Our personal branding attributes are reflected in even the smallest of things. What we say and do matters as much as how we say and do it. I am a people-person, and ‘friendly’ is one of the key attributes of my personal brand. So I never miss any opportunities to reach out to people and show that I care. One of the best ways of doing this is wishing people on their birthdays. After all its a once-a-year occasion! Birthday wishes are a great way of establishing and rejuvenating relationships. Most people, even though they might deny it, look forward to birthday wishes from their family and friends. And my experience has also shown that quite a few of them even remember who wished them and who didn’t.

Social media, especially Facebook, has expanded our circle of friends to include almost everybody we know, both personally and professionally. Due to various third party apps dedicated to birthdays, one is constantly reminded of upcoming birthdays, and is prompted to wish too. So it has almost become customary to wish birthday on these social networking platforms. Majority of the birthday wishes though are insipid, and seem more like an act under compulsion than out of genuine care. These birthday wishes are less than five words long and some absurd ones look like swear words (eg: MHROTD — stands for Many Happy Returns Of The Day).

So it is not very difficult to make your birthday wish stand out and make them more memorable. Needless to say, there are many benefits of being regular with birthday wishes and doing it right. One thing that works really well are birthday videos. I present to you below some of my favorite birthday videos from Youtube that I use frequently. All you need to do is copy the link of any video from below and ‘Attach’ it under the status update on the wall of those you intend to wish (see illustration above). Once you click the ‘Attach’ button, the video appears with its ‘title’ and the ‘description’. Change them if you please and your birthday wish is ready to be ‘Shared’.

	Three Astronauts Singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kip-SZ9JQ90
	B’day Cake Blown Away http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdsXklG0cA
	Cute Kitten Singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATOcN7C-xFk
	Gangsta Frog Singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to06L22j7l0
	Cat Playing Violin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW6Wl643k_0
	Baby Bear Singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0zqP9f085A
	Simple Animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-YZy9ukaMk
	Funny Birthday Moments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tew6RuMGagM
	Dog Singing (for whoever watching) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOiMhkAzqI
	Dogs Barking (for ma’am) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXMiXhE1GKU
	Hippo Singing (for best friend) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVW48yMrSc

For those amongst you who would like to create a more personalized birthday wish, either you could create a simple video of yourself or download the software from Custom Shorts and customize a funny birthday greeting featuring yourself. Click here to see an example of such a birthday video.

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