BCM 310
University of Wollongong
Keirna Wong
Self-branding
Online
BCM 310 | Summer 2018
University of Wollongong
Introduction
The theme of creating this website is based on the BCM 310 week 1 lecture "The Self, Self-branding" and a rethinking of my week 1 blog "The Matter Of Our Online Image Via the Selfie".
When you are in this era of rapid communication and social media development, the online self-branding becomes more important. Online self-branding can assist you to develop your personal business or career.
It is not the same thing as the personal branding. Self-branding is more construction on a self-concept.
What is the personal branding?
Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their profession as a brand. The personal brand concept focuses on self-packaging. It is basically an ongoing process of establishing a defined image or impression of an individual, group or organization in the minds of others. Personal branding usually involves applying a person's name to a variety of products such as Coco Chanel, Alexa Chung, Swarovski etc. They use their last name extensively on their products they endorse.
What is the Self-branding?
Self-branding describes the process in which people match their own self-concept with the images of a certain brand. People not only buy certain products to meet basic needs, in fact, their buying habits are deeper. Having a certain brand can help people express and build their own self-concepts. Self-concept is when a brand association links or connects to the self, these associations can help people achieve certain goals. These goals include what they might become and what they want to be. People's motivation to self-improve is conducive to self-impression and development in a positive direction. Use self-branding to show positive self-images to others or themselves in order to maximize the positive recognition and feedback. They can provide you with possible opportunities to develop your own business or career.
Here we see " Personal Branding " and " Self-brand " are different.
" Personal Branding " is promoting and selling your own product to people.
" Self-branding " is presenting and promoting yourself to people.
Self-branding " has the benefits for anyone who wants to find a job or develop the business in the future.
This is not the latest thing.
American management scholar Tom Peters said:
" We are CEOs of Our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most impost job is to be head marketer for the brand called you "
He believes that it is not just companies and products that need to build brands, but individuals also need to self-branding.
The 21st-century work survival rule is to self-branding and marketing yorself.
Stakeholders
The main stakeholders of the research are the general public, especially people who have the Multimedia design industry, the social media industry and the content industry background.
It helped them to realize more about the operation and the influence of self-branding online.
The findings will be useful for them to understand more about the current of the self-branding trend.
Question :
Research
How does Self-branding on the Social Media Affect Individuals Developing their Own Business and Career?
Sub Research Question :
1. What is the meaning of the in self-branding?
2. How does the self-branding change the position of you in the market?
3. What is the opportunity after self-branding?
Methodology
The methodology for this research project will be two methods. It would decide to examine and investigate the research questions. I will collect the primary data and the secondary data as my research data.
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The primary data will be collected through interview.
I invited two people as the research project interviewee. The requirements of this research project interview to the interviewee must have experience of work on the online social media and own their business. They both have developed their own business and career on the online social media for a while.
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The first interview is with a young male who shape himself self-brand through online media and own a workshop and many restaurants and other business. He is also an India henna artist. The second interview is with a young female. She has no design industry background but good at an online marketing. She uses the online social media as a business platform through to branding herself to develop her online agency store.
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Both of them are fit the interview requests of this research project.
The secondary data of the research is the academic article or web article that would be related to this research project. The secondary data will be collected by the online search engine. All data will be analyzed to examine the research topics and research questions.
Expectation
This research project has four main expectations.
First, researchers want to understand the impact of self-branding online on the personal development of their careers and careers. This is the major question of this research. It leads to the further research answer come out based on this research question.
The second expectation is based on the first sub research question: What is the meaning of the in self-branding ? This sub research question aims to understand the meaning of “self-branding” at first before we start to self- branding.
The third expectation is based on the second sub research question: How does the self-branding change the position of you in the market? The second sub research question aims to find out the why the position of you in the market would be changing with the plan of self-branding.
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The final expectation of the research is based the last sub research question. To explore the opportunity after self-branding.
Interviews
Interview 01
Interview 01
Young Man Age: 26
Self-employed
Henna Tattoo Designer
His business includes:
restaurants and studios.
K: How many social media platforms do you use?
M: Two.
K: Which social media platforms do you use?
M: Facebook, Facebook Page and Instagram.
K: Do you have a dual account on each social media platform?
M: No, I don't have a dual account on each social media platform.
K: Tell me why you prefer to own one account in each social media platform?
M: It is troublesome to have a dual account on the same platform, the account
switch is difficult to manage and a bit waste my time.
K: How long have you owned these social media accounts?
M: I own my Facebook for over 5 years and created my personal Facebook in 2012.
I also own my Instagram accounts since 4 years ago.
K: How often do you update posts on social media?
M: I update about five posts a month on my Facebook and Facebook Page.
I don't usually my Instagram posts. Only two Instagram posts a month.
K: When did you start developing your own business with social media?
M: I started developing my own business with social media from 2012.
K: Did you have a full-time job when you started to self-branding yourself online to
develop your own business?
M: No, I didn't have a full-time job. I was a part-time who teaches people to draw.
K: Why do you want to start developing your own business more than to work under someone else?
M: Because I want to fight for my own dream not someone else dream.
K: What guides you to start your own business through social media self-branding?
M: Facebook has developed a system called Facebook Page, and I realize that this is an
opportunity to use social media to develop a personal career.
K: How did you start branding yourself on social media to develop your own business?
M: I started to develop my personal affairs by facebook page. When I created a
facebook page, I would recommend it to all my friends. Facebook let me have the
opportunity to meet more partners through the facebook page. When I need more
help in development matters, i will update my facebook status and tell everyone
about my work. If my friends or friends of my friends are interested, they will take
the initiative to leave a message under my facebook status or private message to
me.
K: When you develop your business on social media through the self-branding, what
problems have you encountered?
M: The biggest difficulty is that when the business expands, there is not enough
manpower to operate my other company.
K: When people think of self-branding, they always feel that it is
related to the personal brand. Do you think they are the same things and why?
M: I think the personal brand is a brand of using your name as a brand name to sell
your products. You will be famous as you put your name on the product package.
Self-branding is more like selling, promo yourself impression to people.
K: Do you think you are a self-brand or a personal brand?
M: I think i am a self-brand since people looking for my cooperation is based on my
impression. People’s impression of me is that creativity is the business-minded
man.
K: What advice do you have for those who want to self-brand on social media so that
they can develop their own business?
M: The most important thing is that you have to know what your self-branding
purpose is. And find out what kind of fans do you want to have. Fan support is often
beneficial to sustain your self-branding. The most important thing is not to give up
when you have started as self-branding is an ongoing job.
Keirna = K Young Man = M
Interview 02
Young Women Age: 27
Self-employed
Her business includes:
Brand agent, procurement and Online store
K: How many social media platforms do you use?
W: Two.
K: Which social media platforms do you use?
W: Facebook and Instagram.
K: Do you have a dual account on each social media platform?
W: I own one account on each social media platform as it easy to manage.
K: How long have you owned these social media accounts?
W: Facebook I own almost eight years and Instagram I create for four years.
K: How often do you update posts on social media?
W: Almost daily.
K: When did you start developing your own business with social media?
W: Ten years ago.
K: Did you have a full-time job when you started to self-branding yourself online to
develop your own business?
W: Yes, I was a full-time makeup artist. Then when I started my business, I became a
part-time makeup artist.
K: Why do you want to start developing your own business more than to work under
someone else?
W: As develop my own business is more satisfied comparable than work for someone.
K: What guides you to start your own business through social media self-branding?
W: Before social media started, I thought the Internet was a potential space for
development. People can choose to buy what they like on the web platform. Five
years ago, online shopping is actually very popular.
K: How did you start branding yourself on social media to develop your own business?
W: I originally operated an online store for selling makeup products. Now mainly use
social media to promote the function of the product. When I use a product, I will
post some of my feelings about this product on the Facebook and Instagram.
K: When you develop your business on social media through the self-branding, what
problems have you encountered?
W: In the beginning, I didn't know how to self-brand to promote agent products. Later,
I referred to other marketing methods to promote agent products online. Promote
products in a personal experience.
K: When people think of self-branding, they always feel that it is related to the personal brand. Do you think they are the same things and why?
W: I don't think they are the same things. A personal brand is packaged your product
with your name for selling. Use the name as the personal brand as you are the
original creator of the product. Self-branding is not about selling the product. Self-
branding is about promo your self-concept and manages your personal impression.
K: Do you think you are a self-brand or a personal brand?
W: I think I am as you see I did not participate in the production of the product. I am
not the original creator of the brand which means I don't own the personal brand. I
am just acting as a sales agent.
K: What advice do you have for those who want to self-brand on social media so that they can develop their own business?
W: I think you must continue to develop your business after you started and don't give
up.
Keirna = K Young Woman = W
Academic Resources
01
Self-Branding on Social Media: An Analysis of Style Bloggers on Instagram.
Rendan Liu*. Ayoung Suh (2017).
Procedia Computer Science.
Volume 124. Pages 12-20 open access
This academic article focuses on women being empowered by the new digital media environment to market themselves through self-branding online. The academic article analyzed 243 posts from the top 10 style blog Instagram accounts based on the system coding scheme.
The researcher of this academic article tries to explore the feasibility of women's branding on social media networks through analytical data.
02
Consumer social network brand identification and personal branding.
How do social network users choose among brand sites?
Wioleta Kucharska. (2017).
Cogent Business & Management Marketing Research Article. 4: 1315879
The focus of this research article is to realize better how users choose among social networking sites as an act of brand identification.
This research article proposes a new model in which the recognition driver structure of a social networking brand website will vary depending on the customer brand identity in the real and the virtual world. The model presented reveals that the self-brand is in the brand recognition plan are works well. It is critical to brand value creation in social networks.
Finding
According to academic article 02, self-branding in social media has become a new and meaningful element of virtual space, operating in a social, cultural and economic context. Managers need to consider valuable content when developing social network content strategies to help users create their own personal brands.
From a practical point of view, just like building a brand value of business value on Facebook, it is necessary to publish content that focuses on users and their self-presentation, not brands and products.
To be more effective, the author of the academic article 02 proposes that commercial brands should not be the subject of content presented on their own fan pages and should not be the focus of their attention.
The main determinant is "user self-expression", which determines their identity with the brand in social networks, with the goal of building a user's personal brand. It means that commercial brands can also great for creating self-branding in social networks. This method of changes the position of you and your business in the market through the self-branding.
According to academic article 01, Instagram is a rapidly growing visual self-branding tool; it has become the most popular and largest photo-sharing social media platform in the world, with 600 million monthly active users. As the Internet becomes more and more a visual medium, more and more people use images to express themselves. The author believes that Instagram is a platform suitable for reviewing individual users' self-branding behavior.
However, during my interview, I found that my interviewees were less likely to use Instagram. They most often self-branded on Facebook Page. This is based on the fact that they expect others not only to view images but to read their detail content. The detailed content most related their business.
Conclusion
In recent years, due to the development of various self-operated platforms online, independent brand research has flourished.
And the self-branding literature includes a variety of disciplines, including business, marketing, media and communication, and computer science. The term self-branding was originally coined by Tom Peter in his article "Being Your Brand." He believes that the main promise of self-branding is that everyone has the ability to be their own brand, and academically, self-branding is primarily seen as a set of practices, ways of thinking and/or ways. Reinventing itself as a saleable commodity Attract attention and gain cultural and monetary value through social media platforms.
This implies that self-branding practices provide great autonomy for social media users.
Autonomy stems from dependence on neoliberalism and capitalism, and the theme of neoliberal capitalism is based on its own efforts. People use their autonomy and freedom of choice to meaningfully present their self-brand. The neoliberal ideology of individualism and self-discipline encourages the development of computational self-branding strategies.
When we consider self-branding to develop a personal career, we must consider social media strategies that appeal to a broad audience and gain a reputation. Creating a personal page can keep a distance between the individual and the public.
Creating attractive post content on a personal page can add realism by posting photos of family or friends from time to time, which makes the viewers of the page more focused on the constituent elements. In addition, you can increase your online exposure by using hashtags and the reputation of celebrities, and maintain the unity of your personal brand.
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Building a friendly relationship with a particular brand can achieve leverage and promote the brand's self. It is the first important step to developing your own business and career success when someone provides a chance based on your self-branding online display.​​
References :
Anonymous. (n.d). Personal Branding. WiKi. retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_branding
Anonymous. (n.d). Self-branding. WiKi. retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-brand
Rendan Liu*. Ayoung Suh (2017). Self-Branding on Social Media: An Analysis of Style Bloggers on Instagram.
Procedia Computer Science. Volume 124. Pages 12-20 open access. retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050917328922
Wioleta Kucharska. (2017). Consumer social network brand identification and personal branding. How do social network users choose among brand sites?. Cogent Business & Management Marketing Research Article. 4: 1315879. retrieved from