A Personal Branding Assignment

Using Social Media

Lyle R. Wetsch, Memorial University Newfoundland

Abstract
The advertising industry has changed dramatically in the last few years with increasing
percentages of marketing expenditures transferring from traditional channels to emerging
digital and social channels. Educators need to recognize the changing needs of the marketplace
and provide appropriate education to students to prepare them for this exciting new advertising
environment. Recent changes to Google search results now incorporate social elements from
Google+ and other Google properties, introducing the concept of ‘Social Search’. Providing
students with assignments that provide for realistic evaluation as well as real world value has
been a challenge for educators. Fortunately, the growth of directed pay-per-click advertising
through search engines as well as other social channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
and YouTube has created an opportunity for marketing educators to incorporate direct
marketing and advertising skills and assignments to provide an interactive and engaging
educational environment. This article describes a personal branding assignment used in
undergraduate and MBA classes that focuses on the use of social media.
For almost 100 years advertising has been a are becoming digital sophisticates by the age
directed, one-way conversation. It has been of 12 and that they are influencing the family
about crafting the correct message and deploy- consumption and usage of media. Despite this
ing it to through channels that you believed influence and perceived digital literacy, there is
your target audience would be engaged with. still a considerable lack of knowledge in many
The focus of advertising during this age was areas, particularly social media (Government
on the art of persuasion (O'Reilly, 2012b), but of Canada, 2010). Given the emerging role of
now in a social media world, the role of adver- social media in marketing, communications,
tising has moved from one of ‘talking at’ the customer service and other integral components
customers, to one of ‘communicating with’ the of business operations, the effective education
customers. Listening, involving, engaging and of students in social media prepares them for a
being part of a two-way conversation are now wide range of careers such as those in advertis-
essential elements of getting a message out to ing that have been enriched by their adoption of
potential customers (O'Reilly, 2012a). This social media.
article details how a class assignment, based The reality is that youth are using all kinds
around a student’s personal brand, incorporates of social media tools that they have taught
recent advances in managing an online pres- themselves. In many households, children sur-
ence or brand and addresses current digital pass the technical knowledge of the parents
trends among job seekers and human resource before they reach their teen years and, with a
professionals. few exceptions, educators are not providing
them with the in-depth understanding neces-
Social Media & Millennials sary. I propose the following model as being
Social media have taken over the digital representative of the varying levels of under-
landscape of the majority of the population standing with respect to social media.
(Qualman, 2009). Millennials are the first Many parents and educators have Social
‘always on’ generation with a high level of Media Awareness. They may have a Facebook
expectation about their access to leading edge account, but are not actively engaged and
technology in the workplace (American Society typically “do not get” the whole social media
for Training & Development, 2010) and a tech- thing. Most kids today are referred to as being
nological competence greater than their parents. ‘digital sophisticates’, but in reality they only
A recent study from Ipsos OTX MediaCT possess Social Media Knowledge, the ability
(Schiffer & Sabino, 2010) suggests that kids to use and understand social media. The goal

30 Journal of Advertising Education

(and the challenge) is how to move them to the
ultimate level of Social Media Intelligence. At
this level, they have a complete understanding
of the implications and strategic application of
social media. This should be the goal of educa-
tors today.
"The fact is, social networks are here to
stay, and with our without rules, kids are going
to use them" (Ali, 2010, p. 1). With or without
the guidance and support of parents, teachers
and school administrators, students are going to
publish and communicate with others through
social media and will build an online identity
that will follow them throughout their lives.
Furthermore, with or without knowledge on
digital citizenship and an understanding of the
implications of the digital footprint they are
building, students are going to share in digital
spaces. Students should be equipped with the
social media intelligence to publish and com-
municate in ways that will help them to learn,
grow and develop an online reputation that will
follow and serve them well through many dif-
ferent life stages and identities.
Today’s college/university students have
spent less than 5,000 hours reading, more than
10,000 hours playing video games and 20,000
hours watching television. Students’ access to
and use of computer technology have reached
staggering new heights and are being incor-
porated into even earlier levels of a student’s
education. When students are raised in an era
of interactive video games, they have come to
expect similar elements in their interactive edu-
cational experiences (Drea, Tripp & Stuenkel,
2005).
According to the media ecological view,
digital technology changes the worldview of
students and research reveals, “People who
grow up in different cultures do not just think
about different things, they actually think dif-
ferently” (Prensky, 2001, p.3). An emphasis
Figure 1
Social Media A-K-I Model (Awareness, Knowledge, Intelligence)
Spring 2012
of text-based activities and assignments in the
classroom has meant a growing disconnection
between professors and students. Attempting
to transform today’s students into print-based
learners when they are not creates a tension for
students and professors. Rather, today’s profes-
sors need to engage learners in activities that
involve discovery and are experiential in nature.
Importance of Personal Branding
A series of recent surveys of recruiters show
that they believe that use of social media is
an efficient, cost-effective way to obtain qual-
ity new hires. Social media usage has become
mainstream among recruiters. The amount of
money spent on social media recruiting is
increasing while the money spent on traditional
methods is decreasing. Not participating in
social media and relying solely on traditional
job-hunting techniques, like job boards, will
place future job seekers at a disadvantage com-
pared with people who have social media intel-
ligence (Jobvite, 2010). Recruiters are using
Websites like LinkedIn to, “Create a search
stream of attributes to find precisely the type
of candidates a hiring manager is looking for”
(Campbell, 2010, p. 74). Social media now
provide candidates with the ability to connect
actively with recruiters, and recruiters are wel-
coming this as social media make them more
efficient. In entering this type of job market
where social media skills are highly sought
after, it is important for job applicants to under-
stand that they are in an environment where
employers are actively using social media as a
means for finding viable candidates (Cross-Tab
Marketing Services, 2010a; Direct Recruiters
Inc., 2005; Schawbel, 2009).
For individuals entering the job market for
the first time, it is beneficial to enter with an
existing understanding and knowledge of social
media. Therein lies an opportunity. With pre-
31
existing knowledge of social media providing
an opening to access the job market hidden
in social media and to be more employable, a
logical place to develop such knowledge is in
an academic setting. If social media knowledge
and intelligence were taught in an engaged
academic setting, before individuals enter the
work force, it would be possible to bridge the
gap between schooling and social media that
many of today’s graduates encounter in the
‘real world’.
Educators are starting to grasp the impor-
tance of students understanding “the fundamen-
tal areas of the medium” and the power in “arm-
ing students with the tools to carve out a career
in the social media sector” (Davis, 2009, p.13).
With young people using social media, it is seen
that, “[G]iving them a better understanding of
social networks [and social media] will not
only give them another option for an alternative
career path but would also help them with a bet-
ter understanding of their core subjects” (Davis,
2009, p.13).
The importance of online reputation man-
agement is something that is slowly but sure-
ly being recognized on a large scale.As this
is being learned and the active management
of online reputations undertaken, approaches
to information sharing are being reformed. A
strong indication of the importance of online
reputation management is the fact that more
and more recruiters are using a variety of social
media spaces to develop an understanding of
job candidates (Madden & Smith, 2010). This
serves in indicating that personal online identity
is formed from many sources and over time.
What students create now will be a part of their
online identity for years to come, as will the
social media intelligence they are gathering (or,
unfortunately, not gathering) in their schools.
The current impact of online identity manage-
ment on sociability, job application and college
application is not seen to be comparable to the
impact that will be seen in the future (Cross-Tab
Marketing Services, 2010b).
The transparency of information on indi-
viduals that is available online is now easily
accessible to future employers and potentially
other universities. In fact, recent statistics sug-
gest that 95% of all companies will perform a
social media search of a potential employee and
70% of employers admit to rejecting candidates
based on the information that they found on
their search (Jobvite, 2010). It is now up to
individuals to be pro-active in developing their
personal brands online.
In addition to personal branding skills that
can be extended to any company or organiza-
tion for their social branding, managing an
32
effective Web presence, search engine optimi-
zation and pay-per-click advertising has the
greatest potential for increasing the exposure of
individuals and organizations with expenditures
controlled within scheduled limits. Specifically,
the use of Google AdWords provides the oppor-
tunity to investigate interest from potential mar-
kets, initiate a strategic marketing initiative and
have full control over distribution and control
of expenditure of their advertising dollars like
never before.
Google AdWords and Social Search
Google AdWords is a cost-per-click (CPC)
advertising program that allows advertisers to
display relative and targeted text ads above and
(sometimes) to the side of organic search results
through a Google Search. Each ad is able to be
customized to target user interests and choose
search keywords and phrases that relate to
its Website or product (Neale, Treiblemaier,
Henderson, Hunter, Hudson & Murphy, 2009).
The CPC aspect of the campaigns means that
advertisers are only charged when a prospec-
tive customer clicks on their ad. This would
be akin to paying only for a yellow page
advertisement when a customer has called you
while actually looking at the advertisement.
Advertisers have the ability to adjust the place-
ment of their ad either through an increase in
the amount they are willing to pay for the click,
or the relevancy of the keywords. Through this
model, entrepreneurs who know their target
market may be able to achieve high placement
for a lower cost than larger competitors.
The emergence of Google+ on the social
media scene when it came out of beta test-
ing in September 2011 has impacted not only
organic search results, but also the pay-per-click
marketing world. Organic search results have
been modified in Google with the introduction
of ‘Search plus Your World’. When users are
signed into Google or Google+, their search
results will incorporate information not only
from the Web, but also including aspects from
their friends and interests based on the Google
profiles (Google, 2012).These searches can
be expanded to traditional, non-personalized
search criteria, but the potential for customized
search results based on your personal social
networks has moved search to ‘social search’.
Pay-per-click advertising has also taken on a
new light. Google AdWords now has the abil-
ity to include personal recommendations from
your social media circles into the pay-per-click
ads themselves. When someone +1s an ad, or a
Website that is the destination of an ad, they are
recommending that ad’s landing page to their
friends and contacts (Raehsler, 2012). The peer
Journal of Advertising Education
recommendations meets paid advertising model
clearly demonstrates the importance of integrat-
ing social media, search engine optimization
and pay-per-click advertising.
Personal Branding with Social Media –
Course Experience
For the past three years, ‘Personal Branding
with Social Media’ has been 50 percent of the
Internet Marketing course offered to undergrad-
uate and MBA students at the author’s univer-
sity. Because of the growing importance of this
skill set, combined with the positive feedback
from students and evidence of students being
hired on the basis of the projects they have com-
pleted in the course, since September 2011, the
‘Personal Branding’ segment has been removed
from the upper year ‘Internet Marketing’ course
and has becoming a course of its own, ‘Personal
and Business Branding with Social Media’.
Additionally, the course is now open to all
students, regardless of their faculty or year of
program. This is an important evolution as it
is not just business students who need to think
about their personal branding, but students from
all faculties and disciplines.
Course overview
The value of the ‘Personal Branding with Social
Media’ component (or course) is articulated to
students through the overview from the course
outline detailed below:
The world has gone social! Recent sta-
tistics show Facebook with almost 700
million users (250 of them mobile users),
Twitter with 106 million registered users
(with almost 200 million total users) and
LinkedIn with 100+ million users. Each
of these channels is in constant develop-
ment and new opportunities for business-
es to advertise and market themselves
through these channels are emerging, but
the value of social media is not just for
business application.
Recruiting and hiring in 2011 is
changing for both HR professionals and
candidates. With the growing economy
and increasing employee churn, greater
demands are being placed on HR profes-
sionals to attract talented candidates with
budgets that have not increased commen-
surately. Job posting sites are losing their
effectiveness. In 2010, 44% of all job
seekers cited referrals and/or social net-
works as the source of their most recent
job, compared to 32% for job boards.
The high growth and advancement of
social media are providing unique oppor-
tunities for recruiters to bypass traditional
Spring 2012
methods and connect with passive can-
didates directly. Never before in history
has there been a media channel where
so many potential employees are sharing
so much information about themselves,
allowing employers a window into pro-
spective employees like never before.
What will employers find if they Google
your name? 95% of potential employers
are!
Unfortunately, best practices on the
use of these tools are still emerging
and many potential applicants are not
highly versed on their application and
how to leverage them for their business
and personal brand. 46% of recruiters
planned to use LinkedIn more in 2011 to
find employees while 45% are exploring
Facebook and Twitter. Those that capital-
ize on the power of these tools will suc-
ceed, while those that stick to traditional
recruiting methods and channels may
find themselves increasingly behind oth-
ers in their industry.
This course will assist you in develop-
ing and refining your online brand as well
as deploying through the most appropri-
ate social media channels. The active
utilization of these channels for both
personal and business application will be
explored as well as specific advertising
opportunities that each provide.
One potential issue with creating a course
or assignment around the deployment of a per-
sonal brand is privacy. While students will gain
maximum benefit from deploying their brand
through public social media channels, not all
students will be comfortable in the early stages
of putting their brand on public display. To alle-
viate this concern, students are provided with an
option to secure each of their online channels,
making the information only available to course
instructors for grading and review. They have
the option of deploying their brand privately or
publicly through social media channels such as
LinkedIn, WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+
and YouTube. Once the students are comfort-
able with a public deployment, they can change
their setting to allow the public to view their
profiles.
Understanding a Personal Brand
The course/assignment begins by helping stu-
dents understand what their brand really is
before they begin to deploy it. Through a series
of worksheets and personality tests, students
are required to perform a critical assessment of
themselves to determine the components that
will make up their brand. Through introspective
33
thought, students focus on identifying their core
values. Completion of the Meyers-Briggs Type
Indicator, the True Colours tool and the Keirsey
Temperament Sorter allows the students to gain
a better understanding of their personality and
the keywords that help identify who they are.
Once students have a clear understanding
of their keywords, they are asked to critically
evaluate their strengths, achievements, pas-
sions and weaknesses. They also look at how
they are perceived by others around them. This
allows them to establish a goal and to visualize
the achievement of that goal through a well-
executed plan. They begin deployment of their
personal brand by creating a ‘positioning pitch’
that includes all of the information they have
learned about themselves. This makes up the
central core of their personal brand and dem-
onstrates an understanding of their image and
their identity. Students are then able to work at
presenting and deploying their brand, consistent
with their worksheets, through the online social
media channels.
Channel Deployment
Through the delivery of the course classroom
sessions, students are introduced to a variety
of the main social media tools that are used
today. Each channel will typically have four
75-minute classes devoted to its discussion;
• Class 1: Understanding the channel for per-
sonal brand use
• Class 2: Understanding the business applica-
tion of the channel
• Class 3: Understanding advertising (business
and personal) opportunities
• Class 4: Computer lab session to allow stu-
dents to work on deploying their brand within
each channel
Throughout the term, students investi-
gate LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogging, HootSuite,
Facebook, Google+ and YouTube as chan-
nels for deploying their brand. Following the
completion of the channels discussion, several
classes are also devoted to metrics and mea-
sures of success through analytical tools. It is
important in evaluating the students' ability to
deploy their brand effectively that the focus is
on its consistency with their positioning pitch
and the information they have identified at the
beginning of the term about their personality
and values.
Student Feedback and Application
Students from the undergraduate classes as
well as the MBA classes have had success
in finding employment opportunities through
their personal branding assignments. In 2010,
one undergraduate student targeted a potential
34
employer in Singapore. After sending the com-
pany a link to a YouTube personal branding
video, the student was offered an internship at
the company. In 2011, another undergraduate
student was interviewed for a position with a
company, but felt he would not make it to the
final round. “The first interview had not gone
well and I knew I had limited time to make a
big impression,” explained the student, “So I
decided to create two YouTube videos: one for
the assignment and a second one specifically
targeted to the company.” The student pitched
the video as a testimonial to himself and why
the company should hire him. “I basically talk-
ed about my personal brand and why it would
be a great fit with their company brand.”
It worked. After viewing his video, the
company invited the student in for a second
interview where he was hired. “This is owed
in part to this course,” declared the student. “It
gave me the opportunity to promote myself in a
way a résumé could not.” The student summed
up his view by saying that the course not only
helped him get the job, but that it was also, “The
most relevant course I completed in five years.”
This view was also echoed by two MBA
students who recently completed the ‘Personal
Branding with Social Media’ course as a
research project.
As you mentioned, a student gets out of
this course what they put into it. The
design of the course is such that it chal-
lenges the student to think about things
from a very personal perspective. I hon-
estly believe there should be more cours-
es like this, even at the undergraduate
level. It is truly important for students
to think about what they are learning in
terms of how it applies to their real life.
In my case, I have learned many things
through this course. Firstly, my knowl-
edge on Internet marketing and the appli-
cability of social media tools from a
marketing perspective has grown tremen-
dously. Secondly, the course forced me
to think about who I really am and what
I value in life in order to best determine
the direction to move forward with my
career. Finally, I now have a focused
brand strategy nearing completion which
can be deployed in pursuit of a career that
I only once dreamt of.   I call it a brand
strategy, but in all fairness, what I devel-
oped was a career strategy.   
Overall, I will be recommending
this course to anyone who asks me for
advice.   Generally, I do not believe
that a course is applicable to every stu-
dent.  However, given the personalized
Journal of Advertising Education
 nature of this course, it will be function-
al for any student who is ready to think
about their future and work towards it.   paper. By combining these into the personal
Another MBA student had similar perceptions
of the course.
I want to start by saying THANK
YOU for your foresight in developing
this research project. I have learned more
through this process alone than I thought
I would through the whole of the MBA
program. I can say for certain that this
alone has been more illuminating than
my entire first full-time semester.    Media Into the Classrom. Retrieved
I have come to realize that I do not
have enough media pertinent to profes-
sional matters, and will be making an
effort to build my professional profile in
this area. I've already missed out on so
many opportunities! I am very fortunate
to have been given the privilege to do this
project early as I may now apply all your
prescribed social media platforms over
the course of the next two years, building
my brand and refining my presence as I
build and refine my desired path. I am
nearly finished in creating...my Website
through which I intend to host my blog. I
will be continuing my blog at least twice
weekly throughout the summer, and I
am starting to feel more at ease with the
style of writing and type of content it
requires...
I truly felt the project's impact and
cannot recall a time where I was so genu-
inely invested in a scholastic endeavor
due to its pragmatism and real-life appli-
cability.
Conclusions
Digital and traditional media are becoming
increasingly integrated. Advertising students
today need to understand the roles that online
channels, especially social media, play as part
of an integrated marketing communications
strategy. By implementing experiential learning
assignments such as having students develop
and deploy their personal brand in the online
social media environment, the educational
experience of students is enhanced and their
value to potential employers after graduation
is increased.
During this period of transition, educators
and professors have an obligation to assist
students in moving from possessing social
media knowledge to actively using social media
intelligence. The importance of social media
skills for graduates looking for direct marketing
positions is clearly understood. Likewise, the
importance of students taking a more pro-active
Spring 2012
approach to their online brand development has
also been articulated at the beginning of this
branding assignment, students can learn the
appropriate use of the tools and, at the same
time, begin the groundwork for a personal
brand that can continue to serve them for a
lifetime.
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36 Journal of Advertising Education

 Contributors

Frank Bryant is an associate professor at California State Polytechnic University

Pomona, CA 91768

Michael J. Clayton is an assistant professor at Christopher Newport University

Newport News, VA 23606

Helena Czepiec is a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University

Pomona, CA 91768

Frauke Hachtmann is an associate professor at the University of Nebraska–

Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588

Matt Hettche is an assistant professor at Christopher Newport University

Newport News, VA 23606

Kevin Keenan is a professor at the American University in Cairo

Cairo, Egypt

Louise Kelly is an associate lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology

Brisbane, Qld 4000

Gayle Kerr is an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology

Brisbane, Qld 4000

Kathleen Mortimer is a senior lecturer at Northampton Business School

Northampton, UK NN2 7AL

Bill Proud is a lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology

Brisbane, Qld 4000

Jef I. Richards is a professor at Michigan State University,

East Lansing, MI 48824

Juanita Roxas is a professor at California State Polytechnic University

Pomona, CA 91768

Ronald E. Taylor is a professor at the University of Tennessee

Knoxville, TN 37996
Debbora Whitson is a professor at California State Polytechnic University
Pomona, CA 91768

Lyle R. Wetsch is an associate professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John’s, NL Canada A1B3X5

4 Journal of Advertising Education

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.