How to become successful You-tuber

1. Introduction

The globalized world we live in today has created pressures such as fiercer competition in most aspects of our daily lives, which require people to ‘stand out’ from the crowd (Brooks & Anumudu, 2016; Shepherd, 2005). Hence, the idea of differentiating ourselves is becoming a more common notion. As a response to these pressures, personal branding has taken hold among professionals. Most of the personal branding literature suggests that branding yourself is the key to personal and professional success (Gehl, 2011; Khedher 2013; Gandini, 2016; Harris & Rae, 2011; Schwabel, 2011; Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005). Moreover, the argument that “if you don’t brand yourself, others will” (Kaputa, 2003, cited in Shepherd, 2005, p. 590) seems to have led to the increased interest in personal branding that we have seen over the past two decades.

The literature on personal branding on social media draws on both the pre-social media studies by Peters (1997), arguing that every person has the possibility to be a marketer for himself/herself and post-social media authors, such as Shepherd (2005) and Arruda (2005), contending that personal branding is similar to product/service branding. As far as the studies in the social media context are concerned, the focus is on conceptualizing the branding process (Khedher, 2015) and identifying the motivations for engaging in personal branding (Gandini, 2016, Lair et al, 2205; Nolan, 2015). Moreover, in most studies, the context is the professional domain. Hence, the major focus is on professionals deliberately using social media to achieve successful careers.

However, the rise of social media has made it possible for virtually anyone with internet access to brand oneself. In fact, most famous YouTubers have risen to popularity for other purposes than career advancement and their material success is an outcome, rather than the initial goal of their self-exposure on social media. Moreover, many of them are neither unique nor particularly creative in the topics they highlight in their videos. There is clearly a need to increase our understanding of the type of content they are creating and sharing with their followers and the actual process of content creation. What can we learn from these “ordinary” people who have built themselves into successful personal brands about the “winning content formula”?
The purpose of this paper is to identify the key features of the “branded” content and the process of content creation that allows for “ordinary” people to be successful on social media. The focus is on YouTubers and the process of creating the “branded” content and succeeding with it online.

2. Literature Review

Since the beginning of the 1990s, personal branding has primarily been the domain of self-help consultants, experts and practitioners (Peters, 1997; Shepherd, 2005; Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005; Chen, 2013), although the original idea of marketing people had already appeared in 1969 (Kotler and Levy, 1969). While much research has been undertaken on the phenomenon of branding on social media (Barware & Meehan, 2010; Holt, 2016; Gensler et al. 2013; Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012), it is only recently that branding from a personal perspective has sparked an interest among academics.

Most practitioners argue that branding of humans is similar to the branding of products and services, which is also supported by academic research viewing this phenomenon through the prism of marketing theory (e.g. Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011, Shepherd, 2005). Accordingly, Arruda (2005) conceptualises personal branding as a three-stage process: “extract, express and exude”, which involves: i) exploring the unique value or key differentiation the person has; ii) developing a strategy to communicate the unique value, and iii) implementing a strategy for making the personal brand visible to the outside world..

As far as the elements of the personal brand are concerned, many authors have highlighted the importance of emphasizing one’s strengths, values, goals, and personality (Rampersad, 2008; Montoya, 2005). Moreover, Rampersad (2008) proposes that an individual should formulate a clear brand promise and a personal brand story in order to “produce a positive emotional reaction”. In other words, similar to traditional branding, personal branding also entails the act of defining and communicating the brand identity (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011; de Chernatony & McDonald, 2003). Additionally, the importance of communicating one’s uniqueness is emphasised (Peters, 1997; Rampersad, 2008; Montoya, 2005) which can be related to the importance of a clear brand positioning (de Chernatony & McDonald, 2003) Lastly, a personal brand is also created based on the public perception of the personality and the abilities of the branded individual to build up relationships with the audience (Rampersad, 2008; Gandini, 2016). For this reason, personal branding also involves the person’s reputation, i.e. her/his personal brand image (Holloway, 2013, Gander, 2014).

Furthermore, according to Arruda (2009), there are three key qualities of a strong brand, whether it is personal or corporate: clarity, consistency, and constancy. Arruda (2009, p. 410) illustrates this point by referring to perhaps one of the most successful personal branded persons to this date: “One of the most successful, visible, and constant personal brands, both commercially and personally, is Oprah Winfrey. With her weekly television show, book club, magazine, numerous media appearances, and casual appearances in grocery stores and restaurants, Oprah is consistently visible and has maintained an incredibly strong brand over a very long career.” Additionally, authenticity is considered an essential aspect of personal branding (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011, Rampersad, 2008; Arruda, 2009; Montoya, 2005). To summarise, it would appear that in incorporating all elements of personal branding and communicating them to the audience, this means that an individual manages her/his personal brand strategically (Rampersad, 2008).

Social media has enabled individuals to create personal profiles on various sites, through which they can construct and present themselves to broad audiences (Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011; Holt, 2016). According to Labrecque, Markos and Milne (2011), this can then be understood as a way for individuals to build their personal brand identities. Indeed, they suggest that in an online context, personal brand identity relies on self-presentation as identities are created in computer-mediated environments using social networking profiles, blogs, and personal Web pages.” For instance, politicians, celebrities, professionals on LinkedIn and even teenagers on YouTube are making a great effort to stand out by tailoring their social media accounts so that their voices are heard among various audiences. Thus, it is clear that the social online forums support the concurrent growing phenomenon of personal branding (Khedher, 2015; Chen, 2013).

The content plays an important role when building and promoting a brand on social media (Gensler et al, 2013), whereby it should be relevant to the target audience, consistent and valuable as well as including some call for action. For example, research has shown that the branded content that tends to create positive engagement among users in the form of “likes”, “comments”, “sharing” and increased sales (for product-related content) is informative (Ashley & Tuten, 2015), vivid and interactive (de Vries, Gensler & Leeflang, 2012).

In addition, the richness of the content, i.e. the inclusion of images and videos, has been found to have a positive impact on consumer engagement (Sabate et al, 2014) and sharing (Berger & Milkman, 2012). However, there is no real consensus in the literature as to what constitutes effective consumer engagement branded content. Regarding which, many researchers seem to agree that entertainment has a positive effect on consumer engagement online (Ashely & Tuten, 2015; Gensler et al., 2013; Barwise & Meehan, 2010; Aguilera-Moyano, Baños-González & Ramírez-Perdiguero, 2015; Muntinga, Moorman & Smit, 2011). On the whole, the cited theories are used in this paper as a toolbox for a deeper understanding of the personal branding phenomenon as regards its essential features and process.

3. Method

The study is exploitative in nature and involves applying a grounded theory design that advocates a comparison method, i.e. looking at a phenomenon in different situations to find an arising pattern to develop a plausible theory (Glaser, 1965). The aim is to uncover the key elements of personal branding and based on these insights, build a conceptual framework.

4. Analysis

The empirical material revealed three themes that were occurring in the content of all four YouTubers: Loyal to Personal Brand Profile, Promotion of Multiple Social Media Accounts, and Addressing the Audience and Encouraging Co-creation.

4.1 Loyal to Personal Brand Profiles.

Despite all the focal YouTubers profiles varying in terms of topics, there is a common pattern among all of them: they are all very loyal to their profiles. They would appear rarely to stray away from the category of topics they talk about, the environment where they film the video, or the tone of voice used when talking about the topic. For example, Casey Neistat is consistent in being adventurous and sporty, while showing his love for New York City (Figure 1). Jenna Marbles (Figure 2) is consistent with being sarcastic and unconventional when sharing her opinions about men and women. Bethany Mota is unwavering in being positive and ‘proper’. While providing tips related to fashion and beauty. Tyler Oakley, on the other hand, is consistent in being open and somewhat brazen while sharing detailed personal stories relating to being openly gay. In other words, they all produce content that is aligned with their ‘brand profile’, and they stick to it without exception. Even though the YouTubers have matured with age, the personality, values, and opinions that are communicated via the content have remained the same from the oldest to the most recent videos.