TY  - JOUR
AB  - © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The notion of self-branding has drawn myriad academic responses over the last decade. First popularised in a provocative piece published in Fast Company, self-branding has been criticised by some on theoretical, practical and ethical grounds, while others have endorsed and propelled the idea. This article considers how and why the concept of self-branding has become so prevalent. We contend that it parallels the growth of digital technology (particularly social media) embedded in the current political climate: neoliberal individualism. Another objective here is to imbue the concept of self-branding with a marketing perspective and show how the ?celebrities? of self-branding manifest at a marketing media nexus distinct to the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Building on literature from mostly media and cultural studies, this critique sees self-branding as a distortion of key branding principles that has obvious implications for its practitioners and advocates. The article shows that, despite inherent tensions and problematic ironies, self-branding persists through the rise of Social Media Influencers; we consider three of these whose fame and following was achieved via the practices and phenomena under consideration.
AU  - Khamis, S
AU  - Ang, L
AU  - Welling, R
DA  - 2017/04/03
DO  - 10.1080/19392397.2016.1218292
EP  - 208
JO  - Celebrity Studies
PY  - 2017/04/03
SP  - 191
TI  - Self-branding, ?micro-celebrity? and the rise of Social Media Influencers
VL  - 8
Y1  - 2017/04/03
Y2  - 2026/06/04
ER  -