Self Marketing and Social Media: A Managerial Approach

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to analyse how and the extent to which social media can be used to promote a personal brand, thus contributing to the success of a professional and entrepreneurial venture. It is specifically investigated if and how social media can contribute to a cost-effective positioning and promotion of a personal brand, compared to more traditional and top-down communication media and marketing methods. From a theoretical perspective, the paper aims to structure a conceptual framework that can offer a truly managerial perspective to social media marketing activities applied to self marketing. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based both on secondary data, stemming from the most recent international researches on this topic, and on primary data, derived from the researcher's own observations and analysis. Findings - The paper demonstrates that social media – and particularly social network – can be effectively used to promote personal brands and contribute to the creation of a distinctive and competitive positioning. On the other hand, it is highlighted that – in order to produce their full potentiality - such tools need to be used with a truly managerial approach, that carefully considers the nature, size and needs of the potential markets, identifies a clear and distinctive positioning, and deploys the communication efforts by considering the dialogic nature of social media and their difference compared to traditional media. Originality/value - The paper presents up-to-date insights on an emerging topic and a conceptual perspective that can be further developed in future researches.