Journal of International Business Research and Marketing Volume 3, Issue 1, 2017 journal homepage: www.researchleap.com Reinventing Personal Branding Building a Personal Brand through Content on YouTube Veronika Tarnovskaya PhD, Associate Professor Lund School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden ABSTRACT 2017 Research Leap/Inovatus Services Ltd. The study explores the phenomenon of personal branding on social media and in particular, All rights reserved. examines how YouTubers create their personal brands online. The explorative and inductive approach has involved qualitative content analysis of a total of 72 videos produced by four DOI: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.31.3005 successful YouTubers during several years of their social media presence. The findings reveal URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.18775/jibrm.1849- three major stages of the personal branding process, which are not sequential, but rather, were 8558.2015.31.3005 found to run in parallel over time: loyalty to personal brand profile, promotion of multiple social media accounts and addressing the audience and encouraging co-creation. The personal Keywords: brand content is found to comprise such elements as the personality of the YouTuber, typical Personal brand, Famous personalities, topics, the tone of voice, environment (setting) as well as product brands. Among its key Consumers’ perceptions features are clarity, consistency, and authenticity, resembling those of a product/service brand. The study proves the applicability of classical principles of product branding and typology of consumer-brand relationships as well as brand meaning co-creation to the personal branding phenomenon, while at the same time highlighting the complex nature of this phenomenon as being "born global", purposeful and highly interactive. Thus, personal branding might be seen as a re-invention of the traditional branding but on a completely different level of interaction and visibility. Among managerial recommendations is the need for managers to closely monitor and analyze what is being said about their brands by the famous personalities on-line as these individuals are capable to influence the consumers' perceptions about brands and companies. 1. Introduction website. According to Fortunelords (2017, n.p.), more than 400 hours of The globalized world we live in today has created pressures such as videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute and interestingly, some of fiercer competition in most aspects of our daily lives, which require the most popular YouTube channels are not maintained by corporate people to ‘stand out' from the crowd (Brooks & Anumudu, 2016; brands or celebrities, but by ‘ordinary people' online. YouTube allows its Shepherd, 2005). Hence, the idea of differentiating ourselves is becoming users, also known as YouTubers, to promote their personal brand via their a more common notion. As a response to these pressures, personal channels, which include the YouTuber's name, avatar, and videos. All branding has taken hold among professionals. Most of the personal these features make YouTube a relevant platform for self-presentation branding literature suggests that branding yourself is the key to personal (Pace, 2008). and professional success (Gehl, 2011; Khedher 2013; Gandini, 2016; Harris & Rae, 2011; Schwabel, 2011; Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005). The literature on personal branding on social media draws on both the Moreover, the argument that "if you don't brand yourself, others will" pre-social media studies by Peters (1997), arguing that every person has (Kaputa, 2003, cited in Shepherd, 2005, p. 590) seems to have led to the the possibility to be a marketer for himself/herself and post-social media increased interest in personal branding that we have seen over the past authors, such as Shepherd (2005) and Arruda (2005), contending that two decades. personal branding is similar to product/service branding. As far as the studies in the social media context are concerned, the focus is on Personal branding has traditionally been the domain of celebrities, conceptualizing the branding process (Khedher, 2015) and identifying politicians or professionals who strive to succeed in their careers the motivations for engaging in personal branding (Gandini, 2016, Lair et (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011). However, with the introduction of al, 2205; Nolan, 2015). Moreover, in most studies, the context is the Web 2.0 and the concurrent rise of social media, personal branding has professional domain. Hence, the major focus is on professionals evolved into a phenomenon not exclusive to professionals and celebrities. deliberately using social media to achieve successful careers. Social media has enabled personal branding to take a new form, in which people brand themselves through the content that they share on their However, the rise of social media has made it possible for virtually personalized profiles. One platform on which personal branding is anyone with internet access to brand oneself. In fact, most famous especially evident is YouTube - the currently leading video sharing YouTubers have risen to popularity for other purposes than career 29 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, vol. 3, issue 1, pp. 29-35, November 2017 30 Journal of International Business Research and Marketing advancement and their material success is an outcome, rather than the of the branded individual to build up relationships with the audience initial goal of their self-exposure on social media. Moreover, many of (Rampersad, 2008; Gandini, 2016). For this reason, personal branding them are neither unique nor particularly creative in the topics they also involves the person's reputation, i.e. her/his personal brand image highlight in their videos. There is clearly a need to increase our (Holloway, 2013, Gander, 2014). understanding of the type of content they are creating and sharing with their followers and the actual process of content creation. What can we Furthermore, according to Arruda (2009), there are three key qualities of learn from these “ordinary” people who have built themselves into a strong brand, whether it is personal or corporate: clarity, consistency, successful personal brands about the “winning content formula”? The and constancy. Arruda (2009, p. 410) illustrates this point by referring to purpose of this paper is to identify the key features of the "branded" perhaps one of the most successful personal branded persons to this date: content and the process of content creation that allows for "ordinary" "One of the most successful, visible, and constant personal brands, both people to be successful on social media. The focus is on YouTubers and commercially and personally, is Oprah Winfrey. With her weekly the process of creating the "branded" content and succeeding with it television show, book club, magazine, numerous media appearances, and online. casual appearances in grocery stores and restaurants, Oprah is consistently visible and has maintained an incredibly strong brand over a 2. Literature Review very long career." Additionally, authenticity is considered an essential Since the beginning of the 1990s, personal branding has primarily been aspect of personal branding (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011, the domain of self-help consultants, experts and practitioners (Peters, Rampersad, 2008; Arruda, 2009; Montoya, 2005). To summarise, it 1997; Shepherd, 2005; Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005; Chen, 2013), would appear that in incorporating all elements of personal branding and although the original idea of marketing people had already appeared in communicating them to the audience, this means that an individual 1969 (Kotler and Levy, 1969). While much research has been undertaken manages her/his personal brand strategically (Rampersad, 2008). on the phenomenon of branding on social media (Barware & Meehan, 2010; Holt, 2016; Gensler et al. 2013; Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012), it is Social media has enabled individuals to create personal profiles on only recently that branding from a personal perspective has sparked an various sites, through which they can construct and present themselves to interest among academics. broad audiences (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011; Holt, 2016). According to Labrecque, Markos and Milne (2011), this can then be Most practitioners argue that branding of humans is similar to the understood as a way for individuals to build their personal brand branding of products and services, which is also supported by academic identities. Indeed, they suggest that in an online context, personal brand research viewing this phenomenon through the prism of marketing theory identity relies on self-presentation as identities are created in computer- (e.g. Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011, Shepherd, 2005). Accordingly, mediated environments using social networking profiles, blogs, and Arruda (2005) conceptualises personal branding as a three-stage process: personal Web pages." For instance, politicians, celebrities, professionals "extract, express and exude", which involves: i) exploring the unique on LinkedIn and even teenagers on YouTube are making a great effort to value or key differentiation the person has; ii) developing a strategy to stand out by tailoring their social media accounts so that their voices are communicate the unique value, and iii) implementing a strategy for heard among various audiences. Thus, it is clear that the social online making the personal brand visible to the outside world. forums support the concurrent growing