having a degree in marketing and an M.B.A in Finance, I was aptly prepared, experienced, well-traveled, and connected enough to position myself as my own public relations expert. Instead of waiting to get noticed, I began to create my own personal brand, Gjok Paloka, “Trademarked,” around my own stories, experiences, and expertise. When it comes to promoting my own Personal- Brand, it’s not just about selling a product or service. In fact, first and foremost, it’s about building and cultivating lasting relationships; you can’t do that from your corner chief executive office in your ivory tower.

My goal is to build a professional public persona that is realistically rooted and representative of who I am and the lifestyle I live. This ideology leads to the attraction of like-minded and affluential clients from around the world, with the hopes of evolving into professional relationships and personal friendships for life. This is not an overnight journey.

Your personal brand helps you maintain a direct relationship with your clients. Image and video content helps your audience see and get to know you by sharing your life as a success story and expert in your field. The hard truth is that if you want to have a relationship with your prospective client base, you have to be willing to display your public persona. Nobody cares about the company brand anymore. They want to know the CEO— the mastermind behind the company.

The future—in fact, we are living it right now—is the Celebrity CEO. The market demands CEOs to be present online. The public wants to hear about Bill Gates’s hardships before becoming the richest man in the world. They want to hear from small business owners who create multi-million-dollar businesses with only the cash in their pockets. The future of PR relies on the company CEO to be the face of their business. It really all comes down to reputation management; the key to a successful personal brand is creating content consistently; think of Oprah Winfrey or Martha Stewart as classic examples, in my opinion. Both as individuals are indeed the Brand themselves. Be proactive about maintaining the integrity of your name. You have to consistently stay on top of your public persona, or you need to hire a team to manage your online presence and your reputation. Business executives and entrepreneurs are at the point where they need a talent agent—not unlike Hollywood celebrities–who manages all aspects of their outward personas.

I have set out to build my own unique form of “Executive Celebrity” in order to attract a savvy and sophisticated client base and to gain the authority, trust, and influence necessary to succeed in today’s marketplace. We aim to produce and syndicate our own content and use it to leverage ourselves into the public arena. The public wants authenticity, which means they are looking for “real” entrepreneurs to look up to for inspiration they can believe in and rely on.

Showing up in locations and popular events “to see and be seen” around the world, you will soon find yourself around familiar faces who adhere strictly to a social calendar of who’s who; this is how you reach out to your current sphere of influence. This is the only way to build your Celebrity CEO status faster and more effectively than with social media alone.

Becoming your own personal brand is not for everyone; it is a twenty-four-seven lifestyle, all-in endeavor.