Online personal branding in the Middle East and North America: A comparison of social capital accumulation and community response

Individuals are becoming reflexively aware and actively constructing their identities as they rely less on traditional sources such as socioeconomic status in a postmodern society (Hearn 2008; Wee and Brooke 2010). The ease and accessibility of improving technology and social media platforms facilitates identity creation to an unprecedented level (Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011). Online media is used to build individual identity using cultural indicators to develop the individuality of people (Featherstone 2007), as personal webpages are becoming controllable spaces of strategic self-presentation (Vazire and Gosling 2004). The rise in popularity of personal branding is especially evident in image consultancy, self-management, and self-promotion books (Wee and Brooke 2010), and has just recently entered the marketing sphere (Shepherd 2005). The practice is receiving a lot of attention as a crucial strategy to succeed in a complex corporate world (Hearn 2008). However, despite the relevance of personal branding, it has received scant attention (Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011), especially in the social media marketing, branding and consumption literature. Moreover, extant research has not given much attention to studying personal branders and their respective communities in a naturalistic context (Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011). Lastly, we have not encountered studies that study personal branding in different cultures. To address these shortcomings in the literature, this research aims to study online personal branders and their respective communities in a naturalistic context. Firstly, this study explores and compares efforts by personal branders in North America (postmodern) and the Middle East (modern) to accumulate social capital. Secondly, as community members are crucial in personal brand networks, we also compare community member narratives towards such personal branding efforts, using netnographic research and in depth interviews. This research furthers the work on online personal branding, and introduces an insightful cross-cultural comparison, that has been lacking in social media consumption studies.