Application of Social Media for Personal Branding: A Conceptual Review

Abstract

The present context of digitalized era promotes the need of branding in an online context. The use of social media for personal branding has been a fast-growing trend and such tools are being competitive in the contemporary business environment. Empirical studies are found clarifying how personal branding carried out through social media whilst claiming further investigations in line with the challenges and issues attributed in different markets, generations and countries. Social media platforms are promptly growing resulting empirical studies to investigate effectiveness of different social media tools and strategies. Alongside, this study attempts to investigate how social media has been utilized for personal branding applications. Paper followed an extensive literature review to build a discussion on theoretical and empirical contents related to social media use in personal branding whilst a rationale is made on the relevance of the theory of social capital. Paper attempts to appreciate the application of social capital theory to explain the theoretical foundation in the use of social media for personal branding whilst trust is highlighted as an additional notion within. The literature review was executed addressing to key sub contents related to personal branding and social media. It reviewed journal articles as the main source of information to organize the contents with empirical justifications. Finally, paper discusses the concepts of brand image, brand identity and brand positioning in personal branding and how active involvement of social media results online personal branding.