An interpretive enquiry into CEO personal branding on social media

Abstract

Social media has altered the corporate communication environment. Organisations have put their CEOs on social media to build corporate brand image whilst creating a strong personal brand. However, creating a personal brand online is complicated and problematic, especially when the personal brand serves various stakeholders. While CEOs become recognised as a brand, there has been limited insight into how a CEO personal brand can be crafted and how it impacts stakeholders. Furthermore, CEOs are regarded as a core presentation of the corporate brand. Thus, it is important to understand how CEO personal brand affects the corporate brand. To address these questions, this study adopted a multi-method research, combining qualitative in-depth interviews with netnography, in an attempt to gain understanding of CEO personal brand from both CEOs’ and stakeholders’ perspectives. The findings indicate key CEO characteristics and employee involvement as pre-requisite to developing a CEO personal brand. Also, by bridging corporate branding and online personal branding literature, this study illustrates how a CEO personal brand influences corporate brand image, employee advocacy and consumer loyalty.