“My father would always make me take up multiple tasks at a time. That eventually became a practice and I began managing multiple works at a time, which led me to study two different graduation courses at a time. Due to these practices, when I got a job and had to focus on only a single task at hand, it made me feel I had to do something more. This led me to work on multiple other things” says Yash Chawla, an Intrapreneur, who is a social media expert, envisioning to be the reason to empower individuals across the globe, through helping them use social media responsibly.

Yash began his professional journey as an executive officer, OIC-media and publicity, and as a lecturer at the Bhagwant University. His work did not limit him from becoming creative. He began to think out of box, as he began his work in the media and publicity department. On seeing many people reaching out to him on social media, he began to understand how important it is to focus on one’s image building on social media platforms. As he explored further, he also realized that building such an image is to be taught to many. Although people spend hours together on such platforms, they seem to be not maintaining a personal or a professional profile the way they could. As his interest in research and in teaching his peers about the right usage of social media grew, he began to enjoy doing this more, which slowly made him realize his passion. This led him to conceptualize a campaign which is called “Effective use of Social Media”. He began to conduct social media campaigns in the same university he worked for.

“People were not supportive when I started. They thought it was not worth since the whole world knew social media. I knew my thoughts were right and hence, I moved on. There were only 50 students in the first session that I took. Students who attended the sessions, would share with the others, because of which, there were more students who would join the next time. The content went viral and there were more students seeking help to maintain their social media profiles better. In a matter of eight to nine months, more than 25000 students had already been a part of the campaign” says Yash.

As the effectiveness of the sessions reflected on the profiles of the attendees, more opportunities reached them. Colleges from all over the country wanted to have Yash deliver talks to their students. There were people around him who still felt that the campaign was not worthy and continued to criticize him, until, when one day, he was invited to one of the top most institutes of the country, Indian Institute of Technology (Roorkee). His peers slowly realized the value of how important such sessions were, in building better profiles on public platforms. He was also invited to deliver sessions at Indian Society for Training & Development, Confederation of Indian Industry (Rajkot), Gujarat Technological University , Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Bhagwant Group of Institutions, Subodh Law College and many more. Many institutes have also booked for his sessions for the year 2016 as well.

The talks did not just inspire the students, but also the faculties of institutes. He began to help a lot of professionals too, to have an improved profile on social media platforms. The journey to reach this position was not easy for Yash, “To convince someone that they had to learn about the usage of social media was difficult because of two reasons - either people would feel that it was not required or that everyone knows it. Another challenge when I began with this journey was that people weren’t ready to pay since they thought it was inappropriate to pay for sessions on social media, but they were always ready to pay when it was a technical session. Such responses would limit my reach, since it was not easy to manage finances to travel to other cities, at the initial stages. The perceptions broadened slowly, situations began to change, people are now able to understand the importance of maintaining professional profiles on social media” remarks he.

On the other side, he continued to climb up the ladder in his profession too. He was recruited by the Parul group of Institutes as the Head of the Department of events & media relation, as well as a lecturer in the mechanical department of the institution. Yash has also been one of the founding members of the Entrepreneurship Development Cell at Parul University and is currently working as the Head of the Department of public relations and professional development at the RK Univerity, Rajkot. Yash’s involvement in the university and in his campaigns led him to receive multiple awards. He was honoured with awards and titles by Gujarat Technological University’s Innovation Council with the Pedagogical Innovation Award 2013, by EET CRS as Special Mention Young Faculty of the Year 2013, HDFC Appreciation Award 2014 for contributions of social activities, Best Young Teacher Award 2015 by Confederation of Education Excellence and was titled the ‘AA+ Rated Trainer on Social Media Marketing’ by OPTRIS.

Yash envisions to help more students and professionals with better opportunities through social media. “People do not know the amount of information they need to share on facebook, twitter or any other platforms. Your mother’s name, father’s name or the city he/she was born might be your secret question for your bank account too. One must understand whether these information need to be shared or not, and to whom it needs to be shared. The world is monitoring each of our action on social media. We click on links unwantedly without even knowing what it might contain. A lot of times, it gathers the user’s data that might be used in any way. Firstly, one needs to understand which category his profile belongs to. If you are a student, share about the knowledge you have, update your achievements regularly and maintain an active linkedin profile too. If you are a fresher, project yourself as an expert. Understand what kind of a job you want to do, learn the technicalities and update them on social media. If you are an experienced, brand yourself in the community, join groups related to your domain. If you are an entrepreneur, build a network of people with whom you can collaborate and work further. Connect to them frequently. It’s very important to stay active and keep a watch on your actions on social media” are some of his experienced suggestions to the world. Yash is in the phase of conceptualizing “welt”, which he defines as a parallel world to the virtual & the real world bridging the both, that will intensify his campaign, ‘Effective Use of Social Media’. On a platform like facebook, which has over 1.55 billion monthly active users, one can never predict, who in the network, is monitoring his actions. Insecure maintenance of profiles on social media platforms are leading to crucial situations that is affecting the mental health of an individual in the worst way possible. This does not mean that these platforms shouldn’t be used, but, the projection and the publicity matters. Many companies have begun to even recruit employees on the basis of their social media profiles. The strenuous efforts of Yash to empower the world with his knowledge in using social media for the betterment, is undeniably contributing to advanced opportunities to individuals.