Abstract:

The term personal branding is well known in business world. However, teachers remain neither aware of personal branding concepts nor do fully understand the impact it may have on their reputations. Business already understands the importance of controlling personal brands, therefore would be useful to use the existing knowledge for the increase of prestige of teacher’s profession as well as for teachers’ personal carrier.

In this paper, we focus on personal branding on Facebook. Through a qualitative content analysis of the Facebook profiles of teachers in Lithuania and in-depth interviews with 10 of the teachers, we investigate and explore the way they use social media to present themselves.

The article analyses the purpose for which teachers use Facebook, how they use Facebook to disseminate information related to their competencies, how teachers use this information channel as their own development tool. We will answer the questions about how teachers themselves receive information related to their professional interests through Facebook. Also, we will discuss the question of what kind of knowledge teachers have about self-branding and communication in social networks and what the competencies they need. The goal of the research is to help teachers to understand the benefits of personal branding and to actively use social media for the purpose of influence and education.

Keywords:

Identity, teachers, personal branding, self-presentation, social media, Facebook.