Just a decade or two ago, personal branding used to be a privilege of celebrities, actors and actresses, politicians, and well-known business leaders. Their personal brands were built and maintained mainly through mass media and managed by PR or other agencies. (Shepherd, 2005.) Nowadays, personal branding is accessible almost for everyone thanks to Internet and especially to social media (Shepherd, 2005; Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011; Van Dijck, 2013). Besides being accessible, it seems that individuals are even encouraged to brand themselves. For example, when one is looking for a job he or she might be advised to have a website, to write a blog, to have profiles on relevant social networking sites, and to productize his or her know-how and expertise (Marwick, 2010; Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011). That is, jobseekers are encouraged to brand themselves in order to get the attention of possible employers (Arruda, 2002; Shepherd, 2005; Merdin, 2011). Moreover, it has been suggested that personal branding has become intentional and acceptable way to present oneself for example on online environments (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011; Van Dijck, 2013).
Personal branding could have been linked to the sciences of business and marketing or to social sciences. However, in the present research the topic will be approached from a perspective where personal branding is linked to a larger alteration that consists of technological changes, evolution of generations, self and identity disclosure tactics on online environments, and finally, to communicational revolution. That is, in the present research personal branding is seen as a part of a wider cultural, societal, and attitudinal change as for example Lair, Sullivan and Cheney (2005, 314) also suggested in their research. In this chapter, which acts as an introduction, the premises of this research will be explained briefly and the research problem will be presented.
During the past decades, our society has faced a revolution that has affected the very basic elements of the social system and the habits and values of individuals. This revolution is called as the information
technology revolution (see e.g. Castells, 2010; Van Dijk, 2012) and the outcome of it is named as an information society or as a network society (Castells, 2010). The catalyst of this revolution was an invention, whose effects are so wide that they are almost impossible to list – the Internet.
However, it is hard to argue, which one is the cause and which one the effect. As Castells (2010, 5) has expressed: “technology is society, and society cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools”. Network society and Internet have changed, replaced and created completely new functions in many dimensions of society. Two of these functions are particularly essential for this research: work and communication.
It has been stated that the information technology revolution has affected the work and employment in many ways. Not only are there completely new industries and professions, but also the values of employees and the ways they work have changed. (Lair, Sullivan &
Cheney, 2005; Castells, 2010.) One noteworthy difference lies in the entrepreneurial attitude of workers, also known as entrepreneurialism (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005; Marwick, 2010; Castells, 2010). It encourages employees to be independent professionals and to be responsible for their own success (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005).
Moreover, some of the young professionals are not willing to commit to companies. They rather work for themselves (although if working in a company) and improve their own skills. Furthermore, they are continuously on standby and ready to seize a better, nicer or more interesting employment opportunity. (Marvin, 2005; Tapscott, 2009.) Entrepreneurialism is seen as a central factor in the spread of personal branding (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005). But also has personal branding enabled the rise of the entrepreneurial attitude.
The second theme is communication – more specifically the second communication revolution (Van Dijk, 2012). The second communication revolution has enabled such concepts as digitization, computer-mediated communication and wireless networks to name a few (Castells, 2011; Van Dijk, 2012). In addition to the technological changes and innovations, the second communication revolution has influenced also on people and their behavior. Internet has enabled completely new and interactive ways to communicate and to be in touch with other people, groups and companies.
Furthermore, the ways how people communicate about themselves and disclose their self-views and identities have altered (Turkle, 1999; Castells, 2010; Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin, 2008). Castells (2011) presented a new form of communication called mass self-communication that takes place between an individual and big, sometimes even global audiences. The reason why mass self-communication has not occurred earlier and is a product of this current time resides in technology. Digital media, Internet and social media have enabled the development of the new form of communication. (Van Dijk 2012.) Therefore, the importance of Internet,
web 2.0, social media and social networking sites (SNSs) and other interactive applications should not be dismissed. Apart from enabling mass self-communication, social media is one of the main channels for personal branding (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011).
Figure 1. The background influencers of personal branding
These revolutions, evolutions and new technologies have made a phenomenon called personal branding possible in the scale it is known today. In Finland, personal branding started to become the topic of discussion at the end of the 2000s (see e.g. Sounio, 2010). At that time, first books about the topic were published, the pioneers of business, marketing and communication started to tweet, blog and discuss about it. In few years, personal branding started to gain more and more popularity and it has become a very trendy topic. Over the last couple of years, many business bloggers, thought leaders, gurus from various of fields and even companies have written about personal branding (Tolvanen, 2014; Sjöman, 2015; Sirkiä, 2015), given tips how to build a successful personal brand (Eilakaisla; Monster Klubi, 2014) or discussed about how they find the whole concept hideous (Tolvanen, 2013). In addition, news about personal branding has been written (Helsingin Sanomat, 2014; Kauppalehti, 2014;
Yle, 2014; Yle, 2015), presentations about the topic are given, and some companies even serve personal branding as a service (see e.g. Piriste Oy;
Petra Sippola Consulting Oy). Personal branding has also gotten the attention of academic world since some researches and articles about personal branding have been published also in Finland (see e.g. Iso-Berg, 2015). Based on the somewhat wide visibility personal branding has gained both internationally and locally in Finland, it could be assumed that quite many people are aware of personal branding – either they are practicing it or just being aware of the concept.
From these premises, the aim of this research is to explore the motives behind personal branding and the ways in which social media
channels are used in online personal branding. Furthermore, the general attitudes towards personal branding will be clarified. The target population of this research is communication students. Based on the aforementioned aims, the research problem of this research is: Why communication students brand themselves and how do they perceive personal branding in general. Motives were chosen to be the objective of this research, since there are not many studies that would clarify the motives behind personal branding.
The structure of this research is as follows: First, the conditions where personal branding has become this popular and mainstream will be presented (Chapter 2). This includes discussion about the changes in the society (Chapter 2.1), work (Chapter 2.1.1) and communication (Chapter 2.1.2). In chapter 2.2, the development of the Internet will be shortly described through the three layers of the Internet, web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0 (Chapter 2.2.1). In chapter 2.2.2 the important channels for personal branding, social media and SNSs, will be treated. Thereafter, it will be discussed about individual’s role in the network society (Chapter 3). This part of the theory will begin with a discussion about the two youngest generations, Generation Y and Generation Z (Chapters 3.1, 3.1.1, and 3.1.2), and then move on to the formation of self and identity in online environments (Chapters 3.2, 3.2.1, and 3.2.3). Finally, the main theme, personal branding, will be treated (Chapter 3.3). After the theory part, the hypothesis as well as the research questions will be presented in chapter 4.1. Moreover, the research method (Chapter 4.2), data collection (Chapter 4.3) and data analysis (Chapter 4.4) will be treated. That is followed by the presentation of the results of the research (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 compiles to whole research. First, the research questions will be answered and the results compared to previous studies (Chapter 6.1). Thereafter, the reliability and validity of the research are evaluated (Chapter 6.2) and the suggestions for further research given (Chapter 6.3).