Margaret Cullen, Andre Calitz and Aylin Botha
Abstract
Building and maintaining a personal brand is a critical differentiator for the proactive and professional members of society. Branding is a marketing tool, which helps form a mental representation of a product, service, organisation or an individual. Equally important is communicating your personal brand through various networks. The ascent of the Internet and social media has amplified opportunities to build a personal brand virtually through online networking. Social media allows for the sharing of information through virtual networks and communities. The virtual space offers diverse stages or platforms to people to self-brand their own character with the assistance of the Internet. Personal branding is the process of defining and promoting yourself and what you stand for as an individual.
In this study, an online survey was used to investigate how social media can be used as a networking platform to build a personal brand. The 209 responses were statistically analysed, including Exploratory Factor Analysis. The majority of the respondents used 5 popular social media platforms, namely WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. The study found that the factor Personal Branding is made of up of two components, namely Interpersonal Personal Branding and Intellectual Personal Branding. A significant finding was that Social Media networking is a good platform for your personal brand, but not your Intellectual Personal Brand, which links to your professional image.
In this study, an online survey was used to investigate how social media can be used as a networking platform to build a personal brand. The 209 responses were statistically analysed, including Exploratory Factor Analysis. The majority of the respondents used 5 popular social media platforms, namely WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. The study found that the factor Personal Branding is made of up of two components, namely Interpersonal Personal Branding and Intellectual Personal Branding. A significant finding was that Social Media networking is a good platform for your personal brand, but not your Intellectual Personal Brand, which links to your professional image.