IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jobman/v31y2024i1d10.1057_s41262-023-00332-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leaders' personal branding and communication on professional social media platforms: motivations, processes, and outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Dominyka Venciute

    (ISM University of Management and Economics)

  • Cen April Yue

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Patrick D. Thelen

Abstract

Personal branding is a proactive, planned, and strategic process one makes to communicate their unique value. Individuals engage in personal branding activities to manage their image and reputation that will help them stand out. With the development of digital technologies and platforms, individuals have increasingly taken their branding activities online. Although personal branding has been studied in various contexts, there is a lack of investigation into why and how organisational leaders develop their personal brands and the relationship between leaders’ branding activities and organisational outcomes. Executive leaders of organisations not only represent themselves but also their organisations in personal branding communications. Thus, effective personal branding is beneficial to both the executive and the organisation. The current study aimed to explore the factors that drive executive leaders’ personal branding efforts on professional social media platforms, specifically, LinkedIn. We also elaborated on strategies and tactics that leaders use to build their personal brands as well as different organisation-related outcomes from leaders’ personal branding efforts. Through 25 in-depth interviews with senior organisational leaders in Lithuania, we were able to obtain insights related to the personal and business motivations behind leaders’ personal branding activities, the process of personal branding, and benefits for organisations.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominyka Venciute & Cen April Yue & Patrick D. Thelen, 2024. "Leaders' personal branding and communication on professional social media platforms: motivations, processes, and outcomes," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 31(1), pages 38-57, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:31:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41262-023-00332-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s41262-023-00332-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41262-023-00332-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41262-023-00332-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buckley, Peter J. & Chapman, Malcolm, 1996. "Theory and method in international business research," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 233-245, June.
    2. Erz, Antonia & Heeris Christensen, Anna-Bertha, 2018. "Transforming Consumers Into Brands: Tracing Transformation Processes of the Practice of Blogging," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 69-82.
    3. Guillaume Dumont & Mart Ots, 2020. "Social dynamics and stakeholder relationships in personal branding," Post-Print hal-02312404, HAL.
    4. Andrew N. Smith & Eileen Fischer, 2021. "Pay attention, please! Person brand building in organized online attention economies," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 258-279, March.
    5. Andrea N. Geurin-Eagleman & Lauren M. Burch, 2016. "Communicating via photographs: A gendered analysis of Olympic athletes’ visual self-presentation on Instagram," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 133-145, April.
    6. Labrecque, Lauren I. & Markos, Ereni & Milne, George R., 2011. "Online Personal Branding: Processes, Challenges, and Implications," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 37-50.
    7. Rangarajan, Deva & Gelb, Betsy D. & Vandaveer, Amy, 2017. "Strategic personal branding—And how it pays off," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 657-666.
    8. Dumont, Guillaume & Ots, Mart, 2020. "Social dynamics and stakeholder relationships in personal branding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 118-128.
    9. Manel Khedher, 2019. "Conceptualizing and researching personal branding effects on the employability," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(2), pages 99-109, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agnieszka Walczak-Skałecka, 2023. "From Start-Up Capital to Diversification and Sustainability of Personal Branding Activities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Youcheng Chen & Yuting Lin & Xinwei Su & Pengwei Chen & Huiqi Song, 2024. "Multiple Effects of Agricultural Cultural Heritage Identity on Residents’ Value Co-Creation—A Host–Guest Interaction Perspective on Tea Culture Tourism in China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Guillaume Dumont & Mart Ots, 2020. "Social dynamics and stakeholder relationships in personal branding," Post-Print hal-02312404, HAL.
    4. Stefan Scheidt & Raymond Loohuis & Jörg Henseler, 2024. "Top Managers’ Personal Branding in a Corporate World: Strategizing and Overcoming Dualities Along the Career Path," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(4), pages 249-270, November.
    5. Wei, Zihan & Zhang, Mingli & Qiao, Tong, 2022. "Effect of personal branding stereotypes on user engagement on short-video platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. Li Chen & Yajie Yan & Andrew N. Smith, 2023. "What drives digital engagement with sponsored videos? An investigation of video influencers’ authenticity management strategies," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 198-221, January.
    7. Dumont, Guillaume & Ots, Mart, 2020. "Social dynamics and stakeholder relationships in personal branding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 118-128.
    8. Smith, Andrew N. & Fischer, Eileen & Yongjian, Chen, 2012. "How Does Brand-related User-generated Content Differ across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter?," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 102-113.
    9. Coviello, Nicole E. & Jones, Marian V., 2004. "Methodological issues in international entrepreneurship research," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 485-508, July.
    10. SZIKSZAI-NÉMETH Ketrin, 2020. "Personal Branding In Team Sports Marketing," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1(1), pages 416-424, July.
    11. Zhaohua Deng & Guorui Fan & Zihao Deng & Bin Wang, 2024. "Why Doctors Participate in Teams of Online Health Communities? A Social Identity and Brand Resource Perspective," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1915-1941, October.
    12. Kunal Swani & Lauren I. Labrecque, 2020. "Like, Comment, or Share? Self-presentation vs. brand relationships as drivers of social media engagement choices," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 279-298, September.
    13. Andrew N. Smith & Eileen Fischer, 2021. "Pay attention, please! Person brand building in organized online attention economies," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 258-279, March.
    14. Kübra Mert, 2020. "Türk Yazınında Uluslararası İşletmecilik: 1990-2019 Yıllarına Dair Bir İçerik Analizi," Istanbul Management Journal, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 0(89), pages 97-132, December.
    15. Pera, Rebecca & Viglia, Giampaolo & Furlan, Roberto, 2016. "Who Am I? How Compelling Self-storytelling Builds Digital Personal Reputation," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 44-55.
    16. Anna Gorska & Grzegorz Mazurek, 2021. "The effect of the CEO media coverage on corporate brand equity: evidence from Poland," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 12(2), pages 499-523, June.
    17. David S. A. Guttormsen & Fiona Moore, 2023. "‘Thinking About How We Think’: Using Bourdieu’s Epistemic Reflexivity to Reduce Bias in International Business Research," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 531-559, August.
    18. Yunhwan Kim, 2023. "Exploring Organizational Self-(re)presentations on Visual Social Media: Computational Analysis of Startups’ Instagram Photos Based on Unsupervised Learning," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    19. Shaun M. Powell, 2019. "Journal of Brand Management: year end review 2019," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(6), pages 615-620, November.
    20. Piazza, Mariangela & Mazzola, Erica & Perrone, Giovanni, 2022. "How can I signal my quality to emerge from the crowd? A study in the crowdsourcing context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:31:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41262-023-00332-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.