Abstract:

Justification and Purpose:
Personal brand management is the process of building and managing a person's image and reputation with the aim of achieving their professional and personal goals, using narratives and messages that reflect their values and personal identity. For celebrities and influencers, it focuses on highlighting unique characteristics, talents, and experiences that set them apart from others, creating an emotional connection with followers.

This work details the development of a practical workshop for university marketing students, aimed at promoting the skills needed to identify key elements in personal brand management and reputation crises based on real-life experiences of current celebrities and influencers. One of the main challenges of the current educational system is to maintain student interest, so the use of a teaching-learning methodology based on the case study of a current celebrity with one of the most effective personal brands is proposed: the American artist Taylor Swift. This shifts from traditional lectures to a methodology using inductive reasoning and the flipped classroom, fostering a critical understanding of personal brand management and engaging students with current topics.

Method:
The exercise was scheduled in 4 steps:
STEP 1: Before attending class, students were first asked to complete a questionnaire about their knowledge of the factors that determine personal branding and how to manage it. Then, they were asked to read literature on personal brand management, authenticity, reputation, and influencer marketing.
STEP 2: In the classroom, students are divided into groups and begin working on a portfolio with detailed information about Taylor Swift's career. Each group identify key points of this celebrity's personal brand through the following variables:
a) credibility and authenticity;
b) emotional connection;
c) narrative or storytelling; and
d) creative control. For this, they use existing measurement scales from the literature and conduct a longitudinal analysis of her evolution and rebranding strategy over time.
STEP 3: Each group must present the results of their activity to the class, so that the other groups identify the success elements of Taylor Swift's personal brand: increased perceived value from her followers, and improved reputation and social influence. They will also be asked to perform a reputational analysis of Taylor Swift: study of search trends and follower interest patterns, key KPIs on social media and other channels, and comparative analysis with other competitors' strategies (mentions, reach, sentiment, types of publications).
STEP 4: The activity will conclude with the repetition of the initial questionnaire to verify the improvement in students' knowledge and competencies.

Expected Results:
This study will show that using a different methodology, such as the flipped classroom supported by celebrity case studies, effectively develops competencies and skills in university marketing students. These students will identify key factors in personal brand management based on one of the most successful influencers today. Quantitative survey data is expected to corroborate the improvement in students' knowledge, allowing for continued progress and research on the theoretical and practical foundations of personal brand management.

Keywords:

Personal brand, influencers, reputation, identity, marketing, Taylor Swift.