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Online Personal Branding: Processes, Challenges, and Implications

Lauren I. Labrecque, a Ereni Markos b & George R. Milne c,,1

aNorthern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USAb Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT, USA

c University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

Available online 3 December 2010

Abstract

This research examines how people manage online personal brands in a Web 2.0 context. Using a novel mixed-method approach and

consenting participants, the authors generated digital brand audits of 12 people and asked undergraduate students and a human resources

professional to judge their profiles (made anonymous), both qualitatively and quantitatively. After comparing these evaluations with participants'

own judgments of their online profiles, the authors conducted long interviews to understand how people manage online profiles and feel about

others' judgment of the content they post. According to these results, people engage in personal branding, though their efforts are often

misdirected or insufficient. They consider personal online branding challenging, especially, during life changes or when managing multiple

audiences.

2010 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Personal branding; Social media; Web 2.0

Information found online provides a digital footprint that

implicitly brands people (Lampel and Bhalla 2007; Madden et

al. 2007). Some information is out of the person's control (e.g.,

what others write about him or her), but much of it is

purposefully crafted and posted. The business world is

beginning to recognize the importance of controlling personal

brands and offering strategic advice about how to project a

desired personal brand identity through the use of different

social media (e.g., Safko and Brake 2009; Schwabel 2009).

New applications enable people to manage their personal brand,

fine-tune their profiles, and share their ideas through blogs,

micro posts, and online discussions. Yet in rapidly changing

online environments, many people remain neither aware of the

scope of information available online nor fully cognizant of the

long-run impact it may have on their reputations (Solove 2007).

Extant literature examines how companies can use the

Internet to build their brands (Holland and Baker 2001;

Thorbjrnsen et al. 2002); other research notes consumer

motivations for using the Internet (Ambady, Hallahan, and

Rosenthal 1996; Cotte et al. 2006; Miceli et al., 2007; Schau and

Gilly 2003). Yet the phenomenon of branding online has not

been examined from a personal perspective, despite its growing

importance. We address this research gap by investigating the

following questions:

1. What is the process that people use, explicitly or implicitly,

to brand themselves digitally?

2. What are the challenges that people face in attempting to

create a personal brand, especially when considering market

feedback?

This investigation also considers personal branding deci-

sions online in light of their accompanying image concerns. We

determine how people react to judgments of their online

identities, which they have crafted to reach their personal

branding goals through specific actions and information

disclosure choices. Unlike previous studies of online expression

on personal Web sites (e.g.,Schau and Gilly 2003; Turkle 1995;

Wynn and Katz 1997), we observe both the user (person posting

content) and the viewer (person evaluating the information)

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Journal of Interactive Marketing 25 (2011) 37 50www.elsevier.com/locate/intmar

Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected](L.I. Labrecque),

[email protected](E. Markos),[email protected]

(G.R. Milne).1 The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally.

1094-9968/$ - see front matter 2010 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2010.09.002


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sides of a dyad in a Web 2.0 setting. Furthermore, we examine

not just judgments but also present these evaluations to the

users, creating a feedback loop in order to assess the

effectiveness of their personal branding strategies. In doing

so, we extend the research on self-expression on the Web and

research into how people judge the effectiveness of their public

impressions and the effects of these assessments on theirsubsequent behavior (seeDePaulo et al. 1987).

We begin by providing a theoretical and contextual

background for this study, including motivations for creating

an online presence, the Web 2.0 environment, and the role of

personal branding. After we outline our methodology, we

discuss the results within the structure of a branding framework

and conclude with limitations and further research directions.

Theoretical and Contextual Background

Motivations for Creating an Online Presence

Pioneering research on Internet use suggests that online

experiences such as chatting, gaming, and engaging in virtual

worlds allow people free and open ways to explore parts of the

self that are difficult or nearly impossible to explore in face-to-

face communications. Digital spaces allow increased open

communication through anonymity and the eradication of real

world boundaries, such as appearance (e.g., race, gender),

physical ability, and socioeconomic status, which may inhibit

identity (Turkle 1995; Wynn and Katz 1997). This space provides

a platform for identity construction where different facets of the

self, or multiple selves, may be explored and expressedas users

become engaged, these identities may become just as real andimportant as the roles played in the physical world (Nguyen and

Alexander 1996; Turkle 1995; Wynn and Katz 1997).

As technological advances fueled Internet growth, the

personal Web site emerged as an important platform for self-

expression and self-presentation, as well as a means to learn

more about people (Vazire and Gosling 2004). Self-presenta-

tion, a way for an individual to convey information to others

(Goffman 1959), is the mechanism that allows a person to create

and maintain her brand identity. This social performance can be

compared to a theatre where within each scene of life, the

central actor chooses the appropriate wardrobe, props, and

backdrops to project a desired identity to an audience throughcomplex self-negotiations, making adjustments in an effort to

maintain a consistent identity (Goffman 1959). Elements within

personal Web pages and social networking profiles such as

personal information, photographs, design, and layout choices

are akin to the wardrobe and props of the theatrical metaphor.

Consumers use brands, institutions, and other commercial

enterprises as vehicles to establish and communicate aspects of

their identity to others through these online visual collages

(Schau and Gilly 2003, p. 386). Oftentimes social motives are

the impetus for their creation, as people use sites as a

communication tool to reach friends and strangers alike

(Schau and Gilly 2003), thus satisfying needs for affiliation

and social connectedness (Zinkhan et al. 1999).

However, social goals are not the only major reasons for

building personal Web sites-for some, the primary motivation is

not centered on being seen by others, but for self-realization

(Hemetsberger 2005). Other non-social motives include

satisfying a need for power through skill development and

mastery of technology and environment (Zinkhan et al. 1999),

and as a stimulating way to pass time and provide entertainment(Papacharissi 2002; Zinkhan et al. 1999). Still, others are driven

by advocacy and create spaces centered on information

regarding a favorite band, activity, or social cause, as opposed

to oneself (Schau and Gilly 2003).

Web 2.0

Sophisticated technology, Web 2.0 applications, and accessible

personal information offer new challenges for controlling online

personal presence. Compared with the Web 1.0 environment,

Internet usage has grown increasingly complex; instead of just

posting content about themselves users also access third-party sitessuch as Facebook as platforms for social networking and digital

branding. People are no longer in complete control of content,

because parts of profiles can be exposed to known friends, as well

as members of the general public, which gives others the power to

add content, often without the profile owner's explicit permission.

When the information appears online, it becomes both permanent

and widely accessible, such that the ownership of online

information is ambiguous and difficult to control (Stelter 2009).

Moreover, norms for posting information and interacting on the

Web are changing, causing conflict across users' different roles

(Kang 2010). New tools and norms add to the complexity of the

environment and concerns regarding personal information (Peltier,

Milne, and Phelps 2009; Phelps, D'Souza, and Nowak 2001).Despite these concerns, the creation of online personal Web

sites and social media profiles have flourished as the Web 2.0

environment offers tools that simplify these processes and

encourages user generated content. No longer does a person

need to be familiar with complex coding languages or other

technicalities to build Web sites, because virtually anyone can

upload text, pictures, and video instantly to a site from a

personal computer or mobile phone. With technological barriers

crumbling and its increasing ubiquity, the Web has become the

perfect platform for personal branding.

The Role of Personal Branding

The concept of personal branding, first popularized by Tom

Peters (1997) in his article The Brand Called You, has

become increasingly important in the digital age. Once

considered a tactic only for celebrities (Rein, Kotler, and

Shields 2006) and leaders in business and politics, online tools

have allowed personal branding to become an important

marketing task for everyday people (Shepherd 2005). The

premise for personal branding is that everyone has the power to

be their own brand and a person's main job is to be their own

marketer (Peters 1997). This is surrounded by the fear that if

you do not manage your own brand, the power is given to

someone else and chances are that their brand description

38 L.I. Labrecque et al. / Journal of Interactive Marketing 25 (2011) 3750


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won't be what you have in mind (Kaputa 2005, p. 8). The

concept of personal branding shares roots with personal selling

since oftentimes certain personality traits lead to sales success.

Yet, in personal branding, there is no employer attachment, but

rather an individual is selling herself rather than a company

related brand (Shepherd 2005). In the age of Web 2.0, self-

branding tactics involve creating and maintaining social andnetworking profiles, personal Web sites, and blogs, as well as

using search engine optimization techniques to encourage

access to one's information.

Similar to product branding, personal branding entails

capturing and promoting an individual's strengths and unique-

ness to a target audience (Kaputa 2005; Schwabel 2009;

Shepherd 2005). While gaining employment is oftentimes a

goal of personal branding, it is not exclusive; people self-brand

for many social reasons including dating, establishing friend-

ships, or simply for self-expression (Shepherd 2005). Many

personal brand advocates see the process as akin to product

branding (Kaputa 2005; Schwabel 2009), which begins bydefining a brand identity and then actively communicating it to

the marketplace through brand positioning. However, personal

branding entails some unique challenges, which mainly stem

from complexities inherent in the online environment.

One key difference lies in the challenge of segmentation for

personal branding. While the digital age promotes the freedom to

explore multiple selves (Turkle 1995), advocates of personal

branding recommend that a personal branding message be clear

and consistent, creating an air of authenticity. Consequently,

difficulties may arise if a person wishes to create multiple brands

fordifferent audiences. Furthermore, it becomes essentialto suppress

stories that dilute the branding message in order to avoid branding

failures (Shepherd 2005). Failures may also become clear during afirst face-to-face meeting if a person does not match the other's

expectations (Frost et al. 2008).

Method

A fully integrated mixed methods research strategy and an

interpretive orientation (Bahl and Milne 2006) was used to

inductively investigate participants' online and branding behaviors

in depth. A mixed method design was employed that combined the

following: (1) creating digital brand audits of 12 participants; (2)

surveying of college students to quantitatively and qualitatively

evaluate the digital brand audits; (3) obtaining qualitative writtenassessment of digital audit profiles by an HR professional; (4)

conducting in-depth interviews with 12 participants to learn about

their online and personal branding behavior, their reactions to their

brand audits and judgments by others, and any subsequent changes

in their behavior. Prior to the first stage, we obtained written

permission from participants to conduct the research. Details on the

multiple stages are provided next.

Participants

The purposive sample of 12 participants reflects gender and

age (1825 and 2640 years) criteria. These young adults are

likely to be undergoing lifestyle and career transitions, and we

aimed for an equal representation of men and women. In

conducting the research, we limited our sample to 12, since we

ascertained that more participants would add marginal

explanation. First we tapped our social networks to find people

who would trust us to investigate their digital profiles. We

screened the uniqueness of their names, to ensure our online

searches would produce relevant information. Specifically,using whitepages.com, we identified the number of persons

with the same name. None of the participants had a name that

they shared with more than 12 people in the United States

(sample average=1.67). Participants received a $20 Amazon

gift certificate for their participation. We present the summary

profiles of the six men and six women who participated in

Table 1.

Conducting Digital Brand Audits

With the information provided by each participant (name,

physical address, and e-mail addresses), two authors (withextensive online experience) conducted online searches via four

search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Live, and Dogpile (a

meta-search engine that compiles results from other search

engines). We also searched MySpace and Facebook pages. If a

social networking site profile was not open, we obtained

permission to access the participants' pages; at the time of the

study, many avenues offered unauthorized or reluctant access to

social network profiles, including third-party applications, friend

of a friend tools, or employers finding ways to gain access. To

further refine our online searches, we used information obtained

from our initial searches, including screen names, affiliations,

activities, and other identifying characteristics.

With this information, we generated a digital brand audit foreach participant. For the cover page, we codified summary

information from the search, including the number of search

results, Facebook and MySpace activity (e.g., number of

friends, posts, pictures), and whether the person owned his or

her domain name or participated in a personal blog. A multi-

page, sanitized profile for each respondent (see Fig. 1 for an

example page) preserved their anonymity with black bars to

cover eyes in photos, names, e-mail addresses, addresses, and

any other personal identifying information. The interior pages

included screen shots from the Web search and representative

Facebook pages. For sites that encompassed multiple pages, we

selected screenshots of the first few pages to create arepresentation of the site; for a dense site like Facebook, we

included shots from each of the separate sections (e.g., photos,

wall comments, information page). The number of pages

generated for each informant varied according to the amount

and variety of information in his or her digital brand audit,

ranging from 8 to 16 pages.

Evaluation of Digital Brand Audits

Prior to the interviews, we asked participants to complete a

survey containing 49 items taken from the Big Five Personality

Trait Taxonomy (i.e., openness to experience, conscientious-

ness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism; Digman

39L.I. Labrecque et al. / Journal of Interactive Marketing 25 (2011) 3750


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1990; Oliver, Naumann, and Soto 2008; Srivastava 2010) based

on their online personality. We selected undergraduate students

to evaluate the brand audits because they are heavy users of

social media and the Internet. We provided the evaluators with

both oral and written instructions and then passed out 23

profiles for them to evaluate with a survey. Groups of 2530

undergraduate students evaluated 23 participant profiles by

writing down their first impressions of the participant and then

assessing them on the Big Five Personality traits. A post survey

debriefing indicated the task was very engaging and under-

standable. Following the student evaluations, we asked a human

resources (HR) professional at the university to evaluate the

same participant brand audits by providing her first impression

comments. This provided a workplace judgment. For each

participant, we calculated mean ratings of their online

personality, according to the student ratings. For the qualitative

comments, we asked two independent coders (blind to the

study's purpose) to evaluate the open-ended comments on a

scale from 3=positive to 2=neutral to 1=negative. Finally, we

summed the scores created by the two coders and ordered the

comments from 6 (both positive) to 2 (both negative).

Participant Reactions

In the next stage, we conducted long interviews using a semi-

structured question protocol with each participant (McCraken

1988). We began by asking them to openly describe their online

experience, online motivations, and their online branding

strategy, if any. Following this general discussion (which lasted

anywhere from 10 to 30 min), we gave each participant a copy

of the digital brand audit provided to the evaluators, allotting as

much time as they wanted to look over the material. As they

leafed through the packet, participants were encouraged to

discuss what they saw and their motivations for posting the

material. Once they had finished going through the packet and

openly discussing the content of their profiles, they received

summaries of the written comments by the evaluators.

Participants were asked to discuss their reactions to these

comments, comparing their intentions with evaluator judg-

ments; this served as comparison between their brand identity

(what they wished to portray) with their brand image (audience

view) and allowed participants to openly discuss branding

strategy successes and failures. Lastly, after discussing their

reactions to these comments, we presented the participants with

a chart that compared their self-rated online personality

(completed before the interview) with the aggregate judgments

of the student evaluators. The complete interview process thus

lasted from 45 to 90 min. Approximately 2 months after the

interviews, we contacted the 12 participants via e-mail and in

person to discuss any changes they made to their online profiles

and behavior since the interviews. We also had them react to the

accuracy of our interpretations of the data from the interview.

Analysis Procedures

The survey data scales were examined for reliability and

analyzed by calculating descriptive statistics. t-Tests were also

conducted to test for gender differences among the evaluators as

well as age and gender differences among the participants. The

qualitative data were audio recorded and transcribed. They were

listened to and reviewed by multiple researchers. We conducted

both an emic analysis for each participant and an etic analysis to

compare findings across participants. The data were coded by

all three authors and analyzed using standard qualitative

procedures (Seidman 1991; Taylor and Bogdan 1984) and

matrices (Miles and Huberman 1994) were used to assess data

Table 1

Profile of participants.

Pseudonym/

coding

Gender Age Marital

status

Occupation No. of search

results

Profile pages

created

No. of FB

friends

aWall post

status

No. of photos

on FB

No. of tagged

photos on FB

No. of web sites

(blogs)

Bobby Male 18 Single College Student 17 8 129 L 13 12

Alex Male 22 Single Dental Student 189 9 487 M 88 125

Brian Male 25 Single GraphicDesigner

125 19 912 H 2086 1076 2 (2)

Maxwell Male 27 Single Engineering

Ph.D. Student

42 10 173 L 77 90

Milo Male 27 Divorced IT Manager 15 16 25 L 116 13 1 (1)

Chris Male 40 Married Pharmaceutical

Consultant

328 11 37 L 18 18

Gina Female 22 Single Fundraiser 11 9 649 WH 31 31

Pamela Female 25 Single Fashion

Designer

35 11 419 WH 190 0

Diana Female 25 Single Model 807 12 497 M 69 86

Clementine Female 27 Single Engineering

Ph.D. Student

46 12 273 M 242 125

Charlotte Female 28 Divorced Professional

Organizer/Artist

8 9 37 L 29 18 1

Coco Female 37 Divorced Photographer/Teacher

27 15 44 L 22 50 2

a Light or less than 200, M=201499 or moderate, H=more than 500, or heavy, and WH indicates wall hidden.

http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-


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across participants. The results were compared to the literature

in an iterative fashion to arrive at new insights (e.g. Belk,

Wallendorf, and Sherry 1989).

Results

We organize our findings into two sections. First, we reportthe

descriptive results pertaining to our 12 participants, including a

profile of the participants (see Table 1) and their self-stated online

brand identities. We also present the statistics and examples of

profile judgments by both social and professional evaluators (see

Table 2) andthe surveyresults regarding the average ratings of the

12 participants' self-rated online personality (see Table 3).

Second, we outline the findings from our in-depth interviews

within the structure of a traditional branding framework.

Participants' Brand Audit Profiles

The descriptives inTable 1indicate a wide range of search

engine results (8807 hits) and social networks activity (25912

Facebook friends). All 12 participants had Facebook profiles,

but only 3 (Brian, Milo, and Pamela) had active MySpace pages.

On Facebook, half of them had few wall (communication) posts

(b200), whereas the other half had a high level (201500). The

Fig. 1. Example of sanititized profile page.



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number of user-submitted photos ranged from 13 to 2086, and

tagged photos ranged from 0 to 1076. In addition to social

networking profiles, 4 participants had personal Web sites, and 2

contributed to blogs.

The qualitative judgments from both social and professional

evaluators indicate a wide range of percentages of favorable

comments, from 17.2% to 83.3%. For some participants, such

as Chris (male, 40), evaluations by the two audiences coincided.

Table 2

Profile judgments.

Participant % Very favorable

comments

Example of social judgment comments HR professional comments

Brian 66.7% This guy is into being his own person, whether it

be through the things he says or the clothing he

wears, which it seems [like] he is going to schoolto learn how to design t-shirts and other apparel.

He does not seem to care what other people think

of him.

Artistic, creative... Photos are sophomoric, pornographic and

sarcastic. Funny but mean at the same time.If I were

seeking creative, plugged inpeople, I would certainly consider him fordesign jobs. As a professional person in a mainstream company I

would be concerned about his hip/hop references that are not

politically correct.

Alex 26.9% Alpha male type. Popular with the ladies. Likes

to party. Has terrible taste in movies if he

actually bought National Treasure 2 on Blue ray.

Can be stereotyped as a Meathead.

Initial thoughts: shallow, not very smart, it is all about the party, the

girls and acting coolSeems one dimensional without many other

interests.Concern about the police at parties. Makes me wonder if

he has been arrested or had issues with the police. Not very

impressed.

Bobby 62.9% Younger male, 18, just got Facebook. High

frequency of wall activity=very active on the

site. Into his girlfriend, seems a little whipped.

Likes cars.

Married but interested in women for networking. What would his

wife say if she knew this? If still in college (class of 2012), is he

wanting to be unmarried college student having fun with the other

sex?

Milo 17.2% Obviously this guy is a geek, and even said it

himself. That, combined with him only having 25

friends led me to believe that he does not get outmuch. It does not seem like a mean person, just

very independent. He does seem a little bit

artsy/imaginative/creative.

Very interesting person. I would like to meet him, although I feel I

would have a tough time relating. Good valuesimpression based

on his quotes about becoming a person of value and the other beinga vegetarian. Has self-knowledge and comfortable sharing his

storySelf-proclaimed GEEK, expect him to be smart and

articulate.

Chris 83.3% Introverted, Interested in quality not quantity,

very smart, happy, good career, uses FB to keep

in touch with close friends, less for networking.

Smart, professional, intellectual. Ambitious. Get a sense of a smart,

bright person who enjoys his work and has fun social life.

Maxwell 73.1% He seems like an average guy. He is really into

engineering and academia, as well as traveling

and politicsHe has got a lot of different pictures

of friends, and he has got a lot of different interests.

Rugged, individualist. Smart, well read, intellectual and interesting.

May be snooty, although I tend to doubt it. ..I would consider him

well adjusted, hard working, smart and aware of what is happening

around him in the world. Engaged and focused.

Pamela 72.4% She is al l about making these profound

statements and drumming to her own beat. As a

person I think she is an artsy urbanitewho

likes to express herself through Facebook as well

as other things.

Very interesting young designer. Able to synthesize cultural

influences and apparel well. Keen observer of others. Last two pages

are somewhat disjointreferences and graffiti weird. Not sure

where this comes fromor the super poke dialogue.

Gina 77.7% Highly educated and interested in literature and

culture. Sociable, seems to have many friends.

Physically attractive, athletic, inspired by

spirituality, art, and music. Driven, independent,

out-going.

Difficult to understand this personnot much to work with. Her

favorite quotes assume she wants other to think she is not like others

from another world. .Is she showing us her body. Not her face?

To me it is like many photos young women put uptheir bodies.

Diana 57.1% Seems like she enjoys going out with friends,

partying and having a good time. She takes

modeling pretty seriously, and her friends know

about it and she posts pictures online.

One-dimensional. Nothing really about her from heronly

comments from others. She is obviously interested and enjoys being

recognized and being on stage. She likes being looked at and being

recognized

Clementine 75.0% This person is really smart. This person is

also very worldly. She seems to be very outgoing but

she also likes to express her sadness. She also

seems likes she likes to joke around.

Well educated, smart and engaged in her professional life

(appearances at conferences, etc.) I do not see a lot of her own

commentshard to determine the type of person she is.

Coco 83.3% It seems l ike she does not have a lot of friends but

she has more closer friends. She likes elegantthings and pays attention to details. She is relaxed

most of the time and spends time observing

things around her.

Artistic, fun loving. Enjoys spending time with friends.

Entrepreneurial, free spirit. Rather than show who you arethrough your own words, you will show me what is important to you

through your photos.

Charlotte 50.0% It was really tough to get a read on this person.

She seems to have a love for art and animals.

Also, she does not show a lot of care for things

such as letting her cat sit on her laptop and not

staying in touch with home to get messages.

She does not have a lot of friends.

Artistic, images indicate interest in culture references. Sexual

overtones in thissome photos suggestive as well as a post, I'm

feeling horny.Her mother has posted a message hereappears to

be a very open person.



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But in other instances, such as for Bobby (male, 18), the

evaluations differed, likely because the HR professional did not

understand Facebook social norms and found the material posted

unprofessional and inappropriate. Sample quotes from judges in

both audiences are presented inTable 2.

In our analysis of the survey data the five-personality traitcoefficient alphas ranged from .77 to .92. Overall, we note that

there are no differences for the five personality traits based on

the gender of the judges (pN .05). However, there were

differences in personality traits among the participants based

on age and gender. Older (ages 2640) participants, compared

to younger (ages 1825) participants, were judged to be more

open to experience (pb .01) and conscientious (pb .01).

Younger participants were seen as more extraverted than

older participants (pb .01). In terms of gender, female

participants were judged to be more open to experience (p b

.01) and more agreeable (pb .01) than male participants.

Table 3 contains the comparison of participants' online

personality perceptions with student judgments. We tested the

self-evaluations to determine if they fell within the 95%

confidence intervals surrounding the judgment sample. For

example, the mean for Brian's (male, 25) open to experiences

rating was 3.63 (five-point Likert scale), which was statistically

significantly lower than the student sample's mean judgment of

4.33 (standard deviation=.37). Overall, most self-evaluationsdiffered statistically from the judgment samples (51/60 total),

mostly due to the strong tendency in the self-ratings to rate

higher on extraversion (8/12 participants) and lower on

neuroticism (10/12 participants) compared with the students'

judgments. Therefore, self-judgments appear inaccurate and

subject to particular biases, which contrasts with the accuracy

of identifying others' true selves through Internet chatting

(Bargh, McKenna, and Fitzsimons 2002) and personal Web

sites in a Web 1.0 context(Vazire and Gosling 2004). These

differences may be likely reflective of how outside influences

in a social media platform (e.g., the ability of friends to post

information like comments and photos) can alter intended

branding messages.

Table 3

Comparison of participants' online self-judgment and social judgments.

Participant rating Openness to experiences Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism

Brian judgment 4.33 (.37) 3.03 (.56) 4.50 (.40) 3.32 (.60) 2.87 (.66)

Brian self 3.63 3.38 4.75 3.63, ns 1.50

Alex judgment 2.50 (.62) 2.60 (.54) 4.30 (.45) 2.78 (.71) 3.08 (.52)

Alex self 3.63 3.38 4.25, ns 3.88 2.00Bobby judgment 3.00 (.52) 3.36 (.62) 2.88 (.78) 3.43 (.46) 2.98 (.54)

Bobby self 4.38 4.00 4.88 4.50 1.50

Pamela judgment 4.28 (.42) 3.46 (.49) 3.61 (.74) 3.78 (.46) 2.79 (.47)

Pamela self 4.00 2.88 4.13 3.25 2.13

Gina judgment 3.88 (.45) 3.45 (.62) 3.67 (.76) 3.91 (.50) 2.81 (.69)

Gina self 3.88, ns 3.63, ns 3.75, ns 2.88 1.50

Diana judgment 2.83 (.47) 3.30 (.46) 4.19 (.43) 3.13 (.59) 2.94 (.54)

Diana self 3.88 2.5 3.75 4.00 2.00

Milo judgment 3.87 (.60) 3.23 (.56) 2.64 (.70) 3.21 (.62) 3.03 (.54)

Milo self 4.50 3.25, ns 4.75 3.75 2.50

Chris judgment 3.71 (.63) 4.05 (.42) 3.13 (.78) 3.55 (.77) 2.85 (.43)

Chris self 3.88, ns 3.63 2.75, ns 2.88 3.13

Maxwell judgment 3.81 (.62) 3.84 (.46) 3.40 (.47) 3.29 (.66) 2.78 (.57)

Maxwell self 4.38 1.88 3.75 3.38, ns 3.38

Clementine judgment 3.57 (.60) 3.32 (.54) 3.39 (.71) 3.42 (.47) 3.31 (.43)Clementine self 3.13 4.00 3.88 2.88 2.50

Coco judgment 4.04 (.69) 3.28 (.59) 3.23 (.74) 3.64 (.61) 2.57 (.52)

Coco self 5.00 4.25 3.75 5.00 1.50

Charlotte judgment 4.03 (.63) 2.85 (.59) 3.13 (.90) 3.63 (.51) 2.83 (.60)

Charlotte self 4.50 3.63 4.25 4.75 2.00

Total a

SelfNJudgment 7 6 8 6 2

Self = Judgment 2 2 3 2 0

SelfbJudgment 3 4 1 4 10

Young (1825) a




Old (2640)a




Notes: standard deviations appear in parentheses.a Number of times participants' self-ratings were greater than, equal to, or less than student judgments.

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8/14

Challenges in Managing an Online Personal Brand

In presenting our qualitative results, we expand upon our

findings within the structure of a conventional branding model,

which involves developing a brand identity, using this informa-

tion to position the brand, and then assessing the brand image

(Aaker 1996). Following traditional branding practices, brandidentity is defined as how the marketer wants the brand to be

perceived; brand positioning as the part of the brand identity to be

actively communicated to the audience; and brand image as how

the brand is perceived by the marketplace. This process reflects a

dynamic environment where future efforts depend on prior

marketplace assessments of the brand's image.

Brand Identity

In an online context, personal brand identity relies on self-

presentation as identities are created in computer-mediated

environments using social networking profiles, blogs, andpersonal Web pages. In our data, most participants had a

branding strategy (though not always an effective one) to

manage their online information and were conscious of their

online efforts, especially through Facebook and other social

networks. Participants could name a brand that best represents

their online persona. Some, such as Brian (male, 25) and Milo

(male, 27), were quick to name existing brands, whereas others

took time to think of a fictitious brand or slogan to fit their

identity. Thus, self-branding is evident and important for some

but not for all. Brands acted as metaphors for the image the

participants wanted to portray and often conveyed what they

showed or the demographic to which they were trying to appeal.

Alex (male, 22) identified his brand as Diesel Jeans; he is

someone who likes to go out and is into the club scene. Milo

(male, 27) said his brand was Google, reflecting his IT

background and ability to access information. Others saw

themselves as a fashion brand such as The Gap (Gina, female,

22), an automobile such as Toyota Corolla (Diana, female, 26),

or a lifestyle magazines like Dwell (Coco, female, 37), such that

the personality of the metaphorical brand reflected the image

they were trying to convey online. Overall, these participants

embraced the concept of self-branding.

Many participants admitted to using personal Web and social

networking sites actively as tools to construct their personal

brand identity. Brian (male, 25) described his use of multipleprofiles and sites to construct his personal brand, which he

regards as tools to position himself:

It's just a matter of, lack of better terms; it's like making a

commercial for your product. If you are selling toothpaste,

it's toothpaste at the end of the day but you want it to be a

fun toothpaste that everyone wants to brush. It's just a

presentation, you know.

Other participants, like Bobby (male, 18), conveyed that they

purposely construct their online identity to parallel their offline

one: I try to portray the same image with everyone. I don't want

to seem two-sided or two-faced. I'm the same way at work, I

act the same way.Creating a brand identity that either parallels

or differentiates from the offline self seems to be an online norm.

Chris (male, 40) noted, It's kind of an outlet for people, that

even if they aren't who they really are. They can project

somebody it's a myth or a parallel personality of them.

All 12 participants agreed that they intentionally crafted their

online profiles through information management to maintain

their brand identity. Although users were the proprietors of theirprofiles, they realized that others contributed to the creation of

their identity through content they provided in the form of

comments and photo tagging.

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning refers to the active communication of

one's brand identity to a specific target market. Individuals use

brand positioning to highlight their positive attributes that are of

value to their target audience while at the same time

differentiating themselves from other individuals in themarketplace. For personal online branding, brand positioning

occurs through impression management. In an online context,

this is done by maintaining a consistent image through choices

to reveal pieces of personal information through blogs and

disclosure on sites such as social networks. A key challenge for

our participants was deciding what information to post online,

after filtering out information that was not aligned with their

branding strategy. In addition to demographic information,

profiles included information, such as lists of favorite books,

music, quotes, and movies, as well as photos. Sites such as

Facebook permit abundant third party plug-ins that enable users

to disclose increased information, beyond the standard elements

of an average profile. Users choose which parts of their profilesthey will populate and who may have access to this information.

Similar to actors on Goffman's (1959) stage, the participants

chose their props (pictures, applications) and dress (informa-

tion) to create meaning through self-presentation to others.

Participants realized this process and even discussed how

their intentional choice to not disclose certain types of

information was part of their brand identity strategy. Both

Pamela (female, 25) and Gina (female, 22) chose not to display

their Facebook wall (a feed that displays userssubmitted status

updates and friends' comments), reasoning that It creates

mystery, makes people [ask] why don't you have a wall

(Pamela). Pamela also regarded Facebook as a function of itsinformation content: What am I feeding them? Its a machine,

you feed it. People can't make assumptions of you unless you

are providing them certain information.This statement under-

lies the essence of personal branding; people make disclosure

decisions that are mostly reflective of their intended messages.

However, as our interviews reveal, messages, hence branding

efforts also can be misconstrued.

The permanency and widespread availability of messages are a

particular cause for alarm, as reflected in participants' responses.

For example, Maxwell (male, 27) described the importance of

careful brand positioning: When someone's missing the point,

that's what's frustrating because people's opinions are formed and

it's like, well, it's tough to change, first impressions are powerful.



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Some participants considered the key to a successful

branding strategy to be authentic, such that it captured a slice

of the real self. They expressed caution about manipulating the

online audience into thinking they were someone other than

what they appeared in real life. Furthermore, they criticized

others whom they considered inauthentic for trying too hard to

portray an online brand identity far removed from their real one.For example, there was a disdain for people who put up many

obviously posed pictures:

It's a fake reality; you want to make people perceive you a

certain way. You'll even see that people are sitting in

particular angles. Some people you see never really change

their angle. They're always like their left cheek or their right

cheek or blurry or far away It's too fake. (Coco, female, 37).

Similarly, Charlotte (female, 28) felt disregard toward people

who present themselves in an obviously fake manner:

There are some people who I am definitely like who wroteyour profile for you? (laughs) because I start talking to

them and I'm like, this is not how you represented yourself,

you're a completely different person They're probably

trying to make themselves appear more interesting and

therefore be more likely to have people that they find

interesting or attractive talk to them but they don't see it is

really sort of self-defeating because then I'm like I really

don't want to talk to you.

Brand Image Assessment

Brand image depends on information posted by the focalperson, information posted by others, and the marketplace

reaction to the presented information, which generally is based

on visible behavior, nonverbal behavior, and other observable

cues (Ambady, Hallahan, and Rosenthal 1996). Participants used

their own experience and feedback (comparing their self-stated

branding goals with those from the written assessments and

personality judgments) to determine whether they had achieved

their branding goals. The mismatches between their self-stated

goals and judgments by others represent branding failures. We

categorize these as eitherInsufficient Branding orMisdirected

Brandingand present related findings in the following sections.

Many participants found the brand image assessment exercise

enlightening. As Gina (female, 22) noted, Seeing yourself fromsomebody else's eyes, it's allowing you to see what other people

think of you, especially people that have no idea about the person

that you are. However, Pamela (female, 25) described the

feedback in terms of multiple audiences online. Similar to many

others, she acknowledged that the Internet allows her the freedom

to portray an online brand identity, but she considers difficulties

involved in managing brand perceptions for the vast number of

potential viewers. As she noted during her interview:

It wasvery interesting. It has made me more conscientious, yeah

because I always know all these things, but reading the feedback

from other people andjust like, having validation good or bad of

your online self, it's just interesting. It just makes you that much

more aware that in society there is more than one person and the

Internet person is more than one person.

For others, the feedback was upsetting and prompted them to

make changes, because they realized that their actions could result

in unfavorable judgments. Alex (male, 22), a dental school student,

revealed:

I definitely want to change some of that stuff, the more recent

stuff because I'm going to school and new friends will see this

stuff, maybe I should add that I went to the Habitat for

Humanity Yeah, I wasshocked. The police thingwas awful. If

I had a Blackberry I would take itdown now. Some I control and

some I can't.

Although assessing their brand image through this feedback

mechanism was new to most of our respondents, Charlotte

(female, 28) indicated that she already monitors her profiles and

gathers feedback. The Internet medium has allowed her to be

more open, which encouraged others to be more open in their

judgments and feedback to her. She viewed this exchange as a

powerful tool, not only in terms of crafting her online brand

identity but also as a means to gain insight into her psyche:

I've actually sort of uncovered more about myself from the

people who have found me because likeYeah, it's just the

things that you're oblivious to. And this sort of medium has

allowed that come out because people tend to be more free

because you aren't talking face to face, I mean how do you tell

someone I admire you so much. You don't do that in person.

Brian (male, 25) echoed these remarks when describing the

active monitoring of his profiles. He manages multiple brand

identities, targeted at different audiences, and devotes consid-erable time to personal branding and image assessment. He was

not surprised by the results of the profile judgments, because:

I think they are great, it's a very good cross of, nobody is

really wrong, these are all things that I've known, none of

this is surprisingThat is why I spend time to get to know

what people think of me. It's not enough to change my life.

But it keeps you in check.

Insufficient Branding

Information disclosure choices that resulted in insufficientbranding appeared to be largely a function of the participant's age

and desired use for the social community. Most of the 12

participants were older than the students who were evaluating

their profiles (see Table 1). The students were critical of the

participants' lack of friends and low number of wall posts; these

evaluators drew implications and attributions from observing the

number of friends listed. For example, in evaluating Milo's (male,

27) profile, one student wrote,Obviously this guy is a geek, and

even said it himself. That combined with him only having 25

friends led me to believe that he doesn't getout much. In reaction

to these judgments, many participants emphasized that they were

social in the offline world. Several also indicated they were going

to take corrective steps to alter their profiles to correct for this



10/14

insufficient branding: Yeah, I don't want to seem like a loser.

That I don't socialize, because I do. Well, I have to post more

social pics, so I'll be like everyone else now(Bobby, male, 18).

The pressure to conform is thus strong, even for the older

participants. Coco (female, 37) believed that though she was

activelyinvolved with Facebook, it was something she was forced

to keep up with:

I may be against [it], even though I am not against personal

relations, I believe people need to be social, but I'm against these

types of things, but I also have to be realistic and realize that the

world is going into that and so I need to keep in touch with it.

For some, insufficient branding occurred not because of a

lack of content but because they failed to emphasize their

desired message, which led to a mismatch between brand

identity and image. As Maxwell (male, 27) contended:

I don't like when people say average though, let me say that.

I actually want to make seem like I'm not average. That

actually gets me upset. That's probably the one thing that, I

think I said that early on. I said I wanted to make it seem

like I'm not typical, like I don't do typical things, which is

probably like some of the reasons why I do have some

music stuff there because most people won't have like, so,

so I don't know why they think I'm average.

Maxwell (male, 27) was following a specific branding

approach and thought that his minimal, yet highly selective

disclosure choices accurately portrayed his identity. His contrived

branding effort failed, which resulted in intense frustration:

I would think it's more frustrating than anything else because

on the balance, well at least, even people who view mefavorably, I don't think they get the point of what I was trying

todo. They look at like, oh, he's good smart guy and he likes to

do this, but that's not what I'm trying, that's not the point.

The key finding is that participants confront a tension to use

platforms to promote their personal brands and keep in touch

with others, but also minimize the potential violations that can

dilute or tarnish their brand. When asked why she chose to

display her home address, Coco (female, 37) noted the tension

she faces between promoting her brand identity as a

professional photographer and the need to safeguard her

personal safety. If she does not disclose personal information

such as her home address (which is also her business address)she may suffer insufficient branding because potential clients

could question her legitimacy. She states:

People want to know where you are, where you live, they want

to see that you're a legitimate photographer that you're not just

coming out of a shack somewhereso it gives people more

trust, they trust you more if they know more about you.

Misdirected Branding

After learning what others thought of their branding efforts,

most participants decided to make changes, often to correct

misdirected branding. Most of the misdirected comments

centered on actions by others who posted content inconsistent

with their brand identity, which could result in serious

consequences if seen by the wrong target audiences. As noted

by Pamela (female, 25):

I didn't want something on my wall that maybe, one of myfriends thought as funnybasically, I didn't want to have to

take responsibility of [what] someone else is saying on my

page. And you do ultimately do take responsibility on

what's on your page.

Misunderstandings often involved the language used and

message conveyed. Bobby (male, 18) chose to display

married as his relationship status (to indicate he was in an

exclusive relationship) and reacted negatively to the judgments

of many college students, who considered him dominated by his

girlfriend. The HR professional thought he might be cheating on

his wife. Bobby believed everyone would understand he was

joking when he listed married as his status, but he becameupset when this playful signal was misinterpreted negatively.

The greatest misdirected branding occurred when wall posts

or pictures could be seen by professional audiences that could

negatively impact future careers. For example, Bobby (male,

18) had not regulated what he disclosed on his Facebook site but

said he was going to remove sensitive items that might be seen

by prospective employers. Chris (male, 40) nicely summed up

the potential harms of a social networking site infrastructure that

allows others to make changes to his profile:

I mean your resume, you take time and effort to put together

a resume that speaks to your accomplishments, your skills,

your know experience, expertise in different things and thefact that two years ago you got drunk at a party and

somebody took a picture of you that should be a deciding

factor in whether you are hired or not.

Other participants also noted this challenge, echoing similar

concerns, especially the younger participants who were embark-

ing on their professional careers. Some participants were aware of

these misdirected branding follies but simply had not considered

the professional ramifications of content that had been posting

many years prior. This point underscores the importance of

assessing brand image, especially when embarking on new life

paths. These real concerns have serious consequences for

participants like Alex (male, 22), who declared:

If there is a picture of me drinking I'll take it out yeah but

looking at this itbrings upa good point to ah, to take that stuff

off, I'll probably go home and delete itoh yeah! That's bad

you kind of just look at it like, a picture of me and a girl,

drinking that's bad. I'm not drinking out of a McDonald's cup

here, yeah, I'll definitely go home and take these pictures off

and dumb wall commentsI'm trying to be a doctor, and I

don't want to see that. For all I know some patient, will write

[his name] in Google, and this will pop up.

Later in the interview,Alex (male, 22) also reacted negatively to

the HR professional's disapproving comments about the t-shirt he

was wearing in a photo. He told us that the identity he was trying to



11/14

portray was centered on his professionalism and good guy image.

He had forgotten out-of-date parts of his profiles and had not

checked for consistent messages, which meant he neglected to

realize that he was wearing a t-shirt with an inappropriate message.

As he continued to view his profile, he recognized:

No, this is bad. My no Bitch t-shirt in this picture doesn'thelp. I'm going to untag everythingI wouldn't want those

I'm interviewing for, or down the road my patients, seeing

this stuff.

As his experience illustrates, people often do not consider

how others will interpret and judge them on the basis of small or

even forgotten pieces of information. Life events, such as career

changes, may prompt users to reevaluate their brands; in this

case, Alex had forgotten that potential harmful photos from his

past were still available online but wanted to fix them before he

became a practicing dentist.

The issue of pictures and other information being posted

without a person's consent was another key cause for concern.The profile of Clementine (female, 26) included a photograph of

her with a professional male colleague at a conference. The

caption included her name and implied she had been drinking

heavily. It also hinted that she was inappropriately involved

with a married man. Therefore, just one photo had the potential

to tarnish her brand identity as a smart and professional graduate

student. She also felt a loss of control, because this photo was

posted without her consent, and she did not know how long the

photo had been available online, nor could she directly remove

her name from the image. This concern was shared by Gina

(female, 22):

It's just that things can be perceived very different from

what they are and I just don't want to be you know, the

center of attention and being judged that is not coming out

of my mouth directly. A picture says a thousand words and

the wrong wordsthey aren't coming out of my mouth so I

don't want people to judge me off a picture.

Moreover, pictures posted by others could clash with a user's

brand identity intentions; Brian's (male, 25) preferred brand

identity was not congruent with someone in a happy

relationship:

So she posted all our pics up and I'm fine, means she is

happy with the relationship. But I'm a little more selective

about that. Sometimes. I don't need everyone to know who

I'm dating, this is an online thing and you never know who

will stumble upon it.

Because information can be taken out of context, mis-

construed, or misinterpreted, brand image judgments may lead

to optimum, insufficient, or misdirected branding, depending on

whether the identity and image perfectly balance. Similar to

online dating (Frost et al. 2008), insufficient branding may have

negative repercussions for personal branding efforts through

faulty impression management, where poor disclosure decisions

can harm a personal brand image. Branding literature

recommends remedial actions in all these cases: reinforcement

for optimal branding, augmentation for insufficient branding,

and deleting or diffusing for misdirected branding.

Optimizing Branding

In the last stage of research, we conducted follow-up

interviews regarding any adjustments the participants took toachieve the optimum branding strategies. Milo (male, 27)

indicated that his strategy for segregating his multiple brand

identities had become less effective due to new site technolo-

gies, like Facebook's friend suggestion feature. Facebook

suggested he add some of his work friends to his non-work

profile, but Milo made it clear that he wanted to maintain two

identities, targeted at separate audiences. His two identitiesa

professional IT manager versus an avid partier hired on nights

and weekends to perform laser and lighting showsdo not mix,

and if one were exposed to the other audience, Milo believed his

brand identities and reputation would be in jeopardy. Since this

tool was likely suggesting his other profile to coworkers, heinformed us:

I'm beginning to re-think using Facebook. It's kind of

creepy that Facebook knows so much about me and because

of this it's probably opening up holes where others can see

my profile. The last thing I want is for people I don't want

finding me to find me because Facebook has added this

feature. If something better comes along, I'll probably start

using it.

Milo was not the only participant in our sample who

described the importance of a strategy for segregating multiple

audiences. Despite their desire to self-brand, new features added

layers of difficulty, resulting in user frustration. Such frustra-tions may build until users decide finally to switch platforms

and find another that offers better tools and features in support

of their goals.

Other changes included removing offensively tagged

pictures, removing pictures they originally posted, taking

down undesirable wall posts, or, in some cases, removing the

wall altogether. Notable changes marked the Facebook profiles

of Coco, Bobby, and Alex. For example, Coco (female, 37)

recently had been married and had a child. She noted in our

follow-up conversation that she did not intend to post any

photos of her newborn child on her Facebook page, even as she

experienced pressures to do so from her Facebook friends wholive overseas. At the end of the interview, Coco said she

remained undecided and perhaps would post one or two pictures

to appease her friends. Bobby (male, 18) added new photo-

graphs to his profile, as he indicated he would, to depict himself

in more social settings (e.g., drinking at a party). He also

changed his status from married to single and reduced the

number of pictures of his girlfriend. He disclosed that for a short

time, when not in this relationship, he removed his couple

photographs and opted for more party-going images. Once

back in the relationship though, he again removed the party

pictures and uploaded his couple pictures. Bobby's behavior

epitomizes the challenges people face in different life stages,

when their personal brand identity changes and they must adjust



12/14

their brand positioning to suit that new identity or audience.

These shifts, just a couple of months after the initial interviews,

suggest the optimization process is quite fluid and must be

reconsidered frequently.

Discussion

The evidence herein supports the idea that people both

explicitly and implicitly brand themselves using content they

place online. In some situations, the branding efforts are

underdeveloped, whereas in others they seem misdirected. Our

research reveals that social network profile pages are the

primary mechanism that people use for self-branding. Profes-

sional information displayed in the profile, in terms of education

and work experiences, is important, as are pictorial accounts of

their social life and the public conversations posted.

In developing their brands, some of our participants aimed to

be authentic and criticized others whom they believed were not.

They expressed caution in response to shallow attempts tomanipulate them with ingenuous content, such as staged photos

or biased text. Such findings parallel recent work that reveals

that realistic (opposed to overly idealistic) identity representa-

tions are common practice for social networking site users

(Back et al. 2010). Some participants even discussed their

withdrawal from social networks because of their dissatisfaction

with the way others portray themselves. Gina (female, 22), who

primarily used Facebook for networking and finding lost

friends, began enforcing tighter privacy settings and reduced her

usage, because of the way people portray themselves, it's

become very cheap.Our findings thus relate to the concept of

authentic branding, which pertains to both traditional (Holt

2004) and personal (Kaputa 2005) branding. In both cases,authenticity enhances message receptivity and relationship

quality. Being seen as inauthentic may be a direct result of

failed segmentation, as different brand identities clash and

create a mixed message. Those trying to segment multiple

audiences need to take extra caution as the risks for inauthentic

representation increase.

Although people have some control over the brand they

portray, their personal brand is also shaped by those with whom

they associate (i.e., friends and friends' friends) and the

comments and pictures they post. Yet, friends may fail to

distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate information

sharing. The display of some information may make personsvulnerable to brand dilution or evoke negative repercussions,

including professional, financial, and physical harms. This is

likely the reason for many branding failures and may explain

why oftentimes our evaluators' judgments did not match our

participants' intended brand identity. While past research

suggests that people can make accurate judgments of others

based on personal Web sites (Vazire and Gosling 2004), this

research finds that these outside influences likely altered

participants' intended branding messages.

The tensions that arose are due to relationship imbalances.

The participants seemed either too cautious or not judicious

enough with their information disclosure choices. Some had

experienced violations resulting from misdirected branding and

therefore took evasive action and changed their brand

positioning strategy. Conservative online behavior also left

some participants under-branded and misunderstood. With

user-generated content, there is always the potential for risk.

A pervasive theme in our interviews revealed how branding

strategies evolve. Designations of appropriate material changed

over time, usually due to natural lifestyle progressions, such as ashift in employmentor family status. Managingmultiple identities

and audiences thus is an ongoing process, and our participants

found it particularly difficult to brand both their personal life and

their work life accurately. These fragmented identities are

reflective of Turkle's (1995) and Boyd's (2008a) findings that

consumers adopt various personas in online environments.

Evidence also suggests that people try to separate their worlds,

because employers consider it appropriate to investigate employ-

ees' participation in social networks (LaVallee 2009). AsBoyd

(2008a,b) notes, social networks eliminate distance, including

that which once separated professional and social domains. While

many may attempt to devise strategies to separate their identities,the rising need for authenticity requires people to rethink such

strategies. Indeed, many new tools being developed on the Web

are geared toward linking identities rather than keeping them

separate. Applications such as HootSuite and Open Social help

people link all their social accounts, such that they can post a

status change simultaneously on multiple sites. These tools may

make branding easier, but they also increase the potential for

misdirected branding.

Conclusions

This research offers key insights into the phenomenon of

online personal branding. While social networking platformssuch as Facebook and MySpace provide value to members,

users may become displeased if actions and terms that can harm

their branding strategies, such as changes in content control and

new features, are enforced by the company. In this case, the

value becomes threatened, and users may migrate to new sites

that offer mechanisms more synergistic with their branding

efforts. Such exoduses from one social networking site to

another reveal historical trends, from Friendster to Live Journal

to MySpace to Facebook, as users show no reserve about

leaving a site that no longer suits their needs (Sutter 2009).

Brands that have created profiles and invested in a site also face

substantial losses in the event of member migration to acompeting company. If the host site and other vested parties

hope to avoid such devastating consequences, they must

understand and react to user motivations and concerns.

Our investigation highlights how individuals self-brand

through the use of social media and the issues they face during

this process. More specifically, our research puts forth the

following points. First, branding is inevitable when participat-

ing in an online environment. While the majority of participants

were cognizant that they were self-branding, we find that people

do not always realize the potential negative outcomes that may

result from their actions. When dealing with multiple brand

identities (and diverse audiences), users often become frustrated

if they lack the devices to portray their message accurately to



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their target audiences. Moreover, we find that self-branding

practices require feedback mechanisms to succeed and be

meaningful.

Second, we find a substantial dialectic pressure between self-

branding and information control. Online personal branding

requires information be available to others; by the very nature of

the online world, this availability puts people at risk in terms ofmisdirected and insufficient branding. Our evidence suggests

that misdirected branding has greater implications for profes-

sional status, whereas insufficient branding is more critical for

social status. In some cases, branding also is affected by third-

party content, which requires vigilance by the user.

Finally, managing multiple online personas is increasingly

difficult, and separating social and professional worlds appears

nearly impossible without the proper mechanisms for control.

The drive to develop an authentic online brand may require an

approach to transmit a single perspective that can transcend

professional versus social distinctions.

Limitations and Further Research

Our participants reported on their activities during a brief

moment of time. In this fast moving digital environment new

technologies such as mobile applications and Twitter have

become more widely available for personal branding purposes

since we conducted our study. Due to our participants' usage,

this research is mainly focused on Facebook profiles, the tool

used by all 12 participants and the largest social networking

application at that time. In addition, the age of the participants in

our purposive sample varied only slightly; most were in their

20s, with only two individuals over the age of 35 years. This

younger sample may not represent the branding issues faced byolder participants. Similarly, the social judgments by the

undergraduate student population reflected particular behavior-

al norms, on which they based their assessments. Other

populations of judges likely would produce different reactions.

However, because the informants and judges were relatively

close in age, we attain a realistic social comparison, and by

using 2530 student evaluators per profile, we obtained a

substantive and non-idiosyncratic perspective.

Although we mention that some people have a need to

segregate multiple audiences and highlight the hardships they

face, the paper leaves unanswered the question of whether this

separation is truly possible. By allowing all the informationabout our participants to be seen by the evaluators, the design of

our study almost certainly created branding failures for many.

However this design allowed us to explore peoples' reactions to

potential branding failures, discuss possible implications, and

reinforce the importance of segmentation strategies and tools.

We chose participants with unique names for this research,

however additional challenges are presented for those with

more common names. People with unique names should be

vigilant in monitoring their online brands because they can

easily be found via a simple search. As Maxwell (male, 27)

noted, My name is fairly not common, so it's easy to find

something. But I imagine if I was someone with a common

name you wouldn't bother because there's no way to like, it's

too time consuming to find yourself.Despite this, people with

common names should also closely track their personal brand as

well as information about others with the same name since there

is a chance of being mistaken for someone else. Evaluations of a

blog post, social networking profile, or news story of a mistaken

person with the same name may have detrimental effects on a

branding strategy. People with common names may want toclearly differentiate themselves from others to avoid confusion.

Differences in personal brand management between people with

common versus unique names may be an area of future

research.

Additional research should include more heterogeneous

evaluators and extend the framework to various cohorts and

cultures. The Internet is a global medium, so understanding how

cultural factors influence personal brand actions could offer

insights for companies operating internationally. Moreover, our

findings suggest that personal branding efforts vary according

to a person's life phase, which suggests that a longitudinal

perspective would be helpful. Finally, ongoing research shouldexamine how evolving applications like Twitter, with its quick

impressions and few data points, influence perceptions and

personal branding efforts.

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