Tell Me About Yourself

Personal Branding and Social Media Recruiting in the Brave New Online World

Stavros Papakonstantinidis

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781631575242
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

This book will help you understand how social media recruitment works and encourages you to take personal branding toward professional career development seriously.

What is branding and what makes people passionate about it? How can people develop and maintain a unique online persona? Who are the current trendsetters in personal branding? What makes social recruiting so important in today's business world? Why is it necessary to set up a personal brand strategy early on? What are the future trends in social recruiting and personal branding?

The rules of recruitment and job searching have undoubtedly changed with the entry of a new breed of concept workers into the global workforce. We are witnessing the emergence of a non-age-specific generation of professionals who are exposed to ubiquitous digital technology and seek a more impactful job, an easy-going life, and a safe future. Social natives are looking for jobs following strategies that did not exist five years ago. Artificial intelligence, advanced software, wearable gadgets, and social media define today's fast-paced professional world.

Social natives use blogs, podcasts, online bios, video resumes, images, selfies, recommendations, and endorsements to demonstrate their skills publicly. In comparison, global organizations take advantage of big data, business intelligence, and people analytics, as well as a plethora of social media screening tools to recruit and retain great talent. This book will help you understand how social media recruitment works and encourages you to take personal branding toward professional career development seriously.

CHAPTER 1

From Brands to Humans

This chapter at a glance:

• Why branding?
• The evolution of branding
• Emotional marketing
• The four passions of branding
• Passionate branding

PewDiePie

Real Name: Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg

Country: Sweden

Social Media: YouTube

His Story: If you like video games then chances are you’ve heard of PewDiePie, the leading video game commentator of all time! A former Industrial Economics student, Ulf Kjellberg began elaborating his videos back in 2010, and by 2012 he already had a fan base of 1 million subscribers. He dropped out of university and started working on a hot dog stand to fund his business. Luckily for him, he wouldn’t need his degree to make a living. Felix’s fan base kept growing at exponential levels. Today he has over 39 million subscribers, and his videos have been viewed over 10 billion times, making him the most subscribed YouTube Channel. He has a fortune of approximately 12 million dollars.

(James 2018)

Why Branding?

Before we start talking about social media, recruiting strategies, intelligence software applications, video resumes, personal recruiting strategies, and other new terms and concepts in business, we need to step back and talk about branding. Why branding? Branding is more than just a logo, few graphic elements, colors, and slogans. A brand is a company’s soul and personality. Our name has the same qualities as a brand when we communicate it in public. Whether the brand is Nike or someone named John Smith, what matters is how we “sell” it.

The notion of branding goes back to ancient Greek and Roman times when tradespeople used symbols and signs as a means to communicate what products they had on offer (Roper and Fill 2012). The concept of branding might also have come from the earliest forms of organized farming, in which farmers would burn a mark into the skin of cattle to differentiate and establish their ownership over the animals (Roper and Fill 2012). What we can decipher from these arguments is that the concept of branding stems from two main ideas: (i) Brands are used to communicate a message through association for a target audience, and (ii) brands function as a differentiating factor.

Today, brands are commonly explained as being “a manufacturer’s way of adding value and giving its products or services an individuality that sets it apart from the rest [i.e., the products and services of competitors]” (Roper and Fill 2012, p. 108). Moreover, the notion that brands add value to products and services that goes beyond their functional attributes seems to be widely acknowledged by marketing researchers and professionals today. However, whether these branding theories can be extended to include humans is still a topic of discussion among academics (Shepherd 2005).

A growing body of academic researchers have been investigating human behavior and personal branding in the online world (Chen 2013; Gandini 2016; Harris and Rae 2011; Khedher 2015; Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011; Lair, Sullivan, and Cheney 2005; Parmentier, Fischer, and Reuber 2013). For instance, when discussing celebrity brands, Roper and Fill (2012, p. 190) explain: “the image of the sports star no longer belongs to the club but the individual sportsperson in recognition of the fact that the individual has now also become a brand.”

The concept that a person can be a brand name as well was first formally discussed by Kotler and Levy (1969). They write that “personal marketing is an endemic human activity, from the employee trying to impress his boss to the statesman trying to win the support of the public” [and] “thus, the ‘product’ can take many forms, and this is the first crucial point in the case for broadening the concept of marketing” (p. 12). The primitive notion of personal branding goes back in time as Kotler and Levy argue that there are similarities in trade practices between the modern times and the ancient times in relation to marketing goods, services, and humans.

Can a person be a “product” and, therefore, a brand? This dilemma could be both criticized and supported. From an ethical point of view, one would argue that humans should not function as products. From a practical point of view, it is in the very nature of humans to compete based on their skills and qualifications. Who is the strongest, fastest, or fittest? Who scores more goals or baskets? Who receives better grades in class? Who earns more money at work? Just as marketing teams aim to promote their products’ competitive advantages, humans do the same in any aspect of their life.

There are many issues that we need to consider in this debate. Personal branding evangelists tend to emphasize the idea of “Work with what you’ve got! . . . And make it special” (Peters 1999, cited in Shepherd 2005, p. 593). On the contrary, critics argue that in marketing, products respond to the market’s demand and adapt to customers’ needs. Once a product is deemed as no longer adhering to this fundamental marketing principle, it becomes obsolete and is removed from the market. Can we claim the same for humans?

Humans always adapted to new living conditions. If today’s fiercely competitive marketplace demands humans to stand out from the crowd and promote their expertise or uniqueness, personal branding seems to offer them an escape route. Shepherd (2005) highlights the many brand challenges that forced consumers to become more skeptical about marketing, such as brand conflicts, brand abundance, overpromising, or marketing scams. However, as Shepherd (2005) argues, we should not discard the possibility of extending and applying the marketing principles to people.

Marketing scholars contend that brands can have human characteristics since customers can more quickly generate feelings with other humans than they do with objects. Experts in marketing manage brands strategically to make the necessary associations between the product and its customers (Khedher 2015). For example, the new iPhone X had managed to generate so much anticipation and enthusiasm among its clientele that buyers chose to wait in long queues outside the Apple outlets, all night long, wanting to be the first to get hold of the new model (Gibbs 2017). What makes thousands of people anticipate the arrival of a product with such passion and loyalty?

Just like humans, a brand also has attributes such as skills, personality, and relationships (Biel 1997, cited in Fill 2005). Brand skills are the technical characteristics and functional abilities that the brand has and delivers. Brand personality refers to the brand’s “fundamental traits concerning lifestyle and perceived values, such as being bland, adventurous, exciting, boring or caring” (Biel 1997, cited in Fill 2005, p. 394). Lastly, brand relationships refer to how each brand interacts with its consumers. Nowadays, we see brands chatting with customers on social media, providing health tips, career advice, safety instructions, and lifestyle tips.

It appears that there are several similarities and a healthy relationship when it comes to distinguishing between traditional and personal branding practices. Humans can be a brand, and the reverse is also true, in marketing parlance (Khedher 2015). The next section discusses the evolution of branding and how humans started adopting brand practices in the way they communicate.

The Evolution of Branding

For decades, brand building has been a mixed blessing for both companies and marketers. Branding is a mature concept that evolved over the past few years because of the rapid growth in the use of the Internet, particularly social media. Companies like Procter & Gamble have been the precursors of building strong brands by using mass media. The market today is highly competitive with new products, services, and brands that appear online. In such a turbulent marketplace, traditional brands try to protect their reputation and maintain their lead over competitors. Due to the barrage of mass media, individuals are overwhelmed with millions of messages or advertisements; this in turn leads to products losing their identity and becoming nearly invisible in the marketplace.

Marketing is changing and has reached the point where companies can no longer market directly to the masses. The traditional way of building a brand by using mass media is obsolete and has nothing to do with the emergence of new ways of doing it today. Traditional mass media is no longer communicating to consumers’ subconscious. That is why brands investigate alternative ways to build stronger and more humane brands.

This complicated and lengthy process is both a science and an art. There are no good recipes to follow, but there are feelings to develop. With the rise of digital media, alternative approaches are coming out. This section aims to explain the evolution of the concept of branding mainly to identify the new, “prototype” approaches that pioneers in marketing are putting into practice today.

The purpose of branding is to permit companies to be identified and to differentiate their products or services from others. Brands aim for recognition and recall. The Saatchi & Saatchi CEO worldwide and chairman from 1997 until 2016, Kevin Roberts, says, “the race to brand led to commodification—the erosion of distinctions, rapid imitation of innovation, higher standards of product performance and—accelerated by technology—a final transfer of power to consumers” (Manafu 2004). Indeed, it helps the customer to choose when a purchase decision is involved. Identification, differentiation, and recognition are the keywords of strong brands. As branding is turning into a complicated business concept, successful brands aim strategically to stimulate customers’ real feelings.

Why are people willing to pay more to buy Christian Dior? Are Christian Dior dresses more than a regular product? A brand is a set of associations and expectations for a company’s products or services; in other words, it is an implicit promise of what the buyer can expect and what meaning it has in a customer’s life. As a consequence, branding is not a combination of logos, slogan, or advertising. It is an ensemble of implicit messages that cultivate a deeper level of connection with the customer. Consequently, the established brand–customer relationship will influence humans to prefer and choose a specific group of products or services over others.

Brand loyalty is what marketers have been trying to achieve for years with mass advertising. They have created an exceptional connection with the masses via TV commercials, telling stories to garner mass attention. The traditional marketing model used mass media to reach a broad audience, which has been tested successfully and widely discussed among professionals. However, this model is considered old-fashioned and, therefore, no longer satisfactory, as it makes no emotional bonds with the target group.

There are several factors involved in the branding process that can explain the limited impact of the use of traditional mass media. The clients’ needs and behaviors are constantly changing, which affects how they receive messages. For instance, a person who is tired will be less likely to listen to what brands have to say on television. The competitors’ strategies will also influence the way marketers build their brands. A good example is the commercial battle between Apple and Samsung. If one of these two brands stop being aggressive over each other, they will probably have to implement another strategy that seems relevant to their perceived brand image.

It is certain that the process of branding is complicated and companies cannot merely rely on mass media and traditional advertising anymore for brand building. There are too many messages, and an individual cannot absorb them all. People try to avoid them every day and install “TiVo” in their house or subscribe to Netflix and other streaming services. Consumers watch thousands of messages every day in subways, streets, TV, newspapers, buses, taxis, stadiums, public parks, shopping malls, universities, e-mails, and websites.

If branding cannot rely on mass media anymore, what strategy should marketing professionals adopt? Nowadays, customers collect information from everywhere. They do not expect to learn about a new product or service from the mass media. A Facebook friend’s recommendation of a product or a good review on booking.com is a more efficient way to reach more customers.

Multinational corporations like Nike, Starbucks, or Marks & Spencer had at one time to manage an identity crisis due to customer rebellion. The closing of plants, decline in the quality of work conditions, the disrespect shown to the environment, and unfair trade practices are issues raised commonly today. Moreover, it is a fact that customers do not understand the reason for the huge money spent on mass media and wonder why corporates should be spending all that money on mere advertisements when there are many other critical social concerns that need resolution, such as racism, discrimination, inequality in the society, and environmental pollution. So what can be an excellent strategy to communicate with modern consumers?

Emotional Branding

Branding is not only about ubiquity, visibility, and functions; it is about bonding emotionally with people in their daily life. Only when a product or a service kindles an emotional dialogue with the consumer, can this product or service qualify to be a brand. (Gobe 2010)

Emotional marketing has become a buzzword in business. As customers get more and more critical and suspicious, companies have to behave like humans. For years, companies have focused on profit, economies of scale, and mass media advertising to reach a broad audience, but along the way forgot to care about what keeps them in business—their customers. Emotional marketing treats customers as human beings and involves emotions and feelings in the brand–customer relationship. Nowadays, brands try to listen and discuss with consumers. For example, Procter & Gamble abandoned the “better, cleaner, sharper” advertising model of their line of products to go with the model of “proud sponsors of moms” that salutes all the mothers for all the sacrifices they made to see their kids succeed in life.

The president of Hallmark Loyalty, Scott Robinette, writes that “emotionally loyal customers relate to the brand as they might to other human beings—feelings of affection, a common history, possibly a sense of trust and two-way” (Robinette et al. 2000, p. 2). Creating emotional connections or sharing familiar stories is the new way of thinking. Companies now understand this process and focus on their brand identity, the living experience, and the emotional connection with people.

An interesting point of view comes from Kevin Roberts (2006) and his concept of Lovemarks. In his book Lovemarks—The FutureBeyond Brands he explains the simple evolution of brands to “Lovemarks”—from simple products to trademarks and then brands. Now that people adore products and become loyal to them, brands become Lovemarks that embrace emotions and talk straight to people’s hearts. The iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Starbucks, and The Body Shop are some examples of brands that turned into Lovemarks. Roberts makes a point that “Lovemarks are created and owned by the people who love them.” With Lovemarks the process is entirely different than with brands. A stronger tie is created to replace the information of what a product can offer to consumers. Lovemarks create stories and experiences that their customers are willing to share on social media for free. Marketing is not a narrative anymore but a passionate love story.

The Four Passions of Branding Innovation

We have to do it differently. There are more possibilities, many choices, and we have to hit the audience quicker and in the heart. (Roberts 2006, p. 12)

Branding innovation today can be summed up by four types of passion:

• Passion for Values
• Passion for Ideas
• Passion for Life
• Passion for People

Passion for Values

Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to a brand. (Schultz and Yang 1999, p. 23)

Companies tend to forget their values or at least how to publicly communicate them. However, identifying values and building a corporate culture is now a primordial asset. For customers, a great company is a company that cares! As a consequence, to create an emotional connection and healthy relationship, customers and employees have to identify themselves with the corporate values.

Companies need to have a clear identity and so have identifiable values. Those values help each group to differentiate and establish a credible, reli...