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The importance and the process of personal branding in nowadays

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 UNIVERS I - International Journal of Education, Science, Technology, Innovation, Health and Environment
(ISSN: 1857- 9450)
Volume 01– Issue 03, August 2015

UDC: 159.923:004.738.5

The importance and the process of personal branding in nowadays

Shyle I1
1
Polytechnic University of Tirana, Department of Production and M anagement, email: irmitash@yahoo.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Abstract:
To live effectively in this world, to achieve your goals, to make a difference, depends greatly from others
because we human beings depend more on others and the relationships we create with them. Personal branding
is simple when someone will co mmunicate and interact with you. You wish that others know that you are
capable and reliable and you will be helpful in the co mpany. Personal branding goes be yond cyberspace to
include a personal representation on oneself. Having a strong personal brand is about projecting a strong
consistent ‗personal brand‘ image for oneself through the way they talk, the way they behave, the grooming
skills, and then taking control of their visibility to manage their own PR. Developing skills for the personal
branding has grown significantly as the complexity and the drastic changes occurring in the workplace, or in our
daily life. Even for talented and competent people, there is a market of "buyers". Individuals always benefit by
making themselves more attractive candidates both inside and outside the organization. Regardless if an
individual is actively seeking any type of work, the necessity of a personal brand has become o f the greatest
importance. There is a personal positive impact arising from the personal branding. We may know our personal
goals and professional simpler than before. We can more easily find opportunities to express our expertise more
quickly, and in fact opportunities "find" us. The process of personal branding creates options and choices for
you because you listen and learn more about your opportunities. This process can be similar with the
development of a market ing plan for a product or service.
Personal branding includes a representation of a personality through a variety of med iu ms. What many people
do not realize is that with today‘s advancement of online med ia and the Internet in general, they may already
have some form of personal brand. If someone types their name into a Google search bar, they will most likely
be able to find a list of several results containing their name; this contributes to their personal brand.
Key words: personal branding, internet, career success.
___________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Recent studies have shown that brands are a basic tool in increasing business performance. The brand
is "a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies the benefits of services providers
and distinguishes it from others" (AMA, 2007), or "a set of mental relationships established by the
customer that add a perceived value to a product or service "(Keller 1998). These relationships need
to be unique, strong and positive. The essential part of every brand is its identity. According to Aaker
"brand identity is a unique grouping of brand relations which brand strategists want to create and
maintain. These relationships represent what the brand is, as well as a promise to the customers of the
company "(Aaker, 1996: 68).
Brand equity consists of several influencing variables, which, together, constitute the concept of
brand equity, and one of these variables is brand personalit y. Brand ident ity is also interconnected
with brand personalit y since it depicts the human characterist ics associated with a brand; hence, the
perceived personality and its human elements affect the brand ident ity.

Human Pe rsonality Scales

Psychologists define the substance of personality as ‗the systematic description of traits‘ (McCrae &
Costa, 1987), where traits are ‗relatively enduring styles of thinking, feeling, and acting‘ (McCrae &
Costa, 1997). After decades of research on a taxonomy of human personality, consensus now rests
upon five dimensions that provide a complete description of personality: (1) Extraversion or
Surgency (talkative, assertive, energetic), (2) Agreeableness (good-natured, cooperative, trustful), (3)

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Conscientiousness (orderly, responsible, dependable), (4) Emotional Stability versus Neuroticism

(calm, not neurotic, easily upset), and (5) Openness or Intellect (intellectual, imaginative,
independent- minded) (John & Srivastava, 1999).
The ―Big Five‖ dimensions are a result of analyses of the natural language terms humans use to
describe themselves and others (Goldberg, 1993). Although the development of the Big Five was not
theory-driven, most important personality constructs as put forward by personality theorists as diverse
as Jung, Leary, Guilford, and Eysenk, are integrated in the Big Five structure, which increased trust in
the Big Five (Sanz, Gil, Garcia-Vera, & Barrasa, 2008).
The idea to start from all personality terms that can be found in a dictionary stems from the assumption
that natural language contains all relevant and salient personality traits (Allport, 1937). Starting from
different sets of several hundred personality characteristics, a number of researchers found evidence of
five recurrent factors (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1992; Norman, 1967; etc).

Personal Brand
Personal branding—the discovery, understanding and marketing of an individual‘s unique attributes- is a
concept brought to the mainstream by Tom Peters in 1997 with his seminal article ―The Brand
Called You‖. Since that time, numerous books, articles and websites have emerged to help
individuals develop a "brand plan." To determine a unique brand, most literature suggests a self-
assessment based on a short list of open ended questions such as "Who am I?‖, "How have I
gotten here?", "Where do I want to go?", "Who is my target audience?". In addition to a self-
awareness assessment, the typical brand plan also includes an action plan to build a presence on
social media sites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter
According to Shepherd (2005), the importance of having a personal brand is well recognized due to
the increasing pressure of globalization and emerging social media.
The term personal brand was first used in 1997 in an article in management magazine Fast Company
by Tom Peters, although no definition was given (Lair, Sullivan and Cheney 2005). Lair, Sullivan
and Cheney (2005) argue that personal branding perhaps started earlier, in 1982 with Dale Carnegie‘s
How to Win Friends and Influence People. The first definition given to personal branding was by
Lair, Sullivan and Cheney (2005, p.309) who described it as involving ―…the concepts of product
development and promotion are used to market persons for entry into or transition within the labour
market‖. Lair, Sullivan and Cheney (2005) therefore take a rather narrow view of what a brand may
actually be. Indeed they define branding to be (at 309):A programmatic approach to the selling of a
product, service, organisation, cause or person that is fashioned as a programmatic approach to the
selling of a product, service, organisation, cause or person that is fashioned as a proactive response to
the emerging desires of a target audience or market.
At this point in time there is no definition of a personal brand. Therefore for the purposes of this
paper it is proposed that the current American Marketing Association definition of a brand is
simply be extended to include people. Therefore a personal brand can be defined as being a person,
name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or
services of one seller, or group of sellers, and to differentiate them from those of competitors
(American Marketing Association 2007).
The definition of personal branding is based on communication, for instance –how the personal
brand is being communicated and presented to others by showcasing attributes of the individual self
which will differentiate the personal brand from others (Arruda, 2003). In the process of personal
branding, individuals are mostly engaged with self- marketing (Shepherd, 2005).

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Peter Montoya, author of The Brand Called You, believes the key to personal branding is knowing
how you are perceived by others. Montoya writes, "Personal branding lets you control how other
people perceive you. You're telling them what you stand for -- but in a way that's so
organic and unobtrusive that they think they've developed that perception all by themselves. When
done right, it's irresistible.‖ (Personal Branding Press, 2002). Peter suggests that an individual
should develop a Personal Brand:

 When you feel unrecognized for accomplishments

 When others are achieving goals you set for yourself
 When you feel you have gone as far as you can conventionally
 When you want an edge over your competition
Various authors have different views on the need for personal branding. However, all of them agree
that a personal brand plays the same role as any brand does – of differentiating a product, service (or
person) from others. Peter Montoya however says that a personal brand does not:
 Cover up incompetence
 Make you famous
 Get you to your goals

The nature of self-identity

Self-identity is a concept which is often replaced in psychology with the concepts "self" or "identity"
(Epstein, 1973, p. 404; Leary and Tangney, 2003, p. 6; Smith, 1992, p. 183). The concept of self-
identity is given in the 1890s, when James published two volumes of Principles of Psychology. He
stressed that self-identity organized by memories, habits and a sense of self-ownership identity
(James, 1890.229).
In this way, consciousness is important in building self-identity. But this varies from one individual to
another. According to James self-identity includes: "I", "me" and "mine". According to him they are
not simply important thoughts or feelings in general but what is important are my thoughts or my
feelings.
James also identified three types of self-identity defined as material ego, ego social and spiritual self
(p. 292-296).
 Material ego is a self that includes the individual's own body, family and all the
things that a person owns. Things owned evaluated not only for their function but more than that they
valued because they are part of themselves (Brown, 1998, p. 22).
 Social ego includes view how others see an individual. How an individual is
considered and viewed by others depend on the social role that the individual plays (Roberts and
Donahue, 1994, p. 214-215). These social roles include personal relationships, ethnicity, religious
beliefs, religious affiliation, various groups and professions (Deaux et al., 1995, p. 287-288).
 Spiritual ego refers to "internal leaving" the individual (James, 1890, p. 296). That
means psychological yourself and it consists of individual non-material things. These things include
the individual's perceived abilities, attitudes, emotions, interests, motivations, opinions, desires, etc.
(Brown, 1998, p. 25).

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Volume 01– Issue 03, August 2015

Feelings, serve as reinforcement and good support to future actions. Thus if the individual has positive
feelings he holds filing perceived otherwise it modifies or amends it. In light of the development of
self-identity it is not important fact how others actually make their own judgment, but it is important
how the individual perceives how others see him and how he feels about the judgment of others. Due
to a variety of factors that affect the self-identity, researchers have treated this concept as a person, as
a personality, as a subject of experience, as beliefs about themselves, and as an agent that promotes
actions (Leary dhe Tangney, 2003, f. 6-7).
Belk (1988) argues that "we are what we have" (p. 160). In the broad sense, the ego includes goods or
things and most importantly experience on these goods. Thus various aspects of consumer behavior
including product purchasing, care for product, gift giving product or availability of goods are
considered as major contributors to the process of self-identity. The reason, why the benefits are
estimated, is related to the sense that their owners or those who possess, give and attribute to those
goods. This sense is built from experience that the owners of the property have an interactive
relationship with society.
Gardner and Levy (1955) were among the first researchers who applied the concept of the meaning of
products and brands in marketing. They stressed that the meanings represented the values and
judgment of consumers, so marketers should be careful in the creation of useful functions to create
desirable meanings of product to consumers (p. 35). These meanings can be given by brands and are
used to increase customer self-identity (Levy, 1959, f. 124). Thus, consumers do not consume more
functional aspects of the product but instead they are related to symbolic meanings which means, the
basic meanings associated with the product or brand (Elliott, 1997, p. 286). This is also called
symbolic consumption. Symbolic consumption can be best illustrated by the super-reality of
postmodernism (Firat, 1991, f. 70). Super-reality refers to the power of consumers to stimulate reality.
Promoted reality is perceived reality but not reality itself. Any product or brand has an image. The
image perceived by the customer can be communicated by the marks of the company or can be
created in the society. Customers use the image to be integrated into their lives and thereby stimulate
reality.
Brand identity by Aaker model
"The identity of the brand is a unique grouping of brand relationships. These relationships represent
what the brand is, as well as a promise to customers by the company" (Aaker, 1996: 68). Aaker looks
at brand identity "just like organized brands will remain in the minds of consumers" (Aaker, 1996:
25). It follows that the identity of the brand is derived from the "organization"; it is not a construct of
consumers or customers as only the brand image is construct them). Brand identity helps in
establishing a relationship between the brand and consumers by generating a value proposition which
includes functional or emotional benefits. The Aaker model for brand strategists suggest you consider
the trademark from four perspectives. These are brand as a product, as an organization, as a person
and as a symbol. Each of these perspectives has several dimensions.
 Proposed value. Aaker has defined the proposed value of a brand as:"the declaration of
functional benefits, emotional, and self expression scattered from brands that provide
customer value. A value proposition effectively can lead to relationship-brand customers and direct
purchase decisions." (Aaker 2002.95)
 Functional benefits, according to Aaker there are benefits that are based on the attributes of a
product. These benefits are directly related to the purchase decision and the experience gained by the
use of the product. A brand that has a dominant functional benefit may dominate the market for its

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Volume 01– Issue 03, August 2015

respective category. The biggest challenge for brands is to create a functional benefit that will be
remembered by customers and that will build a strong position against competitors. But as product
attributes, functional benefits are easy to copy which can lead towards the inability for proper
differentiation, and prenvent the brand from expanding. To overcome these limitations, the prospect
of brand identity should extend beyond product attributes, therefore, brand strategists need to consider
three other perspectives: the brand as an organization, as a person and symbol. (Aaker, 2002: 95-96)
 Emotional benefits, relate to the ability of a brand to promote the customer‘s feelings during
the mutual process of communication. Emotional benefits not only have a great level of influence in
the minds of consumers but they also diversify and deepen the content of brand ident ity. Brands with
strong identity are mainly those brands that include functional benefits as well as emotional. (Aaker
2002: 97-99)
 The benefits of self-expression. According to consumer behavior researcher Russell W. Belk
"We are what we have". (Belk, 1988: 139) This concept is the basis of benefit of self-expression that
Aaker argues: "A benefit of self-expression exists when the brand provides a means through which a
person can show a certain image of oneself." (Aaker, 2002: 99). Usually there is a strong link between
emotional benefits and self-expression.
According to Heding & Knutzen, (2008) the approach focuses on creating a unified visual identity
and behavior. It is assumed that consumers attributed identity features to companies and that they
form images based on the total experience they have with it. This puts the corporation and its
employees in the center of creating brand equity. Identity is something that is initiated from within the
company. Some of the questions that corporations should ask themselves in identity approach are:
"Who are we? What are we? What do we want to become?" Hence, creating brand value, is dependent
on the correct answers to these questions and their implementation in every aspect of business. In
identity approach a reputed and reliable image is supposed to be the determining factor in the
selection of the brand. The alignment brand identity - customer interaction is expanded to include all
potential stakeholders, not just consumers. This broader focus and perception of those who are also
alternately makers of brand communication can be explained with an emphasis on trust and reputation
which characterizes the identity approach.

Personal brand identity

The concept of brand identity has received much attention, and today the majorit y of marketing
companies have specified their brand ident ity in corporate documents. Brand ident ity has grown to
become a wide concept, now encompassing many of the earlier discussed theories, e.g. posit ioning,
relationship, and brand personality. According to Kapferer (2008) the brand identity gives guidelines
to what parts of the brand should be kept the same and what elements can be modified, allowing
brands to evolve in t ime. Shepherd (2005) also suggests that, the theory of human identity
construction can also be discussed in the context of personal branding to explain how people construct
their online personal identity. Personal brand identity can be derived from the core concepts of „brand
identity.‟ According to Kapferer (1997:17) ―The brand is not just the product but it gives the
product meaning and defines its identity in both time and space.‖ Brand identity as described
by Aaker (1996) are the unique sets of associations to address what the brand stands for and to convey
brand promises to its customers and to stakeholders. Aaker (1996) describes brand identity as a
combination of core and extended identity.
1. Determine Who You Are. Since personal brands have a direct reflection on the person, to
identify our personal brands we must ask ourselves – what do I do that makes me different (Tom

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Volume 01– Issue 03, August 2015

Peters). We must identify our greatest strengths and most noteworthy personal traits. Personal
branding is about determining who you are at your core authentic self, rather than inventing a brand
that you would like to be perceived as. One‘s personal brand emerges from the search for identity and
meaning, out of which comes an awareness of personal strengths and talents. It also involves
determining ones brand elements - making conscious choices about the people to associate with, the
clothes to wear, the food to eat, the place where to stay, the way of speaking in public and in private
etc. It is essentially telling the world ―who you are‖ through visible cues.
2. Determine What You Do. This involves writing down ones greatest area of professional
interest or passion. This reflects the kind of work one wants to do in life. It involves asking oneself -
What do I do that adds remarkable, measurable, distinguished, distinctive value? What do I do that I
am most proud of? Personal branding is not applying an attractive mask, it is understanding
what ones values are, and learning to make these values relevant to other people. Much of developing
a personal brand centers on identifying personal values.
3. Position Yourself. By identifying the qualities or characteristics that make a person distinctive
from his competitors or colleagues, one can create a positioning for himself. What have I done to
make myself stand out? What would my colleagues or my customers say is my greatest and clearest
strength? While promoting your brand, everything than a person does or chooses not to do
communicates the value and character of the brand. Everything from the way of handling phone calls,
to the email messages, to the way of conducting business in a meeting is part of the larger message
that is sent about a personal brand. Just like it is true for products and services, good personal brands
stand apart from others and create strong favorable and unique associations. The aim of every
personal brand is to be clear, distinctive, and be easily understood, and to expresses a unique,
compelling benefit that people believe in.
4. Manage Your Brand. According to Montoya, the key to any personal branding campaign is
"word- of-mouth marketing." The network of friends, colleagues, clients, and customers is the most
important marketing vehicle that a personal brand has got. What they say about the brand is what the
market will ultimately gauge as the value of the brand.
The personal brand must establish a place of trust and relevance in the prospects minds. The more it
is believed by people, the more it will spread throughout the market without pushing. To evaluate
how your brand is doing it is necessary to obtain honest, helpful feedback on the brand performance,
growth and value. The next step is to work to close the gap between what the brand is today and
how it wants to be perceived by others.

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