Organizational Communication

The role of social media for building

personal brands

Cojocaru Silviu-Mihai
Joita Dan-Alexandru
SNSPA, MCPE2

Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to critically review literature related to the theoretical
concept of the topic of social media, traditional marketing channels and brand awareness.
Social media has gained a lot of popularity over the past few years and as a result of this
popularity, other traditional media have experienced decline in both business and popularity. The
main stream media channels have faced many challenges in recent times that have led to closure
with TV facing down turn in their profits levels.
In the last couple of years, different kind of social media networking services have
emerged and currently there are innumerable social media channels that connect people to each
other. The most popular social network sites that are widely used are; Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr. In fact, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the most common
channels companies use in their online marketing for creating brand awareness or just engaging
with the customers.
Probably you are familiar with as it relates to companies and organizations. A
companys brand is the same essence that affects everything it does.
The same thing applies to persons. Anyone who works, communicate, or participate in
society at any level has a personal brand. Your personal brand is made up of number of different
factors and it influence how you are perceived by others. It is constantly being influenced by
how you communicate, what type of work you produce, and who you associate with.
In his book, Michael Reynolds1 consider that prior to the age of media, your personal
brand was influenced by just a few things. How you dressed, how you spoke, and what your
resume looked like might be all it took to make up a personal brand for a job seeker. Sales
professional relied on sharp suits, expensive lunches, and influential friends in order to
strengthen their personal brands.
We are now living in an age of unprecedented transparency where blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and
Facebook allow us to distribute, communicate , self-publish and produce on a level never seen
before. You can now fast search on Google for someones name and location, and, a long list of
profiles will appear with various social networking sites, giving the researcher all sorts of
information about that person.
The online place where people can interact with friends, family, coworkers,
acquaintances and others with similar interests, are the social networking sites. They are Webbased and provide many ways for their users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video,
voice chat, file-sharing, blogging and discussion groups.
Facebook is a popular social networking site is are being used daily by millions of people
and are becoming a part of everyday online activities. They sites provide an immediate and
personal way to deliver programs, products and information to individuals or friends within your
personal network.

1 Michael Reynolds, Personal Branding with Social Media, Published in eBook format by
eBooklt.com

Twitter2 is an social networking web site and also an online micro-blogging that is used to
provide information, commentary and descriptions of events and highlight certain audio or video
content. Twitter users send updates, or "tweets," that are 140 characters. Individual users can
"follow" another users' updates.
LinkedIn3 is a social networking site designed mainly for the business community. The
goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they
know and trust professionally. A members profile page, has professional network news feeds
and a limited number of customizable modules.
Youtube4 is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. Was created
in 2005 and in 2016, is one of the most popular sites on the Web, with visitors watching around 6
billion hours of video every month. You can even create and upload your own videos to share
with others.
The aim of this study is to research how Bill Gates can seize the moment of using social media
networks to create brand awareness.

How does social media apply to personal branding?

Social media does not replace traditional communication. Rather, social media
enchances. Before advertising, word of mouth was the best way to find products and services. If
we needed something, we asked a friend or a neighbor for a recommendation. So how does
social media apply to personal branding? Basicly the same rules apply. If u are looking for a job,
you now have a lot more to offer than a resume and an interview. You can use third-party
endorsements from LinkedIn to show your potential employer that other people think you are
doing good work. You can also show that you have helped others on Twitter by answering
peoples questions that are in your area of expertise, positioning you as an expert.

What affects your brand?

Our personal brands are influenced by many things including the way we dress and speak
but especially by how we communicate. Before Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn communication was
a lot more limited. It was very difficult to get content in front of a large audience whereas now
we are able to publish information in real time to a much bigger audience that we could before.
This can be good but it sometimes can be bad.
The bad times. Weve all heard the stories of people losing their jobs over things they
posted on Facebook, so we must be very carefull with what we do online. Our personal brand is
affected by what we say, what photos we add, what comments we make or anything else we do
on social network. Negative comments, arguments on public debates and certain photos can
negatively affect our personal brand.
On the other side the opposite is also true. Our brand can be affected in a good way when
we contribute to the community by answering questions. By writing valuable articles and
2 http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/tools/twitter.html accessed on 07.06.2016

3 http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/LinkedIn accessed on 07.06.2016

4 http://www.gcflearnfree.org/youtube/what-is-youtube/1/ accessed on 07.06.2016

postiong them on our blogs helps others and positions us as experts. How we communicate on
networks such as Twitter or Facebook also influences how others perceive you.
This is not new because people have always judged other people based on how they treat
others and how they communicate. Social media simply gives up the opportunity to enlarge that
judgment by opening the box and publishing it for the world to see.

What are the basic steps in building a personal brand?

1. Google yourself
Everyone wants people to be able find positive links about you in the top results.
However, in many cases you could have very high competition as your name or your brand
might be very common, same name as someone else with a bad reputation or you could have
negative links about you and your work that might impact negatively on your online
reputation. You need to know what will people find when they Google your name.
2. Knowing your personal brand
You need to define who you are. You need to know yourself and your purpose or mission
in life, skills, talents, personality, and weaknesses. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats) analysis is an excellent tool!
You need to find your target audience. Your target audience is the people you want to work
with or establish a professional network. Your professional connection. Social and
professional circle.
You have to know your influencers. Key influencers and individuals who would make
employment decisions or help in your application process, or will be the bridge between
other important people.
You need to know your competition. Make a SWOT analysis of people who do the same
type of work you do or have the same skills you have. It will give you a wider view to
understand your uniqueness. You can research them in their professional networks.
Find the best keywords. You need to select a highly searched word but with low competition.
3. Sharing your brand with the world
When u have a clear idea on your personal brand its time to share it. The classic
branding tool is the CV but nowadays you need to communicate your brand online aswell.
You should consider setting up a website, becoming a blogger, creating your online CV on
LinkedIn, using Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube to constantly communicate your
brand.
4. Create an engagement plan and monitor your activities
Everyone knows that managing your online brand through social media can be time
consuming but there are a few tools that can make your life easier:
Hootsuite helps you to manage all your social media accounts from one web-based
dashboard. You can schedule your post and invite multiple collaborators. Most features of
this tool are free but if you want to upgrade the service, additional fees apply.
TweetDeck5 is another great app that helps you to schedule your tweets, monitor and manage
accounts and stay up to date with alerts to new tweets.
5 http://businessculture.org/blog/2013/09/02/personal-branding/ accessed on
07.06.2016

Klout helps you measure your social media influence. It gets the data from the user social
networks linked to Klout. It analyzes the size of the users network, the type of content and
the people interaction with that content. There are other tools that have similar function such
as Twentyfeet, Crowdbooster and Tweetstats.
5. Be carefull
You need to be very carefull with your activity because once a photo/comment etc has
been on the web is will always remain there.

Bill Gates and social media

Who is Bill Gates?
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, entrepreneur,
philanthropist, investor, and programmer. In 1975, Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft,
which became the world's largest PC software company. During his career at Microsoft, Gates
held the positions of chairman, CEO and chief software architect, and was the largest individual
shareholder until May 2014. Gates has authored and co-authored several books. Starting in 1987,
Gates was included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest
from 1995 to 2007, again in 2009, and has been since 2014. Between 2009 and 2014, his wealth
doubled from 40 billion to more than 82 billion. Between 2013 and 2014, his wealth increased by
15 billion. Gates is currently the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of US$76.4
billion.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates
has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an
opinion that has in some cases been upheld by numerous court rulings. Later in his career Gates
pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various
charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, established in 2000.
Slowly but steadily, Social media has become a must have part of our day to day lives.
Living in a completely digital era where we are always surrounded by several social media
platforms, it seems interesting to know the views of the popular celebrities about it. Here are the
useful insights of Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, about Social media.
With the drastic evolution in the field of Social Media, even one of the richest men in the
world, Bill Gates couldnt resist himself from embracing it. Looking into the social media
behavior of Bill Gates, one can be sure that his social media strategies are intended to leverage
his social profile popularity to promote his passion instead of attracting more followers.
Gatesnotes6 is the heart of Bill Gates social media strategies. Looking into this blog site
will tell you about four key interest areas of Bill Gates which are :
Saving lifes
Energy innovation
Improving education
Books hes reading
6 https://www.gatesnotes.com/ accessed on 07.06.2016

Here it is clearly visible that he is an extremely connected, well-educated and informed

contributor. His behavior on social media is the perfect fusion of entertainment and education.
His attraction grabbing reviews about some popular books like Innovations for Poor Farmers to 6
tools for teachers on gatesnotes speak of his concerted social marketing strategies. His marketing
strategies consist of gathering innovative technologies and then maximizing awareness about
these technologies by writing his own insights.
His social marketing strategy is truly effective. It is very common to tell the people
known to us about something we have read or something we found interesting and hoping them
to enjoy it in the similar ways. Social networking helps to make this sharing happen and it seems
interesting to find out social media behavior of celebrities. Here lets find out social media
behavior of Bill Gates on the popular social media platform, Twitter.

Bill Gates on Twitter

One of the very effective and truly effective social media platforms, Twitter is a global
conversation which offers a voice and opportunity to everyone. It makes ordinary people discuss
some of the most attention grabbing topics with celebrities. All that one needs to do is to express
his/her best in 140 characters and it will be re-tweeted by numerous people who find it
interesting, clever or controversial. Businesses are using Twitter to expose their brand in front of
a wide audience.
Coming back to Bill Gates, looking into Bill Gates Official Twitter Feed will make you
understand how he takes advantage of over 18 million followers to convey his thoughts and
insights about some of the most happening issues of the world.
The secret of Bill Gates social media strategy lies in playing with 140 characters. Your
social media success depends on how efficiently you play with this character limit and how
wisely you utilize this platform. Using it in the most efficient way, you can earn trust of your
audience and then drag them towards your business.
Conclusions:
Social media has made communication to a large audience much more easy than it used
to be.
The way we communicate and how we act online can make a positive or negative image
on our personal brand.
Bill Gates is using his personal brand on social media to promote a lot of charitable
causes.

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